Page 59 of Hunt Me, Daddy

“Yes.”

He did not ask for my card. He did not offer his. He simply stepped half a pace back, giving me the path. That, more than anything else, made me hesitate.

“Ivan Morozov,” I said, testing the name again.

His eyes shifted to mine.

“Kit Calloway,” he replied.

My pulse tripped and my entire pelvic floor clenched, which was ridiculous.

Utterly ridiculous.

I adjusted the strap of my bag and turned toward the workshop rooms. I made it six steps before glancing back, because apparently, I had decided to become a woman in a bad suspense movie with excellent cheekbones and questionable instincts.

He was still standing there. As if the entire hallway could move between us and he would still know exactly where I was.

I looked away first.

Again.

I made it as far as the workshop room door before I knew I wasn’t going in.

The thought of sitting in a chair too close to the front while my body betrayed me was unbearable. I needed thirty seconds to look in the mirror and have a stern conversation with my own reflection about the difference between professional interest and whatever this was.

I turned down the side corridor toward the restrooms.

It was quieter back there. The conference noise thinned to a murmur. I pushed inside, set both hands on the edge of the sink, and looked at myself.

Get it together, Calloway.

I ran the cold tap, stuck my fingers underneath it, and pressed my wet fingers to the back of my neck. I told myself he was a man with a familiar last name and good cheekbones. I told myself I had overshared. I told myself the correct response was caffeine and distance, not whatever my nervous system was currently lobbying for.

It was a good speech. Good enough that I almost believed it.

Then the door opened behind me.

I saw him in the mirror first, which felt right somehow.

“This is the women’s restroom,” I said, not turning around.

“There’s no one else in it.”

“That’s not the part that should concern you.”

“It doesn’t.”

He let the door fall shut behind him. The click of it was very quiet and very final, and my body registered it before my brain finished deciding whether or not to be alarmed.

I was not alarmed.

That was the alarming part.

I turned toward him, because I refused to have this conversation facing away from him. He hadn’t come closer. He stood just inside the door with his hands loose at his sides and thatcontained stillness that made the rest of the world look like it was trying too hard.

“You followed me,” I said.

“Yes.”