Page 14 of Twisted Knight

My name rolls off his tongue but it’s more than his voice that has my breath hitching. It’s him reaching out to wipe a drop of my martini off my bottom lip with his thumb that has my heart thundering in my chest.

It’s a simple action on his part and an extremely complicated reaction on mine. A visceral one that has my nipples tightening and a slow simmer of an ache burning. It’s confusing and fleeting, and I’m chastising myself the minute I comprehend the reaction.

But he sees it too.

It’s in the smirk on his lips and the arrogance in his eyes.

He did that on purpose.

And I gave him exactly the reaction he wanted. Fuck.

I step back and shake my head. He thinks I’m going to fall for that? That I want to fall for that?

“What’s your story?” I ask, needing to understand this. Understand him. Why I’m still standing here.

“I don’t have one.”

“Everybody has one.” He lifts his eyebrows in response. “C’mon,” I say, trying to sound persuasive and not desperate, “I just told you mine.”

“No. You told me your brother’s.”

An exasperated sigh falls from my lips. “His story is mine. Sad, right? We Rothschilds are bound to duties and familial obligations that were predetermined way before we were born.”

“But with two sets of rules.”

“Yes, with two different sets of rules.” I nod, thinking of my brother at the reading of the will the other day. Of his expectation that Gran was going to leave everything to him and then his tantrum when she didn’t. What does the fact that this made me happy say about me? “You’re deflecting, Holden. I asked you first.”

“And yet I don’t owe it to you to answer, do I?”

Our eyes hold and for the briefest of moments I think he’s going to kiss me. I want him to kiss me.

It’s the dark night around us, the gin in my veins, the feeling that someone heard me … and more than anything? An undeniably blatant attraction.

“Holden.” His name is a whisper I don’t even remember saying.

Our eyes hold. His Adam’s apple bobs.

“Good night, Rowan.”

“You’re leaving? Are you telling me there’s something more important than me?” I tease.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” His smile is reserved as he takes a few steps back, his gaze roaming over me one last time. “And I’d opt for sapphires over rubies for you. They’re powerful. Regal. Confident.”

“They’d clash with my dress.”

“Then change the dress.” His gaze darts down to my parted lips. “Enjoy the rest of your evening,” he says and starts to walk away.

“I refuse to believe what they say about you,” I blurt out.

He pauses and looks back over his shoulder at me. “Do you think I care what they say?”

“They’re all wondering who Holden Knight really is. Who he’s going to reel in, chew up, and then spit out.”

He chuckles. “Good. Let them keep wondering.”

“Nice to have met you, Mr. Knight.”

The space between us does nothing to dissipate the electricity of our attraction or my desire for him to stay.