Page 29 of Just One More Night
“Your bank account demonstrates that you are not average. You were able to not only save, but invest to a profit. It suggests you deliberately downplayed your abilities in the classroom. I cannot be the only person who has noticed this, surely.”
But no one else had ever looked at her this closely. Indy had made sure no one could. And she felt as if he were clawing her open. As if he were digging his hands deep into her chest and pulling her wide. She had to look down at her own front to make sure that wasn’t really happening.
It wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. Indy sighed as much in relief that she was still in one piece as anything else. “I’m good at being naked, Stefan. But as I said, not so good at studying.”
“Then why didn’t you fail out?” He sounded so calm. So reasonable. It was maddening. “Why did you continue your studies at all if it meant so little to you?”
“Now you sound like my father.” She managed a frosty sort of smile. “Which is not hot, by the way.”
He didn’t laugh at that, but the look on his face felt about the same. “You are the one who said you did not have daddy issues. Or was that another lie?”
She made herself laugh to try to break the tension. Before it broke her. “I’m not a liar, for God’s sake. I was a middling student. I was a much better dancer. I had some regulars who gave me great tips and suggested I bank what I could. It’s not a mystery, Stefan. It’s not a clue to my wounded inner child. And as I already told you, I stopped doing it because it stopped being fun. Or I thought it would stop being fun eventually, whatever.”
“What is this ‘whatever’?” he asked, sounding irritatinglypatient. “I have known many strippers over the years. Very few of theminvest. This is what you did while paying for the school where you were pretending to be terrible student.”
“I don’t know what part of me not liking school you’re not getting.”
His blue gaze was bright then. Knowing in a way she not only didn’t like, but felt rush through her like a cold chill.
“Is it that you don’t like school?” he asked. “Or is it that your sister is the scholar and that means that you cannot be?”
It would have been better if he’d hauled off and hit her. It would have shocked her a lot less than...that. Indy moved then. She crawled over to the side of the bed, wishing her head weren’t spinning. Wishing her belly weren’t knotted up tight.
Wishing this had stayed as simple as it had been that night in Budapest.
Live. Love. Leave.
“My sister?” She could barely get the words out. “Why are you talking about... How do you even know about my sister?”
“I know everything about you,” Stefan said, mildly enough, which only made it worse. Because it was so matter-of-fact and everything inside her was a mess. Knots and shivering and what was hedoingto her? “I made this my business. Because when I choose a path, Indiana, I expect to commit to it totally. Or I do not do it.”
Foreboding settled in her, making her bones ache.
Indy stood up abruptly, holding her palms up as if trying to ward him off—though he made no move toward her. He looked as if he was relaxing, in fact. Standing by his windows while the summer breeze blew in. Enjoying the lovely day, not eviscerating her.
Not turning her inside out with every word.
“This has all gotten way too intense for me,” she told him, fighting with everything she had to keep her voice from shaking. “And I told you, I’m not about that.”
“I am unsurprised to hear this.” Stefan shrugged in that way of his that was not, in any way, a gesture of uncertainty. Somehow, when he shrugged it was aggressive. A decisive critique—of her. “Maybe you should ask yourself why dark alleys do not scare you. Why men with guns do not stop you. But intensity makes you run.”
Her lips felt blue. She couldn’t feel her own face. But she still tried to fight. “Maybe you should ask yourself why you think it’s okay to dig around in someone’s life without permission. Then use it as bait.”
“I have never pretended to be a good man, Indiana.” His voice was harsh. But something about the way he was looking at her was kind, and it made her want to give in to the sobs she could feel inside, threatening her ribs. “I never promised you anything at all, except a time and place. This is not a redemption story. I do not require your forgiveness. Did you believe that you might meet me as you did and I would be anything at all but this?”
“I’ve never given any thought,” she managed to say.
His blue eyes lit up with an unholy glee. “Liar. But it is not me you lie to, I think. It is yourself.”
Indy had never been so grateful that she packed light as she was then, with all that emotion surging around inside her, making her feel misshapen with it. Because all she had to do was pick up her little pack from the floor and shrug into it, then gaze at him almost sadly.
“I get that there’s this big movement for everyone to act as if what they really want from life is to be known,” she said. “To be wide open and vulnerable so that any passing stranger can take a glance and see exactly who they are. If you want to talk bullshit, that’s whatthatis. You think you know me because you looked through some social media posts and hacked my information? You don’t.You don’t.I don’t perform, but I also don’t think that the sum total of a person is a collection of photographs. Carefully curated photographs at that.”
Stefan didn’t look particularly impressed with that speech. “I’m not following. First you were a puddle. Now you cannot be discerned through the pictures that you post. Surely both cannot be true.”
“I have no interest in being psychoanalyzed,” she bit out. “If I wanted a therapist, I’d get one. And knowing me, I’d probably sleep with him. That’s how I roll.”
“I know how you roll, Indiana. I know you use sex to hide from your life, not to embrace it.” His smile lanced through her. “I told you—I know everything.”