She adjusts an earring and looks at me. “You’re staring.”
“I’m assessing the tactical situation.”
That makes her grin. “You’re staring, and you’re bad at lying about it.” She picks up a clutch from the counter. “Let’s go before you say something you’ll regret.” She moves with a new, sexier confidence that’s probably partly from the dress, but maybe also from my stupefied reaction to her in it.
In the car, I sit beside her and try to reconcile the woman in the green dress with the woman who was firing controlled pairs at a paper target yesterday and sitting astride a horse today. All versions are real and dangerous to my equilibrium. The dress just makes it harder to pretend otherwise.
The gala is held at a waterfront estate owned by one of the investors, a man named Castillo, who made his fortune in commercial real estate and now hosts events to remind everyone he still has it. The venue is immaculate, the guest list is curated,and the security is mine, which means Viktor has two men inside and two more at the perimeter. It was the only way I could step in for my mother without compromising my ability to protect Aurora. Castillo is also obsessive about privacy, so there will be no cameras present tonight.
Aurora moves through the room like she did at Echelon, but tonight is different. At the club, she was performing for clients. Here, she’s standing beside me as my equal, and the room reads it. Men who would have approached her at Echelon as a hostess to charm or tip now approach her as a partner to respect, and she handles the shift without a single adjustment to her behavior. The behavior was always this. Echelon just put a job title on it.
We’ve been at the gala for an hour when a man named Garrett crosses the room toward Aurora. He’s an investment banker who handles Caribbean portfolio management for several of Castillo’s partners, and he’s been watching Aurora since we arrived. He reaches her while I’m speaking to Castillo’s wife about a hotel renovation and touches her arm while complimenting her dress.
My reaction is immediate. Something hot and territorial rises through me, and I’m moving toward them before I’ve fully processed the impulse. I don’t make a scene. I don’t raise my voice or make threats or do anything that would register as aggressive to the thirty other people in the room. I simply step beside Aurora, place my hand on the small of her back, and address Garrett by name.
“Garrett, I see you’ve met Aurora.”
Garrett reads the gesture, the tone, the placement of my hand, and he understands immediately. He smiles, complimentsAurora one more time, and excuses himself within fifteen seconds. The interaction is over before it begins, which is exactly how I intended it.
Aurora doesn’t say anything until we’re in the car on the way back. She waits until Fedor pulls onto the coastal road and Viktor is in the front passenger seat before she turns to me. “You claimed me.”
To my surprise, there’s no anger in the accusation. “I stepped beside you.”
“You put your hand on my back, called him by his first name in a tone that said ‘mine,’ and waited for him to leave. That’s claiming.” She still sounds calm.
“He was touching your arm.” I, on the other hand, suddenly sound defensive.
“Men touch my arm every day of my professional life. I handle it.” She keeps her voice low enough that Fedor and Viktor can’t hear, but her calm is fading. “I don’t need to be claimed in public, Adrian. I’m not a territory.”
“I know you’re not.”
She cocks her head slightly, eyeing me like she’s dissecting me. “Then why did you do it?”
“Because I don’t like other men touching you, and the reaction was instinct, not strategy.” I don’t break our locked gazes with even a blink. “I’m not going to pretend it was protective protocol. I saw another man’s hand on your arm, and I wanted it gone. That’s the truth.”
She holds my stare for five seconds, which is a long time in the back of a moving car with two men in the front seat. “The honesty matters more than the jealousy.”
“Is that forgiveness?”
“It’s an observation.” She turns toward the window. “Possessiveness doesn’t scare me. I’ve handled possessive men my entire career.”
“Then what scares you?”
She turns back. “Wanting it.”
The words make her flinch as I blink. She looks like she just handed me a weapon, trusted me not to use it, and is now having second thoughts. She has. She just told me my territorial instinct, the one I should be ashamed of that mirrors every mistake my father made, is something she doesn’t just tolerate. She wants it.
That’s either the most dangerous thing she’s ever said to me or the most honest.
I don’t know which, and from the look on her face, neither does she. I decide it doesn’t matter. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
She’s going to make me work for it. “Do you want me to claim you as mine?”
She turns her head to look at me again. The silence probably only lasts a second but feels like years before she says, “Yes.” That’s it. No follow-up or qualification. She doesn’t try to temper the admission or put conditions on it. She’s acknowledging a fact. That’s not the same as giving me permission, but my pulsestill accelerates as we flirt ever closer to complete disaster or something even scarier that I can’t yet label. I’ve killed men and faced danger, but I can’t initiate a conversation about that.
Apparently, neither can she because she gets quiet and rests her head on my shoulder. I hold her for the rest of the drive, unsure if I should embrace this opportunity or run from it. I suspect my heart already knows my decision. I’m just keeping my brain from catching up to buy a little more time first. Time to prepare for the way she changes everything, and time to adapt. Time to be the man she deserves.
