Benedict grins at me across the table as Lionel brings out the food.
“Are we going to play another game?”
I smile at him. “I don’t know if the questions I have are going to be that much fun.”
His eyes turn shrewd. “I’ll be the judge of that. What do you want to know?”
I fiddle with my napkin, choosing my words carefully. “Today… at Alex’s. He made a few comments. He said you were ‘worse than him’ and I have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into.” I look up at him and wince. “And Eliza called you a… a… criminal.”
To my utter shock, Benedict throws his head back and laughs. The sound is deep, and rich, and despite it taking me off guard, something about it warms me from the inside out.
He finally stops laughing and meets my eyes. “They would say that,” he says, his tone laced with amusement. “They’d say anything to make me look bad. Alex has been calling me a criminal since we were teenagers. Back then, it wasn’t entirely inaccurate.”
I blink, unsure if I’m more intrigued or alarmed. “What does that mean?”