Chapter 12: The Last Pill

Elliot's signature was still wet on the papers in my clutch when I left the library.

I did not know whether I would file them or burn them, and I could not stand in that house to decide.

Jace was stacking crates in the loading bay at one in the morning when I found him.

The Rainers' ballroom was dark behind him, and the last of his staff had gone home.

He looked up, and he did not smile.

"You came to tell me," he said.

"I came to tell you the truth."

"That's what I said."

I sat on a crate and he leaned on the van.

"He never touched me, Jace. He locked the door because he thought I was bought. I wasn't."

My voice was thin.

I took the papers out and set them on the crate. "He signed these. He just handed them over."

"I don't know what I feel yet. I know I'm not finished with him."

"You're not finished." He said it without heat.

"You just found out the man who left you in a hallway was standing in one himself. That's not nothing."

"I'm not choosing him."

"I know."

"I'm not choosing anyone tonight."

"I know that too." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm going to say something and I want you to let me."

"Okay."

"I'd have you any way I could get you. Every night, for as long as you'd let me."

His green eyes were open and steady.

"But he got on his knees in front of two hundred people. I'm not that man.

"If you're going to him, I won't make you pay for it."

"Jace."

"And if you're not, my bar's open at four and you've got a list to fix."

I laughed, and then to my horror I cried, and he sat down on the crate beside me and let me.

He did not kiss me.

He put his arm around my shoulders and kept it there.

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