this room anymore. I was back there, back on the day they’d told me she was gone.
Now. Now was the time to tell him. There was no more hesitating or second thoughts. I couldn’t doubt myself, because it was time for him to pay.
“I want to help you hurt my father,” I told Kai. Hardening, I said again, “I want to help you kill my father.”
His eyes darkened. “I’m going to kill your father regardless.”
“You said you would help me before.”
“That was before he turned one of my guards against me, before he sent him to you. He changed the rules of the game. I’m taking him down.”
He began to move away. I grabbed his wrist and stepped in to him, bringing our bodies in contact. “But I want to help.”
He gazed at me for a long time before he gently extricated his wrist from my hand. He cupped the side of my face instead.
He said, “No.”
And he walked out of the room.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“No?” I walked right after him.
“I said no,” he tossed over his shoulder, going down a hallway.
“I want to know why.”
He took a back hallway to the kitchen. Brooke and Jonah were still in there. They’d moved to the table, two bottles of wine and a box of pizza open between them. Their conversation paused as we came in.
“You’re not ready,” Kai said as he turned the corner.
“What do you mean I’m not ready?”
Brooke’s mouth fell open. Even Jonah seemed startled, though I wasn’t sure the reason for their reactions.
Kai picked up one of the wine bottles, along with the two glasses.
“Hey!” Brooke sputtered, but she quieted after she looked at Kai’s face. “Never mind.” She swept a hand out. “Proceed.”
He inclined his head and moved forward, back out into the hallway. I followed, and he spoke over his shoulder.
“You want to hurt your father, but that’s all right now. You’re not ready for the rest.”
I thought we were going to my bedroom, but he turned left when he should’ve gone right. Where were we going?
There were stairs, back stairs, and we were going up.
“Where are you taking me?”
I heard a soft chuckle, and he held up the wine. “Keep following. You’ll thank me.” He glanced back with a cute grin.
Cute. I wanted to smack my forehead.
Kai wasn’t cute.
He was hot. He was sizzling. He was alluring.
He wasn’t cute.
But holy hell, there was a dimple, and my knees buckled. I’d never seen that dimple before.
I scowled. “Guys shouldn’t be allowed to have dimples.”
He barked out a laugh. “Come on.” He transferred the wine and glasses to one hand, reaching behind and taking my hand with his free one.
I had a moment. One moment.
Time slowed down.
I looked down at our joined hands, at his smile, at the wine in his hands, at where he was leading me, and a thrill spread through my body. It tickled me from the inside out, and I had to contain myself because it was like we were normal.
Like we’d been to dinner and a movie and this was the end of our date.
Or hell, maybe we were on the second or third date. We were going somewhere to drink wine and neck—like normal couples.
We were a couple.
Wait. Were we?
What was going on here? Where were we going? And I didn’t mean that literally, because I could see he was taking me to a room over the garage. The roof was slanted, with a skylight above. A large couch that was really a huge bed sat underneath, and as if all the romance movies had conspired against me in this moment, I saw it had begun raining.
It was officially the sappiest moment of my life.
Sigh.
I let go of Kai’s hand and stood in the doorway.
He turned, backing toward the couch/bed, holding the wine out. “What’s wrong?”
That dimple. He knew damn well the effect of that thing. It was a weapon.
He smirked. “Don’t like skylights?”
I growled, “Dipshit.”
He tipped his head back to laugh. “Come on.” He put the wine and glasses on a stand next to the couch, opening a drawer to pick up a remote. He hit a button, and I watched a partition on the slanted roof slide away. A television screen moved out. It was large enough to fill the entire ceiling, so lying down, it was as if we had front-row seats to our own movie theater.
“Here we go.” Kai looked at me, turning the screen on. “What do you normally watch?”