My face flames. “I did not book it for us.”
“No?” He takes one step closer. “Then tell me, Zatanna, where exactly did you think that dinner was going to go?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Because there is no answer to that which doesn’t humiliate me.
He watches the realization hit, and his smile deepens just enough to make me want to throw something at him.
“This was for the date,” I say weakly.
“With another woman,” he says.
“Yes.”
“And yet here you are.” Another step. “In the suite you arranged.”
“Under duress,” I mutter.
He laughs, low and rough. “You saved my life and dragged me into a hotel suite. Your methods are getting bolder.”
I glare at him. “Someone is shooting at us.”
“Yes.” He glances once toward the locked door, then back at me. “And somehow that is still not the most interesting part of my evening.”
My pulse stutters.
He comes close enough to touch me, but doesn’t. Not yet. “You pushed me out of the way,” he says quietly.
I look down, suddenly unable to hold that gaze. “You were about to get shot.”
“And you decided that was unacceptable.”
I lift my chin. “Don’t make this weird.”
His hand finally comes up, brushing a shard of glass from my hair with impossible gentleness. “It’s far too late for that.”
From outside, somewhere down below, men start shouting. Doors slam. More footsteps. His people, maybe. Security. Chaos spreading.
But in here, for one suspended second, there’s only the two of us.
His eyes drop to my mouth. Mine drop to his.
And despite the gun in his hand, the shattered glass in the corridor, the danger still breathing outside the suite door…
All I can think is that this room is now exactly where I never wanted him to be.
Alone. With me.
23
ALEKSEI
“Can we go now?”she asks. It’s been an hour since the bullets were fired.
Her voice is quiet, thinner than usual after everything that’s happened tonight, but steady enough that another man might believe she’s alright. I’m not another man.
I’m watching the way her fingers keep flexing at her sides, the way her pulse jumps in her throat, the faint tremor she’s trying to keep out of her breathing. She’s running on nerves and stubbornness.
“No,” I say.
