Page 171 of A Vicious Love

“What?”

“You don’t need to scare anyone.”

“I disagree.”

“It was an alarm, probably just a drill.”

“It was not a drill.”

She tilted her head. “How do you know?”

Because I had caused it. A minor detail. Which was completely irrelevant.

“I know things.”

Her expression changed. Suspicion again, softer this time but there.

Damn.

She was getting smarter around me. I liked that when it involved other men and hated it when it involved me. Reeves approached before she could ask anything more inconvenient.

“Sir,” he said.

I did not look away from Sienna. “Report.”

Reeves was professional enough not to sigh. “Electrical fault in the connected building. Contained. Re-entry approved in stages. Studio staff are being told they can return in ten minutes.”

Sienna glanced at him, then back at me.

“Electrical fault,” she repeated.

“Yes,” I said, as if I had not been informed of that before weaponizing it.

Her eyes stayed on mine for one second too long.

Then she looked away.

Fuck.

I preferred when she believed my lies because they were better structured. The truth was becoming very inconvenient.

A sharper gust of wind came down the street. Sienna shivered again, even inside the coat. My control snapped in the smallest possible way.

I reached for her.

One hand went to her upper arm, the other to the opposite side of the coat, pulling it closed around her like my body had decided she was still cold and therefore the world was failing.

She went still beneath my hands.

“Relax,” I said, then immediately wanted to punch myself in the mouth.

Brilliant.

Tell the frightened woman to relax. A revolutionary strategy. I forced my hands to loosen.

“You’re shivering,” I said, lower.

“I’m just cold.”