My head jolted forward, my eyes blinking. “Did you just say guys? As in plural? As inmultiplepeople stationed to grab me the second I left?”
He shrugged, like it was no big deal. “I had one at every exit.” His eyes went dark again, but this time they were rimmed with sarcasm. “You’re not exactly fond of following my rules, Miss Holland, so I’ll take the proper precautions if and when I can.”
“That doesn’t mean you can assign strangers to watch me because your cars need counting or whatever it is you deemed more important than watching me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I thought you didn’t want me watching you anyway.”
I tilted my head. “I don’t. But I’m talking about the principle of embedding in my brain that my safety is your only priority, and then bailing on me because you wanted to shag your assistant in your office—”
His face moved closer, inches from mine and making my heart race like the traffic behind him. “Not that it’s any of your business what I do when you are otherwise looked after, but I wasn’t counting cars or shagging my assistant, because firstly, I have one car—it doesn’t take that long to count—and two, my assistant is sixty-four.”
I shrugged, lips tugging down. “Doesn’t mean you can’t shag her.”
Finn shuffled behind me. “I know this is my car but I think I’ll step out while you guys do whatever this is.”
“No,” Marcus instructed, eyes still fixed on mine. He lifted his finger at Finn. “You can go. I’ll be taking Miss Holland home.”
“I’d rather go back with Finn. He’s nice, unlike you.”
“I never promised to be nice. I promised to keep you safe.”
I laughed right in his face, earning me an even darker, harder stare. “Yeah, because tracking and hunting me down makes me feel very—” My words halted as they caught up in my mind.
He’d followed us. Tracked us and made us pull over.
My heart froze.
How did he know where we were if I’d turned off my phone tracking?
My stare turned from icy to an inferno in seconds. “How did you know where I was?” I asked, my teeth gritted.
For a second, maybe a fraction of one, his eyes widened. He was caught out. His pink lips parted, his eyes still on me. It was the most I’d seen him react since that night of the event when he’d cornered me.
He held our stare a dense moment longer before his eyes fell. “We’re going now.” Before I knew it, he was reaching over and unbuckling my seatbelt. His hand grazed my hip on the way past, making me shiver in a way I wasn’t sure how to feel about, before his hand slipped into mine and he pulled me out of the seat.
He grabbed my bag and portfolio with his free hand before slamming the door without so much as giving Finn a second glance.
I tried to pull back from his grip as he took me to the car. “Do you have to tug me like I’m a fucking toddler?”
“After declaring you a flight risk? Yes.”
I rolled my eyes as he threw my things into the backseat of his car, then tugged open the passenger door.
“In.”
I couldn’t even be bothered to fight him right now. I’d rather save my fire for when I questioned him about how on earth he knew where I was.
I slid in, the soft black leather slipping underneath my jeans. It smelt like no one had ever driven it before this moment. Like no-one owned it. But the longer I sat there the more I pickedup on the dull amber that hung in the air, and the slight smell of smoke, like a cigarette had not long been put out.
Not a second later, Marcus barrelled into the driver’s seat, steam practically simmering under his dark strands.
That was as much as I wanted to look at him, so I turned my head out the front window, seeing that the space that held Finn’s car was now clear.
Traitor.
What tugged my attention away from that was the sound of the car starting, and I whipped my head back to Marcus, not thinking before I planted my hand atop his on the gear stick. Immediately his eyes found mine, shock and horror and something else I couldn’t name brewing from the contact.
When I felt my palm begin to mold over his, I yanked it back, my mouth slipping open. “If you think I’m sitting in a car without you answering my question, then you’re even more of an idiot than I thought you were.”
