We spring apart, guilt and want warring in my chest. Asher clears his throat, running a hand through his hair.
“Yeah, we're coming,” he calls back. “I was helping Ivy with her gift.”
Lucinda appears in the doorway, her gaze narrowing as she takes in the scene. “I bet you were,” she says dryly.
Her eyes land on the necklace, and her brows shoot up. “Wow. That's… some gift.”
I touch the flowers self-consciously. “It's too much,” I say again.
Asher rolls his eyes.
Lucinda nudges her head toward the dining room, forcing a smile. “Punk's threatening to open your presents without you if you don't hurry up.”
We follow her back to the dining room, where Jord and Punk are engaged in an intense debate over the merits of various coding languages.
“About time,” Punk says, pushing a stack of gifts toward me. “I was starting to think you'd ditched your own party.”
I force a laugh, settling back into my seat. “And miss out on all this? Never.”
The others dive into birthday traditions from around the world. I catch Asher's attention across the table.
He blows me a kiss, takes a pull of his beer, then fishes his phone from his pocket.
He hits ignore, his jaw tightening before swinging to Jord to answer his question about the Golden Globes that are coming up.
And in this moment, everything is perfect…
Chapter 6
Ivy
The hotel hallway smells like expensive lies. The kind of scent rich men wear when they're pretending they didn't earn their fortune off the backs of trafficked girls.
I adjust the wig. Blonde tonight. My dress is too tight, heels too high, but that's the point. Let him think I'm dessert.
My phone buzzes in my clutch.
Asher: You awake?
I silence it without reading the rest.
Three months since my birthday. Three months of this dance where we get close enough to burn but never quite catch fire. Three months of him texting me at two in the morning with stupid memes and voice notes of him singing to whatever punk rock bullshit he's obsessed with this week.
Three months of me lying awake, staring at my ceiling, wondering what his mouth tastes like.
Focus.
Suite 1247. End of the hall. Security camera at the elevator—already looped, courtesy of Punk. The one by the stairwell has a convenient blind spot, thanks to the lazy contractors who cut corners on a seventy-million-dollar renovation.
My earpiece crackles.
“You're clear,” Punk says, munching on something. Chips, probably. Girl's always eating. “Target confirmed in-room. Alone. You've got a fifteen-minute window before his security detail returns from their smoke break.”
“Copy.”
I slip the keycard from my clutch—cloned this afternoon when I bumped into a housekeeper near the service elevator—and slide it through the lock.
Green light.
