Without Keke’s whirlwind energy sucking up all the oxygen, the suite feels bigger. Warmer. Dani and Marco are different people tonight. They are relaxed, and I’ve discovered they’re capable of real smiles and conversations.
Marco tops off my glass with a flourish. “He’s going to be speechless, babe. You look like you stepped out of an expensive perfume ad.”
Tracing a faint ridge of scar tissue with my thumb, I’m still nervous, but something has shifted in me this last week.
“Stunning,” Dani says, beaming.
Marco cocks his head at me. “I hope he lets you out of the room tonight. He might take one look at you and toss you over his shoulder.”
I roll my eyes, but my cheeks warm. “You two are ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously observant,” Dani counters. “The sexual chemistry wafting off the two of you makesmehot.”
Marco lifts his glass. “Hurry up! I’m dying to see his reaction.”
My stomach is doing cartwheels, uncharacteristically nervous and fluttery.
I step into the hallway.
Liev is leaning against the wall opposite the elevator, scrolling on his phone, one ankle crossed over the other, looking every inch the effortlessly sexy and dangerous man he is, in a dark suit and crisp white button-down shirt, unbuttoned enough to reveal the top of his tattoos. The second the door opens, he glances up. His chest lifts, but he doesn’t exhale.
He just stops.
Completely.
The phone lowers slowly, forgotten in his hand. His eyes travel over me in a long, unhurried sweep. Then he straightens, pushes off the wall and crosses the carpet in two measured strides.
“Seraphina.” His half-hungry, half-reverent tone makes my knees weak.
I tilt my head, trying for playful even though my heart is pounding. “You look pretty good yourself.”
He shakes his head, like he’s trying to clear it. A slow, devastating smile crosses his face. “You,” he says, reaching out to brush his knuckles along the line of my bare shoulder, feather-light, “are going to ruin me tonight.”
I laugh, soft and a little breathless. “I hope so.”
He takes the matching wrap from where it’s hanging over my arm and drapes it over my shoulders, then frowns. “Are you going to be warm enough?”
Is he kidding? The second I saw him in that suit, heat has been flushing through me.
“If I get cold, you can warm me up.”
30
LIEV
I can’t think straight.
The second she stepped into the hallway in that green dress, every coherent thought in my head vanished.
My brain simply… melted.
Before, I was consumed with Alex’s voice from earlier this afternoon.
“Mikhail’s going to ask a favor. Make it happen.”
But right now?
I couldn’t tell you the color of the sky if someone held a gun to my head.
