The driver handed me a card with a number. "Call or text if you need a ride."
"Thanks."
I stepped out, backpack slung over one shoulder, and walked inside.
The lobby was clean, modern, functional. Exactly what I needed.
I headed for the front desk, already pulling out my wallet, when something in my peripheral vision made me stop.
A woman. Coming out of the elevator.
Dark hair. Sharp eyes. A body I'd memorized in a tent halfway around the world.
No fucking way.
Of all the places. Of all the hotels.
Amelia fucking Emerson.
And before I could look away, her eyes locked on mine.
They hardened.
And she stomped my way.
5
AMELIA
The elevator doors slid open, and for half a second I was just a tired woman thinking about coffee.
The lobby yawned wide in front of me—muted carpet, neutral art, the faint clink of dishes from the breakfast area. A family corralled two kids near the juice machine. A businessman checked his watch by the front desk. Normal. Boring. Safe.
Then I saw him.
He was turned slightly away, talking to the woman at the front desk, one hand on the counter, backpack slung over his shoulder. Dark hair a little longer than the last time I’d seen him, black T-shirt stretched across a chest I’d once had my hands on, jeans riding low on hips I’d wrapped my legs around?—
My stomach lurched.
No.
No, no, no.
The floor seemed to tilt under my bare feet, the patterned carpet swimming for a heartbeat. I blinked, hard. Jet lag, I told myself. Leftover dream. A trick of the light.
He shifted, profile coming into view, and any hope of that died.
Levi Dane.
In my hotel lobby.
In Charleston.
My entire body misfired—fury and something hotter slamming into each other like a head-on collision. My heart did this humiliating little stutter, my skin buzzing like I’d grabbed a live wire. I could feel my pulse in ridiculous places—my throat, my wrists, between my legs.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
His head turned. His gaze met mine.
