“Is that so?” He raked his gaze over her too knowingly.
“I’m sure whoever asked to meet here has their reasons. However, I hate to intrude on your lair—”
“You’re not.”
Hah. “So I’ll be on my way.”
“But you just got here.” His voice dropped to a purr.
Calliope’s hand twitched near her side. She’d once again forgotten to add her pistol to her outfit. “That doesn’t mean I can’t leave.”
The man’s smile turned into a smirk, and he shared a look with theman at the bar. “Did you really get a note to meet you here or were you just curious?”
“I’mnota spy.”
“Interesting that this is the first thing your pretty little head jumps to.”
Urgh! What an annoying man. “You accused me of that last night, too.”
He tipped his head thoughtfully. “Did I?”
She narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms. “And I’m not in the habit of wandering into strange places out of curiosity.”
“Well, from where I stand, you are either fiercely brave or wildly foolish.”
“I assure you, I am both.”
At that, one of the other men—one still seated lazily—let out a dry chuckle. Well, just a short one, but the sound scraped down her nerves like a match struck too close to her skin. How diabolical!
“That you may just be,” the man behind the bar said flatly.
“You said you didn’t send a note,” Calliope pointed out to man before her. “What about one of them?”
“They didn’t either,” came the matter-of-fact response. “No one in their right mind would ask you to meet them here.”
Not even Mr. Rollings?
But she couldn’t ask that, and that in itself made her pause. Mr. Rollings would never ask her to meet here, would he? He’d have come to her, or given how his interaction with her landlord had transpired, meet her somewhere else. Given their relationship, despite that one request to meet outside, she didn’t think he would purposefully place her under the attention from these men.
She knew it for certain then.
This was the doing of someone else. But why her? She’d done nothing wrong. She only had one enemy—family. This must have something to do with Maxen. But what, and how, she couldn’t beginto imagine.
Something was most decidedly afoot.
A thought struck her.
Hedidn’t know she was here.
And for the first time since stepping through that door, Calliope felt something entirely different curl through her belly.
Anticipation.
The man was a criminal, yes. Yet ever since she’d learned Mr. Rollings had survived, and that Maxen had caught the intruder, she no longer saw him as the villain who prowled the shadows. Perhaps he was sullen, brooding, impossible, but he did not seem bad. Wicked men did not trouble themselves with the safety of others, did they? Sleep on the floor for them? Make their heart flutter for them?
Hah, Calliope. That’s just you!
She let out a little cough and gave the man before her, her best arched brow. “I suppose they are not in their right mind, then. That being said, are you going to offer me something to drink or not?”
