Page 87 of Adam
We walk towards the exit, all eyes on us.
“Did you really have a grenade?” she whispers, her eyes fixated on the door.
“Nope.”
“You’re crazy!” she whispers.
“Pick up the pace. I bet they’rethisclose to checking my organs.”
As we reach the exit, the hostess is still there, almost shaking. News travels fast.
“I need my shit,” I mutter, giving her a lazy nod.
She grabs a luggage bag from the floor and offers it to me with stiff arms, keeping as much distance as she can.
“You can stop trembling now.” I smile broadly, giving her a lazy salute. Turning around, I find Isabella rooted to the spot, stunned. “Move,” I growl, pushing her slightly.
The walk to the car is either way longer than I remember, or she’s moving like she’s a snail.
“A little faster, maybe?” I ask, speeding up. “Preferably this decade.”
“Cazzo.”
He turns around and sees me battling the strap strangling my ankle.
“I can’t walk faster in these fucking shoes.”
He curses under his breath and steps up to me. Then he crouches, tears the straps open, frees my feet, and scoops up the shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to move, princess,” he says dryly.
With one sharp motion, he hauls me up in his arm, carrying me princess-style. My arms latch around his neck, while his grip stays firm.
“What are you?—”
“Complain later,” he mutters, already striding ahead.
The driveback feels long and painfully awkward. We don’t exchange a single word, not even a glance in the mirror. The car fills with an unpleasant silence that presses in from all sides. He didn’t turn the radio on this time, and somehow that makes it worse.
Ugh …
A flood of emotions churns in me, swallowing me whole. Anger, jealousy, pride, plus a hundred more I didn’t know existed or that I was even capable of feeling.
He fucking smiled at her.
Why did he smile at her?
But he did—broadly, even. Flashing that gorgeous smile I thought was mine. Why would I think that?
And he let her touch him.
It wasn’t even a real touch. Damn it, it was barely a brush, a stupid little moment no sane person would care about. But it set something off in me, so ridiculous, yet so impossible to reason with.
I mean … what even was that?
Her fingers on his arm for half a second, and suddenly my brain is melting like I’ve been dropped in acid.
