Page 82 of Reign

Almost nothing.

I notice anyway, because I’m apparently studying him with the focus of a woman preparing for war or public humiliation, whichever arrives first.

Do not look at his hand. Do not.

Do not look at his perfect hand on the steering wheel.

I look.

Of course I look.

Only through my peripheral vision, which does not count as looking. It’s not my fault if his hand exists inside my available field of vision. That’s biology. That’s physics. That’s probably his fault somehow.

Long fingers. Clean nails. A watch at his wrist. One hand steady at the wheel like the road obeys him too.

I want to look properly. I can’t. Because if I look properly, he’ll know.

Because even with his eyes on the road, I can feel him watching me. That makes no sense. His eyes are forward. His profile is calm. His expression is steady in a way that should be illegal for men who have cheekbones like that.

Still, I know.

He’s watching me. Not with his eyes. With everything else.

The silence. The stillness. The way he hasn’t mentioned Elite which may be a good thing. Maybe he doesn’t know. But it could be worse. He could mention the bathroom or the blood.

He could be saving it all. Then later mention the fact that I submitted an inquiry to his club under a fake name like a woman having a psychotic break with Wi-Fi.

I unlock my phone and open my socials. Normal women scroll social media in cars. Normal women sit beside devastating cartel men and look at coffee, outfits, dogs, engagement rings, sad beige nurseries—whatever the algorithm has decided is spiritually relevant.

I stop on a girl holding an iced matcha in front of a bookstore and stare at it like it contains the answer to surviving the next twenty minutes without combusting into a slutty little pile of ash on Luciano Castillo’s passenger seat.

The matcha girl smiles up at me, bright and stupid and free of consequences.

I hate her.

The air-conditioning blows harder. I’m still hot.

My face is definitely oily now. I can feel it. I can feel my skin betraying me. My nose. My forehead. The delicate area around my mouth where makeup always decides to separate when life becomes unbearable.

Don’t dab your face.

If I dab my face, he’ll know I’m sweating. He probably already knows I’m sweating.

He probably noticed before I did.

It seems like he notices everything.

I’m sure he noticed something at the airport—the nerves, the heat in my face, the way my hand probably felt too tense when his fingers closed around mine. Then he said come with me, princesa, and I did, just like that, as if the word had found something in me and pulled.

My stomach flips again. Horrible. Humiliating.

Deeply inconvenient.

I swallow and keep staring at the matcha. Maybe if I stare long enough, I’ll become matcha. Cold. Green. Emotionally unavailable. Luciano turns the wheel with one smooth motion. The SUV glides into another lane. His sleeve shifts. His watch catches the light.

I stop breathing.

“Elena.”