Everything looked exactly the same. Everything felt completely different. Because my brain, traitorous bastard that it was, tried walking backward. Back toward the room. Back toward dark hair falling over bare shoulders. Back toward huge angry eyes and dramatic hand gestures and a mouth that apparently existed for two purposes: arguing with me, and ruining my life.
I shoved my hands into my pockets. Absolutely the fuck not. I walked down the hallway. Then kept walking. Then somehow found myself slowing down. I frowned. Why the hell was I slowing down?
I looked over my shoulder. Nothing. Just hallway. No little troublemaker chasing me. No outraged expression. No tiny voice yelling about what a sick bastard I was.
Good. Excellent. Perfect. Then why did I feel annoyed? I hated myself. Actually hated myself. I moved toward the main floor again. The club opened beneath me in black and gold and moving shadows. People swayed beneath hanging lights while expensive perfume mixed with whiskey and smoke and money.
Normal. Everything was normal. I was normal. Completely normal. I wasn't thinking about a girl I'd known for less than an hour. Definitely not.
Halfway toward the staircase, I passed three girls standing near one of the lounges. I recognized them. Her friends.
A blonde looked at me. Then narrowed her eyes. The second girl looked scandalized. The third slowly looked over my shoulder like she expected Aurora to appear behind me. Oh no. Absolutely not.
I knew that expression. Women smelled gossip before it even existed. The blonde looked back at me suspiciously. Then looked at the hallway. Then back at me.
"What have you done?" she asked.
Nope. I kept walking. Because I wasn't doing this. I wasn't stopping for questions. Wasn't answering shit. And I sure as fuck wasn't standing here while they pieced together that I'd disappeared with their friend for almost an hour. Hard pass.
Behind me I heard whispering. I needed to walk faster.
I soon reached the stairs. Then the surveillance room. Then blessed fucking peace. The door swung open. Marco sat exactly where I'd left him. Boots crossed on the desk. Whiskey in hand. Camera feeds covering the entire wall in front of him.
He didn't look at me. Didn't say anything. Just slowly took a sip. Then another. Suspicious. Very suspicious. I narrowed my eyes. "Why do you look like that?"
Marco glanced sideways. "Like what?"
"Like you're about to say something irritating,” I muttered, tossing my blazer over the chair’s back.
He looked back toward the camera screens. Another sip. Long pause. "How'd she taste?"
I stared at him. Marco stared back. Completely serious. I blinked once. Twice.
Then pointed at him. "You've gotten really comfortable speaking to me like this."
He shrugged lazily. "I've survived you for eight years. Fear isn't really part of my personality anymore."
I ripped the mask off and threw it onto the desk. Marco watched me carefully then. Because the jokes disappeared. The smirk disappeared. And I realized he wasn't teasing anymore. He was reading me. Motherfucker.
I looked toward the wall of camera feeds. Toward the hallway outside the private lounge. Toward absolutely nothing.
Then I said quietly, "Like something I shouldn't have ruined."
Marco froze. He leaned forward and gave me the exact same look people gave men standing near cliffs. "Good. Because you're not going near her again."
I laughed once. Short. Dry. "Marco, you don’t get to tell me what to do."
"Don't do that thing where you pretend you don't care,” he said.
"Idon'tfucking care."
Marco stared at me for a long second. Then looked at the camera screen showing the hallway outside the lounge. Then looked back at me. "You've been staring at the same screen for twenty seconds."
"Fuck you,” I hissed, sitting down on my chair and motioning for him to get me a drink. Marco stared at me for another long second after I told him to fuck himself.
Then he sighed. Not annoyed. Worse. The disappointed sigh. I hated that fucking sigh. Because Marco only used it when I was standing five seconds away from doing something catastrophically stupid. The kind of stupid that usually involved blood, bullets, broken bones, or headlines.
The room around us hummed quietly beneath walls of surveillance screens. Camera feeds flickered over black leatherand polished steel, washing the room in shifting blue-white light. Bass from downstairs traveled faintly through the floor beneath my shoes in slow vibrations. Whiskey and smoke still hung in the air from hours of sitting in here.
