Page 51 of Reign

Every few minutes, her gaze lands on me—light, quick, trying to be invisible. She thinks she’s being clever.

She’s not.

I can feel it on the side of my neck, across my shoulders, down the line of my jaw like she’s touching me from across the room and knows it.

I keep my eyes on the room.

On the exits.

On the waiters weaving between tables.

On the men pretending they aren’t armed because Angelo Amato asked everyone to behave for one night.

On Maksim Korsakov near the far side of the reception, impossible to miss with that candy-colored hair fading at the top of his head like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to look like a Bratva king or a nightclub mistake.

The woman beside him isn’t much better. Pretty. Watchful. Faded red at the ends of her dark hair, like she decided matching him was a personality trait. Reckless little thing, from the look of her. Sharp eyes. Sharper posture. The kind of woman a man like Korsakov either keeps close because he owns her or because he knows damn well he doesn’t.

Elena sits at that table too.

I know because I’m not looking at her.

Because the moment I look at her, it becomes obvious I know exactly where she is.

Beside her is the man from earlier. He watches the room like he expects violence to introduce itself before dessert.

Good.

Let him watch the room.

I watch everything else.

Everything except her.

Because if I look at her, I won’t be able to stop at one look.

No protection.

The thought slices in clean and cold.

I never forget.

Never.

Not once in fifteen years have I let myself get that sloppy.

One lapse.

One fucking lapse, and now the math is running whether I want it to or not.

I’ll have to check on her in a month. Quietly. Make sure nothing came of this.

No.

She’s an Amato. Her family monitors everything. If they believed she was still a virgin, birth control would have seemed unnecessary.

She should have told me.

I should have known enough to ask.