“This isn’t about the girl. It’s about you.” With one finger he pushed strands of hair off her face one at a time until he was revealed to her. God, he was beautiful. Blond. His face carved out of stone. She saw a million versions of him in his stillness. Each of them camouflaged—hiding the real him. But she saw him sometimes, like a wild animal in the twilight. Constantly changing. Always dangerous.

“You don’t know everything, Jacob.”

“I know you. You live for trouble, Zilla.”

“I just want that girl to get a little justice. That’s all. Trouble is what happens when you’re trying to get a little justice.”

She realized all at once that Jacob was a) not sweating. Infuriating because it was rolling off her. Her makeup had to be a mess. And b) in a tux.

“You’re in a tux,” she said, breathless.

“It’s a party.”

For a second she imagined them down there as partygoers. Just regular people. Dressed up and eating fancy food. Maybe getting a little tipsy. They’d stand in rooms, talk to people and he’d have his hand resting just so on the top of her ass. And he’d say something funny—because he was actually really funny—and she’d put her hand on his arm and rest her head against his chest. Breathless with laughter.

With love.

And then they’d fuck in the limo on the way home.

Just like normal people.

He reached up and brushed the last of Zilla’s hair out of her face and actually smiled down at her sweetly.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

She bared her teeth at him and tried to buck him off.

“Stop fighting, Zilla.” He braced his hands on the bed beside her head. Looking down into her face and she had to remind herself that this man once ran across the Brooklyn Bridge chasing a car because he thought she was in danger. He was the man who laughed at her jokes and kissed her right to the edge of orgasm.

And then vanished for three days.

He was the man who taught her to fight and never pulled a punch.

He was the man who told her if she came to this party, she would be alone. A lost cause, he said. Those were his words. And I am done with lost causes.

But here he was.

“I thought I was a lost cause?”

“You are. But…” He smiled at her. “As soon as you left, I realized I was a lost cause, too.”

Her dress was twisted up around her waist. Her thong twisted around her body. She was revealed to him in a way she hadn’t been. Not ever.

A way she’d craved for so long.

And he looked down at her, a blush high on his cheeks.

“What are you looking at?” she snarled at him.