My Husband Lent Me to His Best Friend for the Night, and the Man He Chose Was the One I Hated Most novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Terms

Stavros goes downstairs without defending himself, Kali sets her terms to Nikos and says why she hates him, and when she puts her hand on his chest to test him his heart is going hard.

Stavros did not argue.

He looked at the locked door, and at the ring on the dresser, and at me standing over his oldest friend in my slip.

"I will be downstairs," he said.

"I will give you the night.

"Nikos has a key to the side stair, and my mother's staff will not come up."

"You're leaving," I said.

"I am leaving you the room."

He said it the way he might have said he was leaving a coat.

He did not defend himself and he did not ask me to reconsider.

I took the key out of my slip and unlocked the door for him, and he went out into the hall without looking back.

I heard his shoes on the stairs, even and unhurried.

Then I locked it again.

When I turned around Nikos had not moved from the chair.

The lamp on the dresser threw its light up the side of his face, and I could see the gray in his beard and the pulse going in his throat.

"Stay there," I said.

"Yes."

"You do not stand up unless I say so.

"You do not touch anything in this room unless I say so.

"And you do not touch me."

"I won't."

"Don't tell me what you won't do.

"I've heard men say that."

He closed his mouth.

I walked to the dresser and picked up the ring again and held it so the stone caught the light.

"Nine years ago," I said, "you came into my father's taverna on Halsted with two men.

"It was a Tuesday, a little after four.

"My brother was peeling garlic at the back table because my father had told him to finish before the dinner rush."

"Kali," he said.

"I was fifteen.

"I stood in front of the cash drawer, and one of your men took my arm and put me against it, and told me to keep it shut.

"So I did.

"I kept it shut with my back.

"And I watched you take my brother's hands off the table and put them flat on the steel and break them with the handle of a fry pan.

"Both of them.

"One after the other."

He did not look away from me.

I had thought he would, and I had been ready for it.

"Then you told me to count out what was owed," I said, "and I did it with the coins.

"I counted it in front of him while he was on the floor."

His jaw moved.

"Aris cooks again," I said.

"He holds a knife like a man holding a hot pan.

"He can't close his left hand all the way.

"He has not been able to for nine years, and every night he sits on my kitchen stool and does the prep anyway."

"I know," Nikos said.

"You know."

"I know how he holds it."

I hated that he said it quietly.

I hated that he did not say he was sorry, because I would have thrown something.

"Tell me why you're in my room," I said.

"I will tell you," he said.

"Now," I said.

"I did not come to touch you."

It was the last thing I expected him to say.

I laughed, and the sound was ugly in the quiet.

"You were sent."

"I was asked.

"I came to say something to him.

"I didn't get the chance, because you locked the door."

"You expect me to believe that."

"No," Nikos said.

"I don't."

I put the ring down and crossed the room.

I do not know why I did it.

I stopped in front of the chair, close enough to feel the warmth coming off his coat, and he tilted his head back to keep my face in his sight.

His eyes were dark brown and very steady.

I put my hand flat on the front of his shirt, over his breastbone.

He went still.

Under my palm his heart was going hard and fast, as if he had run up the stairs.

"Is that fear, Pappas?" I said.

"Is the big man afraid of me?"

"Yes."

He said it right away.

I had wanted him to lie so that I could hate him cleanly, and he would not give me that.

My hand was still on his chest.

I could feel his breath catch under it when I did not take it away.

His arms stayed on his knees, open, and his knuckles had gone pale from not moving.

"You're shaking," I said.

"I'm trying not to," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you told me not to touch you."

My own pulse had started to go.

I told myself it was anger, because that was a word I knew.

I looked at his mouth, and at the white scar across his knuckles, and at the way he held himself like a man who has been told to stand in a fire.

I thought of Stavros's hand taking my glove.

I thought of my father kissing the air.

Nine years of being the girl at the drawer.

Tonight a door was locked, and for the first time I held the key and chose which way it turned.

"Then I'll tell you what you'll do," I said.

"Stand up."

He stood.

He was a head taller than me and very broad, and he did it slowly, with his hands still open at his sides.

I stepped back and looked at him in the lamp.

"Now take off your jacket," I said.

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