“Him.”
The red text scrolls away. I tip her chin up so she has to look at me and keep my voice low. “Listen to me, sweetheart. I’m going to ask you what’s wrong. Tell me it’s nothing. Get mad at me. Yell if you want. Sell it. Right now.” After a beat, I straighten. “Sloane, what’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. Really, Griff. I’m fine.”She’s anything but, and there isn’t a person alive that would believe her. But this is the act.
“You’renotfine. We were having a great night. Iknowthere’s something you’re not telling me. And I’m sick of it.” Stepping back, I shove my hands into my pockets. “You say you love me, but you clearly don’t trust me.”
“I do!”Tears gather in her eyes, and she swipes them away. “This is a vacation for you, but it’s work for me. I have to beonall the time, and right now, I’m tired and cold and one of my friends back home is going through a hard time. I’m not hiding anything from you. I just don’t tell you every single thing that happens in my life.”
I reach for her hand, but she refuses to budge. Her TD is back, and she’s going to chew right through her lip if I can’t calm her down. But damn. She pulled off the act perfectly.
“Sweetheart? I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. Forgive me?” At least a handful of tourists have stopped to watch our fight, and that’s when the truth hits me square in the gut.
She’s so fucking good at acting because she’s been acting for fifteen years. Every single day. “Sloane, please. Come here.”
Wrapping my arm around her waist, I brush a kiss to her cheek. “I’ve got you. You’re safe, and we’re going back to the hotel right now.”
And once we’re behind closed doors, she’s going to show me her phone so I can protect her from whatever that asshole is threatening her with now.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sloane
Marina isn’t back yet, but theBeauty and Stylestaff parties are notorious for going late into the night, and Jacob responds to Griff’s text in under two minutes with some code the two of them established before we left that means everything’s fine.
While he puts his knife and gun back in the safe, I kick off my shoes, fish the panic button out of my bra, and set it on the nightstand. The last thing I want to do is pull out my phone, but Griff isn’t going to let me avoid it much longer.
The whole way back to the hotel, he supported me, talked to me, tried to keep me calm. But he hasn’t seen the picture. He doesn’t know Dimitri.
“Do not be stupid, shlyukha.” He punches me in the stomach, and I fall to my knees, vomiting all over the dingy bathroom floor. “Take off your clothes. Now. I want to see what I purchased.”
“Sloane?” Griff shuts the bedroom door behind him, and now that we’re alone, maybe I don’t have to be so strong. Nudging my purse toward him, I wait for him to fish out my phone, then give him the security code and hold my breath.
“‘The price just went up, Sophiana. One thousand dollars each week. Don’t make the same mistake you did with Max. If you say anything to your new lover, you will have more blood on your hands. Pay me $500 by the end of the night or you will regret it.’” With each word, the edge to Griff’s voice hardens, and when he scrolls down to the photo, something inside him snaps. We look so happy. Laughing, his arm around me, my head bent toward his.
Seconds later, he’d kissed me, and I’d filed the moment away as one of those perfect, pure memories I’d hold on to forever. But now, it’s tainted.
Griff forwards the message to his team, then deletes it, and, despite my fear I’m almost sad the photo’s gone. And that we didn’t take one of our own.
Stop it, Sloane. There is no us. He’s your bodyguard and he’s playing a part. Just like you’re supposed to be doing.
But when he sits next to me on the bed and wraps his arms around me, it doesn’t feel like we’re pretending. “I won’t let him hurt you. You were spectacular tonight. Our fight? I know senior officers with a dozen years of experience who can’t improv that well on a dime, and you didn’t miss a beat.”
The pride in his voice is hard to ignore, and it calms me as much as his warmth and the sculpted muscles of his chest.
“What do we do now?” I don’t want to know the answer. I’d much rather fall asleep in his arms and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Even if just for tonight. But I can’t.
Tomorrow’s runway show has to be flawless, and after that, we have the unveiling of the Christmas Book at yet another cocktail party. At least with so much going on, I won’t have time to dwell on the danger I’m putting Griff and Marina in. But Saturday? I’m free all day until the gala celebration—a six hour lavish party where I’ll be expected to dance and mingle and pose for the press, no matter how terrified I am.
“I have to call Austin and Wren. See if they’ve managed to track down Volkov. Or the asshole who faked his way into the press briefing. You should relax.”
“Relax?” I shove at him, scooting back until I hit the headboard. “How am I supposed to relax? Someone was following us all night! What if they’d hurt you?”
“They didn’t.” He sits up straighter and rubs his left shoulder. “I saw the tail. Four, five times. Whoever he is, he’s good. Couldn’t get a solid look at him. But I knew he was there.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” My eyes burn, the pain of his betrayal so much worse than my own fear. “I’m not that fragile, Griff.”
“I didn’t say you were.” His eyes are so expressive when we’re alone, and the regret in them now? It’s enough for me to listen. “You were having fun.” After a beat, he adds, “So was I.”
