Brutal Game by Cara McKenna Page A

really, I’d happily trade mystique and discretion for honesty. And to be with a man who’ll go out in a snowstorm and get me tampons.”
    “It wasn’t a storm.”
    “And potato chips.”
    He shrugged. “You keep tendin’ my wounds, I’ll keep you in snacks and lady-plugs.”
    “It’s a deal.” She laughed, caught by a thought. “Could those be our vows?”
    He looked up, gaze soft but loaded. In time, he smiled. “I think we can do better than that.”
    “I don’t suppose I could look at the ring again?”
    “Sure.”
    Her breath caught as he dug through the folds of his jacket and produced the little box. She’d been so floored when he’d first whipped it out, she’d really only registered the barest details— diamond, sparkly, proposal.
    He passed her the box and she opened it, its tiny hinge silent. The ring was seated in a bed of dove-gray velvet, almost as though the diamond were floating there. “Wow.” It was big. Not garish, but larger than she’d ever have set her heart on. “Not to be tacky, but is this real?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Wow,” she said again, and he chuckled. “I like the shape.” Not a circle—a softly rounded rectangle.
    “It’s a cushion cut,” he announced with an overdone know-it-all air.
    “The jeweler tell you that?”
    “Yup.”
    “It’s beautiful. Like, beautiful .” She slid it out. The band was simple and slender, nicely balanced with the size of the stone. She turned it this way and that, watching the lamplight dance in the facets, feeling woozy to imagine she could wear this. All she had to do was say the word.
    Not yet. Not until there was enough room inside her for all the joy that moment deserved to inspire. She slipped the ring back into its little slot, sad to shut it away in the dark.
    “How’d you know my size? Anne?”
    He nodded. “She snuck in and stole one of your rings.”
    “Which one?”
    “Silver, with a blue stone in it.”
    She smiled. “Clever little sneak.”
    “I didn’t tell her about the pregnancy,” he said.
    “I wouldn’t have imagined you would.”
    “You gonna tell her?”
    She nodded. “Yeah, I will. She knows me too well not to notice I’m having a hard time.”
    “You call in sick to work, I hope?”
    “I have tomorrow off, so I’ll play it by ear. The distraction might be welcome.”
    “You said you want to feel it all.”
    “I do. But I don’t want to wallow in it, either. I just want to make sure I don’t half-ass this…this mourning, or whatever this is. I don’t want to white-knuckle my way through it, keeping manically busy, or cover over it with alcohol, or try to sleep through it. It deserves to be felt.” She paused, feeling like some hippy-dippy weirdo.
    “Whatever you need. I’ll keep this fucker safe until you’re ready to make its acquaintance,” he said, flashing the box then burying it back inside his coat pocket.
    “Deal.”
    She studied him for a long time. He looked different. Perhaps it was the comparably girly setting, atop her full mattress as opposed to his king, on her turquoise comforter, in a room with regular-sized windows and a normal-height ceiling. He looked new. Handsome in a softer way than usual.
    He was an attractive man, she thought, but not everyone’s cup of tea. He didn’t have a charming smile—more a cocky smirk—and his hands were rough, same as his accent and his words and his kinks. Many women would prefer a polished type, dazzling and pedigreed as that diamond, or perhaps one as smooth and dignified as onyx. Flynn was brick, blunt and abrasive and honest, with hard edges and common good looks as plain as his speech. His body was ridiculous, though. It was a nice balance. A model-handsome face capping a physique like his would look like a caricature.
    For the briefest moment, she wondered what it might have looked like. Their child.
    If he gets his way, I’ve got all the time in the world to find out.
    “You want to be alone?” he asked, perhaps