Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
The music and chatter subsided downstairs, indicating most guests had left. The host had spent the entire party here. With me.
Sure enough, we hadn’t talked.
Not a single word.
I broke the silence first. “I’m going to have to think about my next move.”
I rubbed my cheek, jutting out my lower lip. I hated losing. Plus, I wasn’t even sure what getting out of the lion’s den would look like.
This afternoon, before I’d arrived, I’d parked my car two blocks away from his mansion with the intention of strolling to it, prized pendant safe in hand.
Obviously, I’d gotten too cocky.
Zach’s eyes didn’t budge from the board. “You’re about to lose.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
I stood, stretching my arms and feigning a yawn. He rose to his feet, too, that scowl still wilting his lips.
I snapped the stone bowl shut. “Well, thank you for th—”
“When will we finish the game?”
He removed his phone from his pocket and thumbed through it. His calendar app flashed before me. Goodness, it didn’t even occur to him that I’d say no.
His thumb shot up with each scroll, probably sorting through dates convenient for him. “Tomorrow is no good for me, and I have a meeting in London the next day, though I will not be staying overnight.”
My jaw clamped shut with an audible snap.
It shouldn’t have surprised me. Zach wanted to be challenged. No, he needed to be challenged. Everyone around him bored him.
Unfortunately for him, I would rather drive home blindfolded and handcuffed than spend another second in his presence.
I scratched my cheek. “I, uh, have a busy schedule.”
“More parties to crash?”
I smoothed a hand over my dress, my palm sweaty. “That’s rude.”
“But not wrong. Who are you?”
His eyes were like two barrels of a gun, digging into the soft flesh of my temple, threatening to pull the trigger.
Death lurked behind those eyes. I wondered what they’d witnessed to suck the soul out of them.
“I’m a guest.”
“I’d remember if I invited you.”
“I’m someone’s plus one.”
“Name that someone.”
Would it kill him to budge?
I conjured the name of a man I guessed would be here. “Pierre Toureau.”
A client of mine. A very wealthy one. He owned restaurants, malls, and a fleet of Mid-Atlantic conservatories.
I bet Zach had invited him and his pretty grad student daughter Anamika.
A vein bulged in his neck. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Interesting. Does his wife know?”
Shit.
“I’m his niece.”
“The one from France?”
“Y-yes.”
“Where are you from in France?”
Jesus.
He wasn’t supposed to be hot and smart.
Again—not a surprise. Just alarming to be on the receiving end of a lethal dose.
“Uh… Yes?”
He shook his head, like I was a lost cause.
“You’re not one of us,” Zach concluded, hands resting in the pockets of his slacks, jaw harder than the granite surrounding us.
Shit.
Also—screw you.
“How do you know?”
“For one thing, you’re wearing a nightgown.”
Double shit.
It was the only dress of Reggie’s that didn’t have feathers, leather, or other dead animal parts. Should’ve known it was too good to be true.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I kept my chin up, retreating a step, my fingers patting my surroundings, searching for a weapon. How much jail time would I get if I clubbed him with one of these sleep-inducing finance textbooks he couldn’t possibly have finished? “It’s okay not to like my dress, but don’t offend it. I don’t tell you that you look like a penguin in that tux.”
He stalked toward me, stoic and unrelenting. “Give it up, little octopus. You’re wearing holed sneakers.”
Little octopus?
What?
“They’re comfy. You never know when you need to make a run for it.”
Another step back.
“Now would be a good time.” He stopped about ten inches from me. Close enough to be intimidating, but far enough not to touch me. “I’ll even give you a head start, seeing as you’re such easy prey.”
He underestimated me.
Normally, I loved proving people wrong. But with Zach Sun, I doubted my own abilities. Both physically and intellectually.
I extended my neck to look him in the eyes. At 5’8”, I wasn’t often dominated by men, but Zach made me feel miniature. Smashable as a tender teenage heart.
He was lean, tall, and muscular. Proportioned like a Roman sculpture.
Everything about his face was divine. The arches of his thick brows. His bottomless eyes—so dark I couldn’t see where the pupils ended and the irises started. And the pillowy, hand-drawn lips any woman would die to call her own.
They were all bracketed inside a jaw so square, between cheekbones so high, he looked half-human, half-demon. An art collector that was a work of art himself.
“Look…” My back hit the door. I grabbed the knob digging into my lower back on instinct.
The pendant behind him all but winked at me.
Fuck.
I needed to return for it somehow. By inviting me back, he’d offered me a gift, packaged with sharpened spikes and wrapped in poison ivy. But a gift, nonetheless.
Too bad I didn’t trust either of us to open it.