My scowl deepens.
He chuckles, but he doesn’t say anything further. Maybe because he’s an asshole, but probably because the doors have opened and he’s walking down the hall.
I have no choice but to follow.
Something that’s even more annoying.
He turns the corner, moves to the end of the hall, and swipes a keycard.
I pause beside him, hold out my hand. “Give me my bag.”
He doesn’t answer me, just pushes inside his room.
And again, I have no choice but to follow.
Maybe I’ll smother him with a pillow, put us both out of our misery.
Then I sigh, allow the door to close behind me, lean back against it. He doesn’t stop moving, though. Just walks through the room, pulls at the handle on the sliding glass door, and steps outside, taking my bag with him.
“What the fuck?” I whisper.
I stand there for a moment then I follow him onto the balcony.
“First of all,” I say as I step through the door, “why the fuck do you get a balcony?”
He sets his bag in the far corner, turns back toward me, his smile a flash of white in the darkness. “Perks of being the big boss.” He settles in a chair—conveniently between me and my bag—and rests his feet on the banister. “Take a load off, Red.”
I exhale and it’s a frustrated sound.
One I know he picks up on because his mouth curves.
But he doesn’t move.
And he doesn’t speak.
And, eventually, I huff out another frustrated sigh and sink down into the other chair.
“You’re feeling vulnerable,” he says after another long moment.
He’s not wrong. Not that I’m going to admit it—not even under pain of torture.
Which…this conversation is.
“I got a glimpse behind the curtain,” he goes on. “I saw shit you didn’t want me to see, and now you’re desperate to put walls up.”
“It’s amusing that you’re talking about walls when you have the strongest set of concrete and barbed wire barriers erected around yourself that I’ve ever seen.”
He lifts and drops one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Maybe I don’t have those anymore.”
I sniff.
“Or maybe it’s that I don’t have them withyou.”
My heart squeezes. “That’s not true.” Still, I can’t shove down the hope blooming in my belly.
Screech!
My body jerks as he drags my chair closer to his.
