Page 28 of Brutal
I replay the evening because that’s what I do. I break things down. Find the patterns. It’s what makes me a good investigative journalist.
Our conversation was useless. It didn’t go deep into anything.
What the hell was he looking to get out of all of it? And did he get it?
And why was I dying for him to grab me and kiss me?
A chill moves through me.
He didn’t push.
That’s what’s wrong with this.
Men like Samson Vexley are supposed to push. To take up space. To make their presence obvious.
To overwhelm.
He didn’t do any of that.
“That makes him worse,” I murmur under my breath.
Because brute force is predictable.
Samson Vexley is anything but.
I close my eyes for a second.
And that’s when it hits me—not as a thought, but as something lower, more physical.
The memory sharpens.
Not just that he stood when I walked in.
How he looked when he did it.
Dark suit, yes, but that’s not what held my attention.
It was the contrast.
The white shirt underneath, crisp and clean and open at the collar.
No tie.
Everyone else in that room had one.
Every man was playing by the same rules of presentation.
And he just…wasn’t.
Like he didn’t need them.
Like he never had.
I noticed it immediately because it was the only thing in that room that didn’t match everything else.
Then his hair.
Dark. Not perfectly styled. Not careless either. Unruly in a way that didn’t quite obey whatever it was supposed to. Like it refused to be fully contained.
