Chapter 8: What He Does When No One's Watching

"Twenty five thousand dollars, Christian. With your father's name on it. Explain that to me. Right now."

I'm standing outside his dorm room at seven in the morning. Hair still damp. Priya's voice still in my head telling me not to go anywhere alone. I ignored her anyway, because I couldn't sit still for one more hour not knowing.

He opens the door in a thin gray shirt, hair a mess from sleep, and for one humiliating second the words just die in my throat. Then I remember why I'm here.

"What are you talking about?" He steps back to let me in. The room smells like him. Cedar, and something warmer under it. I hate how fast that detail registers, even now, even furious.

I shove my phone at him. The credit report is still open on the screen. His father's name sits there in flat black letters, right next to mine. He goes still reading it. The same stillness as last night, when I said Kate's name out loud for the first time.

"I didn't do this." He sets the phone down like it might go off in his hand. "Rebecca, I swear, I had no idea."

"Your father opened a bank account in my name. Without me knowing." My voice shakes and I hate that too. "The same father who paid off Kate's family to make her disappear. Tell me why I should believe a word out of your mouth."

He looks up. His eyes are wrecked in a way I've never seen on him before, not even last night with a stranger's threat lighting up his phone.

"Because I'm telling you the truth." He reaches for my hand slowly, giving me room to pull away. I don't. "I'm going to walk into his office today and ask him exactly what this is. I need you angry at me after I have answers. Not before." His thumb moves once over my knuckles. "Whatever this is, it isn't about putting a price on you."

"Isn't it?" My voice cracks, smaller than I want. "You deny me in the stairwell. You deny me to Dom like I'm a joke you made up on the spot. Your ex corners me at a door like she already owns whatever we are. And now there's an account with my name on it that I never signed. From where I'm standing, that looks exactly like a price."

Something shifts in his face, guilt and want tangled together in a way he can't quite smooth over. He doesn't defend himself. He just closes the space between us, slow enough that I could step back if I wanted to, and brushes his thumb along my jaw instead.

"I don't have a good answer for the stairwell. Or for Dom." His voice has gone low, rough at the edges. "I wish I did. I wish I was the kind of person who didn't flinch the second someone I'm supposed to impress is standing in the room." He stops himself there, jaw tight, like there's a second sentence waiting right behind the first one that he's not letting out.

"Say it," I tell him, and I don't fully know if I mean the account or whatever he just swallowed.

"I can't." It comes out almost like an apology. "Not yet. Not until I know what my father's done and what it means for you. If I say something right now I don't know if it's true or if it's just fear talking."

It isn't the answer I wanted, and it stings in a way I don't let show on my face. But there's something almost more honest in the way he holds it back than there would have been in him handing me the words too easily, the way Dom hands out jokes at my expense without thinking twice. Christian at least seems to know the difference between a promise and a performance, even if he can't yet tell which one he'd be giving me.

His hand is still at my jaw. Neither of us moves to end it. The air between us has gone thick and warm despite everything, despite the account glowing accusingly on my phone screen, and when he leans in I let him, because some reckless, unguarded part of me has wanted this exact closeness for six years and doesn't know how to refuse it even now, even angry.

The kiss isn't careful. His hand slides into my hair, tilting my head where he wants it, and for one long, dangerous minute I forget to be furious at him. I forget the account. I forget Kate. There's just his mouth and his hands and the low sound he makes against my lips when I press closer instead of pulling away.

"Rebecca." He says my name like it costs him something, breathless, his forehead dropping to mine. "Whatever happens today. However this account thing plays out. I need you to know I'm trying."

"Trying isn't the same as doing it," I murmur, even as my hands fist in the front of his shirt instead of pushing him away.

"I know." His mouth finds my jaw, my throat, unhurried despite everything that should be rushing us apart right now. "Give me today. Let me prove it's more than trying."

His phone rings.

He ignores it the first time, mouth still at my throat, fingers tightening at my hip like he's daring the world to interrupt us twice in one morning. It rings again and he groans against my skin before pulling back just far enough to glance at the screen.

Every bit of color drains out of his face.

"It's my father."

He answers before I can say a word. His father's voice carries loud enough that I catch pieces of it even standing a foot away. Clipped. Cold. Dressed up as formal concern, but a threat sitting underneath every syllable of it.

"Christian." Graham Ashworth's voice could frost glass. "I understand you've been seen with the Hale girl. I'd advise you to end whatever this is before I end it for you. The way I ended it for the last one."