Atta girl.

Nix was coming back to the arms of her favorite monster.

She unlatched the window open, and in one swift movement put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me with all her power, sending me flying back down. Quick on my feet, I grabbed onto the gutter, hanging onto it for dear fucking life, my legs swinging in the air.

“Merry Christmas to you, too. I see you decided to gift me a crazy bitch this year. I’ll take it.”

“You expected a gift?” she spat out from somewhere above my head, sounding … well, not half as glad as I thought she’d be to see me. “What on earth are you doing here, Brennan?”

Luckily, I put a lot of effort into ensuring my upper body was strong and did suspension exercises and pull-ups with Mitchell four times a week, so I knew that as long as the gutter wasn’t going to split in two, I could hang on it for a while.

Of course, I might lose my fingers in the process because of fucking frostbite.

“Well, I thought it would be a good time to talk now, after you’ve processed everything that’s happened.”

I was fucking obsessed with her. It made no sense at all. You were not supposed to crave what was offered to you in abundance.

“You mean you backstabbing my family and me, making my life a living hell, causing the very near wreckage of my parents’ marriage, and bringing destruction upon us that would take decades to emotionally reconstruct?”

When she put it that way …

“Grow the fuck up, Nix. I played with your daddy a little. It had nothing to do with you.”

“It had everything to do with me! You hurt the people I love and care about the most, knowing how many issues I had with my mother and about her mental state, and you kept it from me.”

“I had a good reason,” I grunted, pulling myself up and settling on the roof outside her window like a goddamn dog since she wouldn’t let me in. Aisling crossed her arms, arching an eyebrow. She wore horrible flannel pajamas with ferrets on them. I knew she used to have a ferret—Shelly—and wondered how the fuck I ended up being consumed by a woman who, despite her declarations of love for me, never tried to change her quirky weirdness to fit the mold and please me.

“Aw, you had a reason.” She clapped sarcastically. “This should be good. Let’s hear it.”

“Your father had an affair with my biological mother.”

“So did the rest of Boston. Allegedly,” she drawled. “Didn’t she work in the most ancient profession in the world?”

Ignoring her snark, I trudged through with the story that was frankly beginning to bore even me to death.

“Earlier this year, in November, the day I bailed on you—”

“Another prime example for why I shouldn’t give you the time of the day,” she added, “or night.”

I ground my teeth together, trying to keep my cool.

“I didn’t show up because Catalina had died, and I needed to fly to Atlanta to sort through her shit. I found some letters she wrote to your father. Letters in which she accused him of impregnating her then causing her to miscarry through beating her up. She claimed he was the one who forced her into leaving me behind when she left.”

That stopped her from unleashing another unhelpful remark my way. Aisling’s already milky skin paled further. She stepped back, biting her lip to prevent her mouth from falling in shock. I raised a hand, shaking my head.

“Are we…” she cleared her throat “…related?”

I was very close to falling from her roof and breaking my spine.

“What? Aw, fuck no, sweetheart. I’d be puking buckets into next year if that were the case. No offense. Their affair happened way after I was born. Point is, I discussed it with your father. Most of it wasn’t true, but some of it was. At any rate, that was why I wanted to torture him.”

“You could have told me,” she said finally.

“No, I couldn’t,” I groaned. “What would I have said? ‘Oh, by the way, I’m responsible for all the shit your family is going through. Now must be a good time to put my dick in your mouth.’”

“No need to be crass.”

“Look, I’m sorry it happened this way. I don’t apologize often—correction, I don’t apologize at all—so I suggest you take it, run with it, and accept it. I came here today with a proposition I think you would very much like.”

She pursed her full lips in dissatisfaction, and again I hated myself for taking her for granted all these years. Even when I didn’t touch her, I knew she was there, waiting for me, fantasizing about me. It was almost as good as having her. Knowing that I could.

Now, she looked like she wanted to finish the job the Bratva started that night she ran away from the cabin.

“A proposition?” she asked.

“I’m ready to take our relationship to the next level.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to spell it out for me, seeing as with you it could also mean anal sex.”

I chuckled. “I’m willing to have you.”

“You’re willing to have me,” she repeated flatly.

“Yes. As whatever-the-fuck. Girlfriend? Partner? What’s the correct term for people who are over twenty-five?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m not your anything, Brennan. You had your chance. You blew it. Ten whole years I waited for you to make me yours. All you needed to do was give me the time of the day. I’ve wanted you for so long, I don’t even remember what it feels like not to want you. Well, I’m about to find out.”

She didn’t want me.

I had never taken a scenario like this into consideration.

Nix’s love was always in the background for me. Available and ready whenever I was.

Now, I’d fucked up and needed to deal with the consequences.

“I’m not the type of guy to take no for an answer,” I warned, meaning it.

“I’m not the type of girl to give a dang about what kind of guy you are. You want me, you’ll have to win me.”

Feeling my jaw ticking with annoyance, I took a deep breath.

“That should be easy. I only win.”

“You’ll have to chase me,” she corrected.

“I don’t chase,” I reminded her quietly.

“Well, then I guess you won’t have me. Work for it. Treat me as your equal. No. Know what? Treat me as your better. Because I am. I know you hate women. I know you are leery of them, but unfortunately for you, I am one. I will not accept anything short of a fairy tale, Brennan, even if it’s with the monster in the story.”

Dumbfounded, I stared at her, waiting for … what exactly? Her to change her mind? She wasn’t going to. She wanted a fucking fairy tale, and so far I gave her a nightmare with a side of betrayal.

“Now leave,” she said primly.

“Nix—”

She slammed her window in my face, drawing the curtains shut for good measure.

She kicked me out.

Made new rules for our game.

Now I needed to play by them or admit defeat.

The first thing I did when I got back to my apartment was fling the pantry door open, nearly sending it off its hinges. There wasn’t much food there. And by ‘much’ I meant at all. There wasn’t any food there period. Only packs upon packs of Marlboros imported from Europe, because American cigarettes tasted like farts on fire.