“I don’t want to sit down.”

“Allie. Sit.”

I sat.

“You know I own a restaurant. But before that I worked for my brother. I won’t lie and say everything was above the table, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t always legal and it wasn’t always…good.”

He looked at me resignedly, as if I would condemn him. I thought of Shelly, and I thought of Andrew. My own halo was much tarnished. No, I wouldn’t condemn Colin for his past, but that didn’t mean I had to accept it into my life. I had to think of Bailey.

“You aren’t involved in that stuff now, right? I mean, now that you run your restaurant.”

“Most of the time.” His words were slow, too carefully chosen to be comforting. “But sometimes he asks for my help, and I do it. That’s what I was doing at the club the night we met—meeting him.”

“What types of things do you do?”

“Whatever he needs done.”

“Violent things?”

“I never claimed to be perfect.” His eyes focused on mine, his voice steady.

A small laugh burst out of me, the sharp sound bouncing off the walls of my bare apartment. “No, you didn’t, but there’s a long way from not perfect to violent criminal, don’t you think?”

He said nothing.

“And if I asked you to stop doing those things, would you?” But I already knew the answer.

“He’s my brother.”

I wasn’t angry. Not angry for whatever slight deception there may have been not to tell me this up front. Not for his past, whatever illegal or violent things he had done. Not even angry for what he had done to the guy from the club.

I was afraid.

Afraid that somehow, that world would intersect with mine, when I’d worked so hard to isolate myself. Even my club nights were carefully orchestrated and contained, incidents that never spilled over into my real life. Until Colin.

I was afraid I’d misjudged him, that he wasn’t the nice guy I’d thought him to be. Just doing bad things in your life didn’t make you a bad person. I believed that firmly. But how could I tell the difference? I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t even trust myself.

“You’re breaking up with me, aren’t you?” An undercurrent of steel in his voice was the only sign of his displeasure.

“It’s not like we’re going steady. We’ve had one date and two fucks. That does not make a relationship.”

“Don’t bullshit me. You and I both know it was different between us.”

I paused, then said more quietly, “Why me? You could go back to that club and pick up a girl who’s hotter than me, who doesn’t have issues, that’s for sure. I need to understand why you want me.”