“Wow,” I murmur and shake my head. I almost can’t believe it.
Her smile sharpens and her eyes sparkle at me over the rim of her wine glass. “I told you mine, now it’s your turn to tell me yours. I want all the dirty little details, and I mean all of them.”
I hesitate, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
“Come on,” Lily prods me. “Don’t be a tease.”
I smirk and shake my head. “I don’t even know where to begin…”
Lily rolls her eyes. “At the beginning, of course.”
Unlike her, my story doesn’t start with Andrew, it starts with Ivan.
After taking a deep breath and figuring out where to begin, I tell her how Ivan and I met. How lucky I felt until he started getting pissed off because I wasn’t ready to sleep with him until I got to know him. How quickly the situation escalated.
The stalking and the surveillance.
The pressure and manipulation.
“What a dickhead,” Lily hisses after I tell her how Ivan got me fired from the boutique I worked at just because I used work as an excuse not to see him.
I nod my head, fully agreeing with her, but that wasn’t the worse of it. The worse was the beatings. All the times he’d hit me in anger when I fought him… But I don’t bring those up. I don’t know why, but I just can’t.
Instead, I recount how I couldn’t find work and how I was living off of my savings.
“He was probably telling them not to hire you,” she growls.
I nod my head. “I pretty much figured that.” After the twentieth rejection or so.
With a snort, she tosses the rest of her wine back, and I fight back a smile, flattered that she is so annoyed on my behalf.
“Then what happened?” she asks while leaning forward and setting her empty glass down on the table.
My amusement fades as I remember and recount the events of two nights ago. Just like she glossed over the details of Lucifer taking care of her former husband, I purposely omit Lucifer holding a gun to my head. I’m not sure how she would react to that bit of information, and I’m starting to like her too much to risk our newly minted friendship.
Not to mention I don’t want to do or say anything that would piss that man off. I like my head right where it is, thank you.
“I’m glad Andrew is keeping you,” she says when I finish.
I nod my head but I can’t quite bring myself to verbally agree with her.
“You’re not, though?” she asks.
Like I said earlier, I really suck at lying. I could try to pretend I’m happy with the situation but even a blind man could probably see that I’m not.
“Honestly?” I ask.
She nods her head.
“No,” I drawl out. “I’m not happy with the situation. I’d prefer my freedom.”
She scowls at me. “But Andrew will take care of you.”
“Yes, but he’s a stranger,” I explain. “I hardly know the man. He could be just as bad as Ivan…”
Lily shakes her head vehemently. “He is nothing like Ivan. That man is scum and Andrew is one of my husband’s most trusted men. He’s a step above the rest.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” I concede because I honestly don’t know enough about Andrew to argue with her regarding the state of his character. What I do know, however, is that just like Ivan, he’s manipulating me into a situation I don’t want to be in. “He’s holding me prisoner in his house.”
Again, she’s quick to come to his defense. “I’m sure in time, when he can trust you, he’ll give you more freedom.”
I shake my head in dismay. “You know this from experience?”
She sharply nods her head. “Yes.”
I sigh and take a second to really think my words over before I say them. “I know things worked out for you and Lucifer, but Andrew and Lucifer are two very different men.”
I don’t point out how different she and I are, and our respective situations, but I can feel it hanging in the air between us.
“I agree,” she concedes. “Matthew and Andrew are two very different men, but they share the same philosophies and fundamental beliefs. They look at the world in a very…”
She trails off, her brows furrowing together in thought. “There is a word for it but at the moment it is eluding me. The way they look at the world is…”
“Radical?” I offer.
She snorts and narrows her eyes at me, obviously not finding my suggestion funny. “I was thinking more along the lines of unique.”
I smirk at her and say, “Radically unique.”
She rolls her eyes but she’s smiling. “Very well, the way they look at the world is radically unique.”
She looks at me, waiting for me to agree or disagree. I incline my head and she smiles, going on. “Before I met Matthew, I was blind. But he opened up my eyes and now I see the world for what it really is. Before him I was just another one of the sheep…”