Chapter Two
HERE'S A THING NOBODYtells you about being rescued by a beautiful stranger who refuses to give you his name. You'll think about him. A normal, healthy amount. Constantly. For four days.
So when I walk into the lobby of the nicest hotel I've ever been asked to interview inside of, all marble under my thrift-store heels and a chandelier the size of my apartment and a doorman who looked at my resume folder like it might be a weapon, and I see the back of a very specific set of shoulders across all that marble, I do the mature thing.
"Hey, Mr. H!"
Two hundred people in evening wear turn to look at me, but I only have eyes for one, and that's my dear Mr. H, who now has an adorably pained expression on his handsome face.
For four solid days I've been telling myself I oversold him in my head. That nobody's really that much. That my alley brain was high on adrenaline and made him up.
But...nope.
All of my doubts evaporate at the sight of him. I definitely didn't oversell. If anything, I lowballed. He's so much more handsome than my mind was capable of remembering. And hotter. Because those are two completely different things, and yet he's both, and oh? He's not alone?
I belatedly notice the man next to Mr. H. Black hair, eyes an unfair shade of blue, a suit that probably has its own accountant. The friend watches the two of us with the still, patient attention of a man who bills by the hour and has just been handed something for free.
"You know her?" the friend asks.
"I don't."
Oh, Mr. H.
I love it when he's acting all mafia-boss-cool like this, and oh my gosh! I finally get a proper look at the friend and my brain prints a fact before I can stop it. "Aren't you that famous lawyer who won a case for the mafia guy?"
"Ex-mafia," his friend corrects gravely before studying me with contemplative blue eyes. "Theseus Kartides. And who might you be?"
"Jassy...Beale." My voice fades a little as I shake his hand because now I'm thinking...maybe I got it wrong? Someone working undercover would've been more careful not to be seen with someone like Theseus Kartides, and so...
"Will you tell me your friend's name?" I ask impulsively.
"No." Mr. H, ever the killjoy, is the one who answers me. "He won't."
Theseus looks at us with interest. "What doesHstand for?"
I open my mouth to answer him, but when I see the way Mr. H is glaring at me—
"It's a secret." Smart girls always tell the truth, and so this is the safest answer I can come up with that doesn't require me to lie.
"I see." Theseus's blue eyes are gleaming with amusement this time, and I'm starting to understand why they're friends. They have lots in common, like being handsome and hardly inclined to laugh and—
"May I ask why you're here?" Mr. H's friend asks unexpectedly. "Or is that a secret, too?"
"Oh, not at all. I'm job hunting."
"What happened to your old one?"
"A wise man once told me that no job is worth getting killed," I say solemnly as I turn to Mr. H, "so here I am, just a girl standing in front of a boy..."
Mr. Hstillisn't laughing. Or smiling. But his eyes are also gleaming like Theseus's, and that's good enough to make my heart forget to be careful because it's now thump-thump-thumping like crazy, andmm.Since he seems to be in a good mood...
I dig my phone out and ask, "Will you give me your number?"
I haven't even finished when I see how his expression changes, and I already know he's going to say no, but— "He will."
Thank goodness for Mr. H's friend, who from now on I'll look upon as my guardian angel, with how he's taken my phone out of my hand and starts typing.
"Theseus, dammit."
