“Your palm, miss?” he says. He holds out his right hand, palm up, offering my hand a place to nestle. I hesitate, because his hands were in unknown locations just hours ago.
He tilts his chin, arches an eyebrow.Please?
I place my hand gently in his, so light it almost doesn’t touch his skin. But the warmth is still there. The electricity.
He bends over my hand, studying it. “Ah, yes. Lovely.” His left pointer finger traces the long, curved line that etches along the base of my thumb. His touch is light as a butterfly. His finger trails toward my wrist, toward my blue thrumming veins.
“You’ll have a long life,” he says. He looks deep into my eyes, his silver-green eyes shining. “That’s good.”
I lean closer to see my own hand. The lines there seem foreign, unfamiliar.
Our heads are almost touching.
His finger moves up to the next wrinkle, the line cutting across the middle of my palm. “The head. You’re smart as awhip.” He runs his finger back and forth across it. It tickles and it feels like walking a tightrope. Dangerous and exciting. “Ah, but you’re stubborn!”
I can’t help it. I burst a quick laugh.
He shifts his attention to the line at the top of my palm, under my fingers. “The heart line.” He’s whispering now. Pax traces the length of the line, and I shiver. His forehead crinkles. “It’s very hard to read, your heart.”
That part is true.
“Damn, is it hot in here?” Kiyoko asks. William laughs, but I don’t look at either of them. They are miles away. I am lost in silver-green pools, sparkling and mesmerizing.
“You don’t really believe all this, do you?” I smile at him, and I feel the heat in his hand react to my smile.
“Aristotle said, ‘Lines are not written into the human hand without reason.’?”
“Aristotle,” I say with a teasing smirk.
“Oh, yes. I’m also a philosopher.” His face pulls into that sideways grin, and his dimple appears. “A manager and a philosopher.”
The air between us is so charged, so thick, it’s like I’m engulfed in heady incense. Or perhaps Spirit is sending me that sensation. Or perhaps it’s the actual incense we’re burning here in the Bureau. At any rate, I’m entranced. “I—” I stammer.
The bell over our shop door rings.
“Max Blanck! He’s coming here.”
It’s Clarice. The spell is broken. Clarice… Max Blanck…here?!
I would expect Pax to toss my hand aside, to leap up, beginpacing, but he does none of these things. Instead, he twines his fingers with mine, like the roots of a tree hugging a rock. He’s seeking an anchor. Stability. His eyes stay locked on mine, pleading.
Clarice notices this. Clarice notices me noticing this.
Pax tears his gaze away and narrows his eyes at her. “Max Blanck. Here? When?”
Clarice exhales as calmly as she can. “Now, Pax.Now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Dammit, Clarice! Here? Now?!” This is when Pax tosses my hand aside and leaps up. “You said you’d get us an appointment inside his penthouse. The blueprints can only get us so far—we need to see the actual layout of his place.” He’s pacing the creaky wooden floors of Julia’s Bureau, gnawing on his thumbnail: the very picture of exasperation. Spirit offers me the image of a bear trap, its metal jaws open, teeth bared.
My jaw tightens, and ice creeps through my veins.Blanck. Here. NOW.
Clarice tosses her mane of glossy blond hair and fake-laughs. “Pax,darling. I tried. He would not allow that, but he agreed on coming here to interview you.”
“Where is he?” Kiyoko asks. She rushes over to start making a cup of tea. She’s adjusting our plan. Smart.
“Outside. He stopped at the stables next door to place a bet on some ponies. Thank God he did, too, or you would’ve had no warning.”
