Kiara rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath. “Absolutely infuriating.”
“Right back at ya, Firecracker.”
She laughs and sucks in a breath. “I mean, while we’re in the spirit of spilling secrets, I might also have a confession to make.”
My gaze narrows on the little spitfire. “Well, what are you waiting for? Share with the class.”
She cringes, her face really twisting with indecision, and my back stiffens, wondering just how bad it can be.
“Out with it,” I continue. “I didn’t bat an eyelash when you hung my car over the Golden Gate Bridge like a fucking piñata.”
“Yeah, but this was before we found out about each other’s . . . real jobs,” she admits.
I just wait, and she eventually lets out a long breath. “You know that night you were with the redhead, the one who screamed like a banshee?”
I laugh. “Yeah.”
“Yeah . . . She didn’t drug you,” Kiara tells me, nervousness thick in her tone. “I kinda crawled up into the ceiling, pulled your light fitting out of the hole, and got you with a tranq dart. Knocked your ass out cold, too. It was great, and what’s better, I slept like a baby that night.”
My jaw drops. “You . . . what?”
“It’s fine,” she says, a smile widening across her face, truly proud of herself. “I came and checked on you every now and then. You know, made sure you weren’t choking on your own tongue and all that. I even checked to make sure that old condom wasn’t cutting off the circulation to your dick, and honestly, that’s more than any otherneighbor would do for you.”
I’m fucking dumbfounded.
“You . . . Holy fuck. You really are a firecracker.”
She laughs softly, trying to keep as quiet as possible. “I might also have another confession.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask.
“I, umm . . . I think I might have judged you too harshly at the beginning, which is kinda what made this whole thing snowball into this ridiculous need to prove ourselves. But you’re actually really incredible at what you do. I mean, you’re certainly no Iron Viper, but you’re definitely right up there. Right after me, of course.”
I laugh. “Oh, my sweet Firecracker. It kills me that this has been staring you in the face since the moment I moved in next to you.”
She pushes up onto her elbow again, her gaze locking on mine. “What are you talking about?”
“The morning after we first met, when I came and knocked on your door, and you held your laptop up with all the bullshit research you’d done on me. What did you find out?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Not much, honestly. Just that you were some glorified sales rep,” she says. “And for the record, for anybody who actually knows to look a little deeper, that website is terrible.”
I roll my eyes. “Apart from the shitty website, what’d you learn?”
“That you . . . I don’t know what you’re getting at here. Point me in the right direction.”
“My company.”
Her face scrunches, clearly having no idea where I’m going with this. “IV Global?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What about it?”
I don’t respond, just hold her stare, giving her a moment to think it over. “IV Global,” she repeats, as though saying it out loud is going to help connect the dots. “IV . . . Global. I . . . V.”
Her eyes widen, and she scrambles away from me, knocking her IV pole again, but she doesn’t even notice as she stares at me from the end of the bed, her body tense and fearful, looking at me as though she doesn’t know how to feel. And honestly, it seems to be the trend of the night.
“You’re . . . no. That’s not possible. You can’t be him. He’s a legend. He’s . . . I don’t . . . no. It can’t be.Youcan’t be.”
