Page 71 of Playing Hard to Get

She frowned, her eyes dark and her brow creased with worry. “I'm sorry.”

I nodded and turned my face to the door.

“Will you come over tomorrow night?” she asked, hopefulness shining through her quiet voice. “I'm having a few friends over and I want you to be there.”

The stars were twinkling somewhere up in that blackened night sky, giving me an ounce of hope that my world wasn't about to end.

“Who's going to be there?” I asked without looking at her.

“Just some friends,” she said, quietly begging. “Corey's in town tomorrow. Ramon and Matt are coming. Ellen’s bringing their baby. And Vinny said he’d come. Will you come, too?”

I mulled it over in my head for about two seconds. Stood there with my decision on the tip of my tongue for a full minute before I responded.

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

16

Mitch

Frankie's party was the last place I wanted to be. I wasn’t up to trying to pretend I was okay. Especially considering I was the farthest thing from it. With everything on my mind, living it up with people I now questioned wasn't something I wanted to do.

But I promised Erika I’d get help. Though this wasn't the kind of help she wanted me to get, it was the kind I needed most right now. Even she would understand that.

I showed up late. I’d never done that before. I usually showed up hours ahead of time, helping Frankie get the place ready, getting the bar set up. It was something that had questions written in Frankie's eyes when I walked into her home. Something that, as she pulled me in for a long hug, had Corey and the rest of their guests pretending like they weren’t gawking at us, questioning what was going on.

They sensed it, too. This was the last place I wanted to be.

But exactly what I needed.

I bullshitted my way through dinner. Laughed a little less than I used to. Flirted a lot less than what'd come to be expected. The girls, Emily and Ellen? I loved them like sisters. Used to feel that way about Frankie, too. But now I wasn’t so sure.

After dinner, I excused myself from the table. Stole into the bathroom where I once took Vivian as my own, took her and gave her something she deserved in return. I hung my head over the sink as I leaned against that counter. I relived flashes of our time there, our time at the safe house, our time at her place.

Last night, when I left the police station, I went to her apartment. Slept in her bed, with her scent all around me, the memories of the love we shared surrounding me. I needed her. Needed to know she was safe. That was why I came tonight.

Frankie and her guests had moved to the living room by the time I exited the bathroom. The girls were cooing over Ellen’s sweet little baby on one of the couches. Corey, Matt, and Ramon stood near the windows, sipping their drinks and staring out at the evening light.

Vinny was on the couch across from the girls, a small smile tugging at his lips as he sat there watching. I leaned over the back of the couch and talked in a quiet voice beside him. “Can I speak to you a minute?”

He turned his face to mine and studied me. His brows pulled together as he tilted his head to the side. He gave an almost imperceptible nod before glancing at his cousin.

“Frankie, you mind if Mitch and I rummage through your private stash?”

Frankie barely glanced at him as she held that sweet little babe in her arms. “Help yourself,” she said in a voice more fitting for a child than for two grown men after the top shelf booze.

Vinny led me into Frankie's office. A trace of unease floated across my skin as the door clicked shut behind me, trapping me in the room where the very foundation of my world was shattered to pieces the day before.

“How you holding up?” Piercing blue eyes meet mine. Eyes that broke me in two with a lingering pain.

I swallowed hard. “How’d you know?”

Vinny shrugged. “I have my ways.”

He grabbed a bottle of scotch and two tumblers off the shelf before heading to the conference table and taking a seat. He poured two fingers of scotch in one glass, then the other.

“I never believed it.”

I huffed out a breath and took a sip of the smooth scotch, letting it coat my tongue before it slid down my throat. “That makes one person who believes I wouldn't rape someone.”