Bella's personal life is, for the time being at least, personal. The author asks, but stays shut down when Bella shuts her down.
"I didn't plan on it or anything, it just sort of... but I should've known it was going to happen, it always does," he says helplessly. "I'm sorry. I should've told you. At some point in the last four months. Not that I've been - I haven't even seen him since he moved out of our place in London. I just." He rubs his face with both hands. "Sorry."
"What I mean is, should my first order of business be arranging for him not to be able to find you - is that a thing you would like me to do, is he harassing you or stalking you in such a way that he should be obliged to stop - or is the primary issue at hand the bit where you cheated on me?"
"I was just going to talk to him," he says, "the thought of fucking him didn't cross my mind until much later in the evening - I told him I should tell my girlfriend first, he said I'd never done before so why should I start now, I told him his logic was terrible, and he... did something distracting." Ripper sighs.
"I don't think I understand the effect he has on me," Ripper admits. "We were friends for... a long time. He never got me into any trouble he couldn't get me out of, but he did get me into plenty of trouble. We've had our fights before, but he always came back and I always let him. This time... I don't think I want to let him." He sighs. "He obviously has a different plan."
"I relaxed it some a while ago - I imagine you would have noticed if you couldn't discuss certain things with the Jokers and the relvant information isn't secret from them - but yeah. ...If you run into Rayne again are your bad decision-making habits likely to extend to making poor choices about what to tell him?"
"I don't mind not being able to tell anybody about the stuff from that one conversation, I guess," he says. "It's not my favourite thing, but I agreed to it. I didn't agree to never be able to repeat anything my girlfriend tells me to anyone who's not a Joker. From anybody else, that sounds like a horror story waiting to happen. I don't think you're going to be that horror story, but I shouldn't have to trust you that much, d'you see what I mean?"