42
1007 Words
“My sister has six of the little monsters. Six.” He shudders. “Visiting her house is like descending into Dante’s seventh circle of hell. Half a dozen violent, miniature tyrants going around smashing things and screaming like a bunch of Vikings on crack. It’s total chaos. She’s forty-two but she looks a hundred and two. If I hadn’t gotten a vasectomy in my twenties, watching her raise those future criminals would’ve definitely sent me running to the doctor.”
I feel a cold pang of panic. “Do you think people can be born bad? Like they come out that way, pre-programmed, and no matter how they try to be good, they’ll always be rotten?”
He c***s his head, frowning at me. “No. I’m being hyperbolic. My sister is a very good mother. Her kids will turn out fine. What are you really asking?”
I look down at the cup in my hands, horrified to discover it’s blurry. My eyes are watering. I clear my throat and blow out a hard breath. What the hell. Just say it. You’ve got nothing to lose.
“I’m asking for advice.” When Hank doesn’t say anything, I glance up at him. “I need a man’s opinion. An older man.
Someone smart. Worldly. Like you.”
“Okay. That’s flattering, thank you. But couldn’t you ask your father?”
“We’re not close. Actually, we haven’t spoken in years.”
He digests that information for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. He’s a bad guy. The kind of bad that’s malignant, like cancer.”
I can tell by his expression that he’s dying to sit forward in his chair and interrogate me, because that’s his instinct. His reporter’s instinct kicking in, the way a dog’s instinct to chase kicks in when it spots a squirrel. But he restrains himself and simply nods, indicating he’s listening.
“I met a man.” I stop and take another breath.
“Go on.”
I look down again. This is way too hard. “Um. He’s…” Beautiful. Complicated. Aggravating. Interesting. A king among criminals. Sexy beyond compare. “I can’t decide if I like him or I hate him. I mean, I should hate him. He’s everything I shouldn’t want. But he’s also…unexpected. Intelligent. Fascinating.”
I close my eyes and think of Killian’s face. “He’s by far the most interesting man I’ve ever met. And—aside from my father—also the most dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
I open my eyes to find Hank staring at me with lifted brows, his expression incredulous. “Like how dangerous? On a scale of driving while intoxicated to Darth Vader.”
I answer without hesitation. “Darth Vader is a mama’s boy compared to him. He’s more like the love child of Lex Luther and Maleficent. Times ten thousand.”
We stare at each other in silence, until Hank says carefully, “If this man is harming you, Juliet, we need to go to the police and report it.”
All my held breath bursts out of me in a loud, wild laugh. “God, no. The only danger he poses to me is the ruination of my entire collection of panties.” Hank blinks.
I pull my lips between my teeth and stare at him in horror. “Sorry.”
He makes a face and drags a hand through his hair, then chuckles nervously. “It’s no problem, I just wasn’t expecting that. Well.” It’s his turn to clear his throat. “This, ah, this dangerous man of yours. How did you meet him?”
“I stole something from him. A lot of things, actually. I mean it was all the same type of thing, just a bunch of them.”
Hank is beginning to look like he regrets embarking on this particular chat. He spends a moment choosing his words, then says, “You committed a theft.”
“Oh, yeah. A big one. Then this dangerous man discovered it was me who did it—I won’t bore you with the details of how he found out it was me, but they’re pretty interesting—and he followed me. And he kept following me, because he liked me, even when he discovered that my father is, like, his worst enemy.”
Hank peers at me. He’s starting to look confused. “Uhhuh.”
Warming up to the subject, I sit up straighter in my chair. “And that’s the main problem, really. Not that the two of them are enemies, but that he’s in the same line of work as my father. He basically has the same type of lifestyle.”
“The malignant type.”
“Yes.”
“May I ask a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“Have you considered professional therapy?”
I stare at him, strangely hurt. “Jeez, Hank.”
He says gently, “That’s not a rebuke. I say it out of genuine concern. Because what I’m hearing is that you have an intense s****l attraction to a man you know you should stay away from, but can’t.” He pauses. “Also, the theft thing is a problem.”
“It’s more like a hobby.”
His voice rises. “You’ve stolen something more than once?”
I’m feeling reckless, so I admit it. Might as well keep the scandalous admissions train going full steam ahead. “Oh, god, yeah. Lots of times.”
He gapes at me. “You could end up in prison!”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “I’ve been in jail before. It’s surprisingly relaxing. You get a lot of good thinking done.”
Hank sits back into his chair slowly, his brow furrowed, his expression one of dismay.
“I know,” I say softly, watching his face. “I seem like such a nice girl.”
“You are a nice girl. Honestly, this is shocking.”
- Writer
