“Nope, just you,” I whispered low enough so the guard wouldn’t hear.
He rolled his eyes.
Wewalkedalong polished concrete untilwe reacheda marble platform.Sebastianswung open the ten foot oak door, and three sets of hardened faces blocked our view into the house. Sebastian nodded at them, and they stepped away, revealing twelve foot high ceilings, and marble veined floors. Before I could examine the house further, heguidedme toa hallway on the right.
I couldn’t believe I was willingly inside Amato headquarters. My heartbeat sped up as a stiff guard eyed me.
“I would have preferred it if fewer people saw me,” I said, keeping my voice neutraldespite my increased heart rate.The more people that saw us together, the higher the chances were that the word would get back to my father.
“You didn’t give me much of a heads up to arrange for that,”he said.We stopped in front of a reinforced elevator door, and he pressed the up button.“Besides you were the one who needed to see meright now,”he whisperedthe last two words in my ear.
His sinful tonesent a shiver down my spine. I ignored the feeling and stepped into the open elevator. I backed up from him intothecorner of the elevator bank. Hequirked an eyebrow, but didn’t decrease the distance between us.
When the elevator binged floor 5, the doors opened to reveal warm oak floors leading down a long hallway. I glanced down the white wood staircase to our left and noted four armed men leaning against the grey walls. If it came to it, this was going tobe a toughfight getting out of here. Especially with no weapons currently at my disposal.
Sebastian stepped past apainting ofa naked woman with her eyes rolled back in ecstasy.
“Interestingart choices,” Isaid, raisingan eyebrow at the piece.
“I didn’t pick it out.” His eyes moved from the painting to me, and his voice lowered.“Although, I wouldn’t mind seeing that expression onyourface.”
I tried to keep the blood from rushing to my face, but my body wasn’t intent on listening to me. He smirkedand opened a door to his right. I shoved past him into the library, refusing to acknowledge his words. Tall bookshelves covered the walls, framing a black marble fireplace at the back of the room. I moved towards the unlitfireplace, hoping there was a sharpened fire poker beside it.
Sebastianfollowed behind me, and when we reached the fireplace he sat down in a black leather chair. Damn, no fire poker. I really needed to find some sort of weapon just in case.
“Chilly?”he asked, his eyes caught on my gloves. The amusement faded from hiseyes. An assessing look passed over his face as he looked closer at my clothing.
“Nah, I just wanted to make sure my gloves covered up my fingerprints. Gotta make sure the cops can’t trace it back to me when they find your body.”
“Hilarious,”he said without a hint of hilarity in his voice. His eyescontinuedto search me.
I sat back in a matching leather chair that wasoppositehim. “See something you like?” I shot at him.
A small smirk spread across his lips as heturned his attention back to my face.Sebastianlooked at me fora few more moments, and then his face changed back to neutral. None of the kindness from the night at Piper’s,or any of the teasing energy remained. Back to business.
“Why did you need to meet with me?”he asked, a steeliness in his voice.
I sat up straighter. He needed to have the perception that this information mattered more to him than anything I would ask of him.
“I’m considering working with you.” More like didn’t have anybetter options, and would not work with him under any other circumstance.
“Really?”he said, leaning back in his chair, expression unchanged.
“Possibly. If you give me a number that makes sense,” I said.
“I thought you weren’t interested in my offer.What changed?” he said.
We both knew that I needed to pay off my debt to the loan sharks. What he didn’t know was how urgently I needed the money. It was important toplay it off casually, as if I’d just gotten bored with this lifestyle. I’d make him think if he didn’t pay me that it wasn’t a big deal, and I’d just find someone else who would. That I had all the time in the world to make a decision.
“I want to go back to living at the Plaza again. Also, I’m sick of not having blowouts.” I flicked my knotted hair.
His eyes narrowed.“A suite at the Plaza? How much do you think we’re going to pay you?”
Here it came. The part where we both pretended we needed the other less than we did. I leaned back in my chair and pretended to think about what I was going to say.
“Today, I’m not going to give you any information. As a sign of respect for our future working relationship, you’ll hand me ten grand before I leave this house,” I said.
A door opened, and my breath caught in mythroat as I stared at the man in the doorway. All the images I’d been pushing further and further down threatened to swarm me. Pain ached at my chest, that had nothing to do with my beatdown from last night.
