A beat. His jaw shifts—not quite a reaction, something smaller, the brief involuntary tell of a person who has received information that confirms something they already believed about the world.
"I know."
He says it quietly. Two words that manage to communicate quite a lot about his opinions regarding the people who drove past, delivered without any editorial commentary because the information is sufficient.
I reach for the door handle. Stop.
"Can I at least know your name? Since you know my address."
The dark eyes come to me.
A full second—the same complete, unhurried assessment as before, reading something in my face with the same precision that he'd applied to the road conditions.
"Rowan," he says.
"Mila."
He nods. Once.
I get out. The green door is six steps away and the rain hits my jacket and my hair and the cold of it is immediate and irrelevant because six steps is six steps. I get to the door. Turn the key. Look back once.
The Cadillac is still at the curb. Still there, in the rain, headlights on—as if he was making sure I got inside before leaving, which is either a precaution or a habit and either way it's the kind of detail that lodges somewhere and stays.
I push the door open and go in.
The apartment smells like mine—the floor cleaner from this morning's mop, the old books on the shelf, the trace of last night's perfume still in the fabric of the jacket over the chair. Small and familiar and mine. I shed my work jacket and my shoes and sit on the kitchen island stool and put the investor's business card on the counter and think about what a very specific night this has been.
My phone buzzes.
A text, from a number I don't recognize: *The tow is arranged for 8 AM. They'll bring it to your address.*
Then, a second later: *—R*
He already had my address in the navigation.
He didn't ask for a number.
He just sent the text so I'd have his.
I look at the phone for a moment. Set it face-up on the counter beside the business card. The rain is still going outside the small window—heavier now, the storm finding its full expression against the glass.
One night. A masquerade and three bars and a dead car on a wet road and somewhere in all of that, three Alpha scents that have done things to my baseline I wasn't expecting, a business card that might be the most interesting thing I've acquired all year, and a text from a man named Rowan who arranged a tow at four in the morning without being asked.
I'm thankful to have some luck finally on my side.
CHAPTER 15
The Last Straw
~MILA~
I'm still talking when I open the door.
Something about the fireplace—that it might take a minute, that the building is old, that I should probably warn him before he?—
I stop.
The door swings inward and the first thing I register is the cold. Not the cold of a room that hasn't been heated but the cold of a room that is outside, connected to outside, breathing outside air because there is no longer a meaningful boundary between the interior and the sky above it.
