Page 86 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
Not all at once. She fights it with admirable spite, blinking hard, mouth tightening as if she can glare exhaustion into submission. Then her head drops against my shoulder, her hand still caught in my shirt, and the tension drains from her body by degrees.
I reach her door before she is fully under.
It opens before I touch the handle. A guard on the inside corridor must have called ahead, because one of the housemaidsstands there, pale and silent, with the bed turned down and a glass of water on the nightstand.
I give her a look.
She disappears.
Maya stirs when I carry her inside. “Children?”
“Asleep.”
“Heath?”
“Watched.”
“Erin?”
“Also.”
“Omar?”
“Unfortunately alive.”
Her mouth moves against my jacket.
That might be a smile.
I lower her onto the bed carefully. She resists when I try to release her, fingers tightening once in my shirt, not enough to hold me but enough that I feel it.
For a moment, I stay leaned over her.
Too close.
She is half-asleep, hair spread over the pillow, face softer than she would allow if she were conscious enough to control it. The woman who threatened me in my study is still there. The agent. The sister. The aunt. The liar. The weapon. All of it remains.
But there is also this.
Exhaustion.
Trust she didn't mean to give.
A promise about a reward she will probably regret when the sun is up.
I should step back.
Instead, I reach down and brush a strand of hair from her cheek.
Her eyes open just enough to find mine.
“Don’t look so smug,” she murmurs.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Perhaps a little.”
