So far he’d managed to keep it all stuffed down, but it was bubbling under the surface of his otherwise collected demeanor.
Must be your elite training.
In reality, the most exciting thing that usually happened to him at work was a paper cut or a coworker coming in late. But she didn’t know that his elite training was a master’s program, and not Quantico. Or that the reason he’d stayed calm in the car could be attributed to his family’s lessons in repressing feelings, and not to being a field agent.
When he’d come out of the bathroom at the diner and seen the empty booth and her belongings on the table, he’d been annoyed, certain that Sejal was either fucking with him or had wandered off to seduce the cook or something. But then he’d spotted her outside, walking stiffly in front of some guy.
He wasn’t quite sure what had come over him. He was accustomed to thinking things through, but he’d been guided by rage, adrenaline, and determination.
Now he needed to think about whether that rage was directed at Viktor for daring to interfere with his own agenda or for trying to harm Sejal. Krish had never been a territorial man, not even with the women he dated. So where had that quiet “Mine” come from when she’d been marched away from him?
It had led him to straight up ram hiscarinto the other man’s.Without a thought as to the consequences, beyond him and Sejal staying alive.
For the first time, he realized how much he’d strayed from his mental snapshot of himself. He wasn’t this person, rescuing damsels in distress. Krish was boring and staid, as his brother and mother would tell anyone.
Absentmindedly, he rubbed the scar on his face. He’d picked his profession precisely because it was as far as he could get from his parents’ and brother’s careers without being a priest or something. As far as he was concerned, boring and predictable were underrated.
“Would anyone like to see one last trick?” Sejal asked, and the kids closest to her jumped up and down. She smiled at the little girl at her elbow and crouched to meet her gaze. “Want to be my assistant?”
The girl had a big bow in her frizzy red hair. It bobbed when she nodded furiously.
“What’s your name?”
“Ramona.”
Sejal fanned her cards out on the table. “Ramona, pick a card, but don’t look at it and don’t show it to me.”
The little girl solemnly selected a card and kept it face down.
“Now we’re going to see if you can do magic, okay?”
“Okay.”
“If the card you picked could be any card, what would you want it to be?”
“Ten of hearts, because I’m ten.”
“Oh, I thought you were at least twenty-five. Okay, close your eyes. Thinkten of heartsreal hard.”
The child screwed her eyes up tight. Krish noted that most of the adults did, too, but he was watching Sejal. She didn’t pullany bait and switch that he could see, but stood there, patient and still. “Ramona, open your eyes, and let’s see what card you’re holding.”
Ramona flipped it over. Krish smiled at her excited shriek when she found the ten of hearts in her hand. “Now let’s see if your grown-up is as psychic as you are. Do you have someone here with you?”
“My uncle.” She gestured to the man behind her.
Krish narrowed his gaze at the uncle. The man wasn’t looking at Sejal’s hands so much as her low-slung sweatpants.
“Hi, yeah.” The guy waved.
“Let’s get these other cards out of here.” With a flourish, she swept the rest of the deck up. “Ramona, put that card down on the table and put your hand over it. Now, Ramona’s uncle, what card are you thinking of?”
His smile was flirtatious. Krish resisted the urge to slap it off his face. “Queen.”
“Queen of what?” Sejal asked, without inflection.
“Uh, diamonds.”
“Close your eyes. Let’s all thinkqueen of diamondsreally hard.” She paused a beat, then nodded at Ramona. “Turn it over, Ramona.”
