I hide my gulp well as I open my clutch and produce my phone, gently and regretfully setting it in the man’s hand. My heart thunders in my chest when he swaggers toward the kitchen with it, but I keep my face settled on Nix’s to prove that I’m not afraid of whatever he’ll find, even though I truly am.
However, I break that contact when I startle because a few loud and quick bangs vibrate the space behind me. I quickly turn in my seat and watch as this man pounds my phone with a meat tenderizer on the floor.
“What the fuck?” I whisper when he’s done. The phone is nothing but a crumpled piece of useless technology. He kicks it aside like the garbage it now is.
“You won’t be needing that,” Nix says in way of explanation.
I whip back around to face him and glare as hard as I can muster. “My entire life was on that phone.”
His lazy shrug should piss me off, but damn if hismuscles bunching in his chest quenches that rage. “Not anymore.”
I clench my jaw and look down at the table so I don’t give him a piece of my mind. Who the hell does he think he is? Scratch that. I know who he is. He’s the one in charge right now. I can tell just by our brief encounter that he enjoys being in charge, strives for it in everything he does. My phone would be no different.
“Eyes on me,” he murmurs. It’s said gruffly, and I can’t refuse the order.
I slowly lift my gaze to him, and we stare at one another for a long pause. I see him for what he is. Does he see me for what I am? Who I truly am? Something tells me he does. Something tells me he knows I don’t belong, and that’s confirmed when he asks, “Why are you here?”
“For a job,” I answer right away. “I need the money.”
“Don’t we all,” Andre says jovially, but neither Nix nor myself break eye contact. For all it’s worth, he could be invisible right now because Nix consumes me, consumes the space.
“You know what this job entails?” he implores with a slight flex to his jaw when he’s finished.
I nod. “I know what I’m getting myself into.”
“There are other ways to make money.” Is he trying to convince me to walk away? Not a chance. Not when I am this close to getting in, my virtue be damned.
“I suppose there is.”
“Then walk out that door.”
A curl breaks loose from the others when I shake my head. “No.” My answer is firm and final and definitely more confident than I feel.
He steps forward, places his hands on the table, and leans toward me. His scent swirls around my immediatespace, and my eyelids flutter closed as my favorite aroma fills my nose: Leather. “What’s your last name, Charlie?”
“Smith,” I answer right away, tasting the lie on my tongue and wondering if he can smell it on my breath.
“Sounds fake.”
“Maybe it is.”
He studies my face, moving between the grooves and plains and valleys that make me all that I am.
“Do we normally hire bigger women?” the man behind me asks, and I bristle.
“You have no idea the market there is for thicker women,” Andre says cheerfully. “And with looks like hers . . .”
But Nix doesn’t take his gaze off my face until he sweeps the slope of my neck and down my entire body as if he can see everything underneath my black dress. I can’t help it. My nipples harden, and I have no doubt they’re peeking through both my bra and my dress because, for a second, Nix’s eyes linger there before they return to mine. Everywhere his gaze touched scorched me.
I need to get away from this man.
“I should take offense to that,” I whisper because a whisper is all I can manage under the weight of his scrutiny.
“Don’t,” Nix whispers back.
“Why?” I’m fishing for a compliment, I know I am, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. I shouldn’t give a shit what Nix thinks about me or my appearance. But I asked it anyway; it popped right out, and now I can’t take it back.
He focuses on my lips for a second before pushing off the table and standing fully upright, crossing his arms as he does. I feel the loss of him immediately, but all the same, I take a deep breath and exhale it through my nose.
