King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, 4)

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you go up,” the concierge said with zero traces of sympathy. “You don’t have authorized access.”

“I’ve been coming here for weeks.” I tamped down my frustration in favor of a smile. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that. “Apartment 14C. Call her. Please.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” This concierge was different from the one who’d let me up when I thought something had happened to Sloane, and he proved remarkably resistant to my powers of persuasion. “Ms. Kensington specifically left instructions stating that no guests are to be admitted without her explicit written approval.”

“She’s my girlfriend. I have written approval,” I said. I wasn’t technically lying. We were dating, and I didn’t know for sure that she hadn’t added my name to her list of approved guests. “Perhaps you lost it.”

“I didn’t.”

“Perhaps another concierge lost it.”

“They didn’t.”

I gritted my teeth. Fuck honey. I wanted to shove this guy’s head in a bucket full of raw vinegar, but I didn’t have the time for petty violence or arguments.

“Let me up, and this is yours.” I slid a hundred-dollar bill across the counter.

The concierge stared at me, stone-faced. He didn’t touch the money.

I added another hundred to the pile. Nothing.

Three hundred. Four hundred.

Goddammit. What was wrong with him? No one said no to Benjamin.

“Ten thousand cash.” That was all I had in my wallet. “That’s tax-free money if you let me up for just a few minutes.”

I could bypass him physically, but without a resident key card, the elevator wouldn’t budge, and I wouldn’t be able to open the door to the stairwell.

“Sir, this is unnecessary and inappropriate,” he said calmly. “I do not accept bribes. Now, I must insist you vacate the premises, or security will have to escort you out.”

He nodded at the pair of Hulk-sized security guards who’d seemingly popped up out of nowhere.

Sloane’s building would be guarded by two stone mountains and the only incorruptible concierge in Manhattan.

However, I wasn’t leaving without seeing her, which meant I needed a plan C. I scanned the lobby, searching for another plausible avenue when my eyes fell on a small plaque mounted on the wall.

The Lexington: An Archer Group Property.

My pulse jumped. Archer Group.

There was only one person who could help me in that moment. Asking him for a favor wasn’t the smartest idea considering I’d just burned down one of his properties, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

One call to an annoyed Alex Volkov and one very bitter concierge later, I stepped out into Sloane’s hall.

Surprisingly, Alex hadn’t given me a hard time, though I suspected he was saving that for our meeting. But I’d worry about that tomorrow; I had something more urgent to attend to.

I rapped my knuckles against Sloane’s door. No answer, but she was in there. I could feel it.

Another knock, my gut contorting into more and more knots as the minutes passed. It wasn’t like her not to answer the door. Perhaps the concierge called up to warn her I was coming?

I was about to call her just to see if I could hear her phone ring when I heard it—a tiny rustle of movement that cut off as quickly as it’d started. If I’d shifted, or if the elevator had dinged in that moment, I wouldn’t have heard it, but I did, and it was enough to pour fresh energy into my efforts.

A third, harder knock. “Open the door, sweetheart. Please.”

I wasn’t sure if she heard me, but an eternity later, footsteps approached and the door swung open.

My heart stuttered beneath the blow of seeing Sloane again. The past week had felt like months, and I drank her in like a lost wanderer stumbling onto a desert oasis. She was bare-faced and in silk pajamas, her hair twisted into a bun, her eyes wary as she kept a hand on the doorknob.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

The seconds ticked by, tainted by the bitterness of our last conversation.

“Can I come in?” I finally asked. It’d been a long time since we were this uncomfortable around each other, and the tension cast a shadow over the entire hall.

“Now isn’t a good time,” Sloane said, avoiding my eyes. “I have a lot of work to do.”

“On the Sunday after Christmas?” Silence.

I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to piece together the right words in the right way. There were a thousand things I wanted to tell her, but in the end, I opted for simple and honest.

“Sloane, I didn’t mean what I said last week,” I said softly. “About you having no emotions. I was frustrated and upset, and I took it out on you.”

“I know.”

I faltered; I hadn’t expected that. “You do?”

“Yes,” Sloane said stiffly. She went a teeny bit pink around her ears. “I should apologize too. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard right after the fire. That was…that wasn’t what you needed at the time.”

“You were just trying to help.” I cleared my throat, still feeling ill at ease. “And I’m sorry for not reaching out on Christmas. Honestly, I was too ashamed to just call you like nothing had happened, and I figured you wouldn’t want to discuss the fire during the holiday…” It wasn’t the best excuse, but none of my recent actions could be classified as smart.

“You weren’t the only one who didn’t reach out. It’s a two-way street.” Sloane slid her pendant along its chain.

“Maybe we can have a belated celebration,” I said. “The ice rinks are still open.”

“Maybe.” She was so quiet, I almost didn’t hear her.

I paused, trying to paint why this whole thing felt wrong. At first glance, we were on the same page. I’d apologized, she’d apologized, everything was great. So why was tension still hanging over us like a storm cloud? Why wasn’t Sloane meeting my eyes? Why did she sound so fucking sad?

The only thing I could think of was…

No. A surge of panic seized my limbs, but I covered my suspicions with a forced smile. “So we’re okay. I know we have a lot of stuff to figure out regarding the club, but you and me, we’re okay?”

I searched her face for a hint, any hint, that she agreed.

I didn’t find it, and when she opened her mouth, a part of me already knew what she was going to say.

“Xavier…”

“Don’t.” I clenched my jaw. “It’s not time yet.”

“Our trial period ends in two days.” Sloane’s eyes finally met mine, and it was like looking at a sea of stars in the night sky. They gave the illusion they were within reach, but if I extended my hand and tried to grasp those fleeting emotions, they’d slide through my fingers like whispered taunts. “What happens then?”

“Then we end the trial and start dating for real.” I didn’t bother playing coy. “That’s what I want, Luna. Tell me that’s not what you want too.”

I didn’t know a lot of things, but I knew her. I knew she had feelings for me. I’d tasted them in her kiss, heard them in her laughs, felt them in the way she’d pressed her body to mine. They weren’t the hallucinations of a man in love; they were real, and I’d be damned if I let them slip away.

But when Sloane straightened her shoulders and her expression cooled, I had a sneaking suspicion that the feelings I’d thought would bring us closer would end up being the very things that drove her away.

“I didn’t want to do this today, but since you’re here, we might as well.” Her knuckles whitened around the doorknob. “We had fun; I’m not denying that. But our trial period is all but over and we won’t…” She swallowed. “We won’t work in the long term.”

A strange roar erupted in my ears. “What are you saying?” I asked quietly.

I knew exactly what she meant, but I wanted to hear it from her mouth. I wasn’t giving her an easy way out on this.

“I’m saying there’s no extension.” Sloane’s mouth wavered for a split second before firming. “I want to break up.”

I was freezing.

The heater was running at full strength, but goosebumps coated my arms and legs, and the doorknob felt like ice in my hand.

Or maybe the cold was coming from the hallway, where Xavier stood still as a winter night, his face carved with shock.

As I watched, the sharp edges hardened into determination, and he shook his head. “No.”

I closed my eyes, wishing I were anywhere but here, that his plea through the door hadn’t weakened my defenses so much I’d abandoned my original plan to break up with him over the phone. That wouldn’t have been the bravest thing to do, but it was preferable a dozen times over to witnessing Xavier’s hurt disbelief in person.

I opened my eyes again and steeled my resolve against the voice banging inside my head, screaming don’t do this.

I had to. If we didn’t break up now, we’d have to break up someday, and I’d rather cut ties before I was in too deep.

You’re already in too deep, the voice snarled.

I ignored it.

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” I said. “The terms were clear. We date for two months, then decide whether we’re going to work. Well, those two months are over, and I’ve decided we won’t.”

“You decided. I remember you saying something about this being a two-way street.” Xavier’s cold stillness fell away and revealed a blaze of emotion in his eyes. “Give me a good reason why we won’t work.”

“We’re too different.”

“That wasn’t a problem when we were dating. Opposites have long-term relationships all the time, Luna. It’s not a deal-breaker.”

“It is for us.” Something large and jagged had taken up residence in my throat, and every word scraped painfully on its way out. “I’m not meant for long-term relationships, okay? I get bored. Things don’t work out. What we have is already complicated because we work together, and it’s easier for both of us if we break up before we’re forced to.”

I’d rehearsed my speech a hundred times over the past two days, but it rang as false now as it had the first time.

I did have a good reason for why we wouldn’t work, but I couldn’t tell him because I was terrified—of him, of this, of us.

He wouldn’t knowingly hurt me, not right now, but if I gave him an inch, he’d take a mile. I’d succumb to his promises, his power over me would solidify, and one day, I’d wake up and realize he could break me into more pieces than anyone else. His offhanded comment, delivered in the heat of the moment last week, had sent me reeling. What would happen if he tried?

Everything was fine during the honeymoon phase of a relationship, but that phase had to end eventually, and I refused to leave myself vulnerable when that happened.

No matter how much it hurt in the short term, breaking up was the best thing to do in the long term.

“Forced?” Xavier’s eyes flashed at my reply. “Who’s going to force us, Sloane? Your family, our friends, the world? They can all fuck themselves.”

“Stop. This is the smart—”

“I don’t give a damn about smart. I give a damn about us and the fact you’re lying to me.”

Heat seared my cheeks and chased away the bone-rattling cold. “I am not lying,” I snapped, trying to hide the waver in my voice. “Do you remember when we ran into Mark at the restaurant? You said he couldn’t take a hint. Don’t repeat his mistake.”

It was a low blow, and my chest wrenched at Xavier’s resulting flinch.

I didn’t want to hurt him, but if that was what it took, that was what I’d do—no matter how much it destroyed me in the process as well.

“Maybe, but there’s a crucial difference between me and Mark.” Xavier stepped toward me, and I instinctively took a step back. His broad shoulders filled the doorway, and though he hadn’t officially entered my apartment, his presence permeated every molecule of air until all I could see, smell, taste was him.

His earthy scent grabbed hold of my lungs and squeezed, and the memory of his skin beneath my touch was so vivid that, for a moment, I felt as though I could reach out and trace the echoes of our shared moments in the air.

“Let me tell you a secret,” he said quietly.

I crossed my arms, but it did nothing to stave off a cascade of shivers when he spoke again.

“You kept asking me why I called you Luna. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid it would send you running for the hills. Even before we kissed, before we were anything other than a publicist and her client, you were a light in my life. A persistent, sometimes scary one, but a light all the same.” Xavier’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Luna is short for mi luna. My moon. Because no matter how dark the nights got, you were always there, shining so brightly that I always found my way through.”

Prickles swarmed behind my eyes. My chest was a tightly wound spool of emotions, but I didn’t touch it, afraid that a single unraveled thread would send me crashing down.

“I don’t know when it happened. One day, you were someone I was stuck with if I wanted to keep my current lifestyle. The next, you were…you.” A sad smile touched Xavier’s lips. “Beautiful, brilliant, and so damn caring beneath that mask you present to the world. You can try to hide it, but it’s too late. I’ve seen the real you, with all its perfect and broken pieces, and I love every single one of them.”

The prickles reached the point of unbearable. They danced in front of my vision, blurring Xavier’s face and turning my world into a watercolor of emotions. Every dot stabbed at me, and I was sure that if he kept talking, and I didn’t escape, I would bleed out right here on my living room floor.

“Stop,” I whispered. He didn’t.

“I’ve been falling in love with you day by day for years, and I didn’t even know it,” he said, his voice thick. “Well, now I know it.”

“Don’t.” The room constricted around me, squeezing the air from my lungs, and the simple act of breathing became an arduous task.

My head swam. I wanted to hold on to something for steadiness, but Xavier was the only thing within reach, and touching him would obliterate me.

He pressed on, uncaring that he was flaying me alive.

“I love you, Sloane. Every fucking inch of you, and I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel the same. Tell me you aren’t running because you’re scared of getting hurt again. Tell me you truly believe we can’t work when the past two months have been the best of my life. Even with my father’s death, and Perry, and a dozen things that went wrong, they were still perfect because you were there.”

Trembles racked my body. The pressure was getting worse, and I couldn’t contain it for much longer.

“That doesn’t matter.” The lie tasted so bitter I almost choked on it. “I want you to leave. Please.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” he said fiercely. “You’ve always been honest with me. Don’t—”

“I am being honest!” Something heavy and frantic seized control of my body and pushed at Xavier’s chest. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t see me when I broke, and I knew with bone-deep certainty that I was on the razor’s edge of breaking. “I don’t want you here. You love me, and I don’t feel the same toward you. So go!”

Pushing him was like shoving a brick wall, but a tidal wave of panic imbued me with superhuman strength.

I didn’t see it happen. I just knew that one second, he was in the doorway; the next, I’d slammed the door in his face. The lock had barely clicked shut before I sank to the floor, my limbs quaking as I tried to tune out his knocks and pleas.

The prickles coalesced into a sheet of white and gray, and the hollow ache that yawned inside me was so overwhelming, it felt like my very core had crumbled into dust.

I’d never felt this level of despair, not even when I walked in on Bentley and Georgia all those years ago.

I give a damn about us and the fact you’re lying to me.

I couldn’t see Xavier through the blur in my eyes at the end, but I’d heard the anguish in his voice and felt it in the air. It’d mirrored the same pain rushing in to fill the emptiness in my chest because he was right. I had lied to him.

I cared. More than cared.

He made me feel everything when I’d thought I could feel nothing, and that realization led to an undeniable truth: I loved him, so much so that I couldn’t breathe, and I’d pushed him away because I knew love would only end in heartbreak.

The journey wasn’t worth the destination.

I didn’t know how long I stayed there, my back to the door and the weight of what I’d done anchoring me to the ground, but it was long enough that Xavier’s pounding had faded into silence.

Something warm and wet slid down my cheek.

It was such a foreign sensation that I didn’t touch it, afraid of what I’d find, until it dripped from my chin.

I pressed my fingers to my face. A drop of the substance trickled onto my lips, and it wasn’t until I tasted its salty grief that I realized what it was.

A tear.