Page 25 of Reckless Devotion

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine.” Oh yes, he caught my cover-up.Good. I fold my hands neatly in front of me, waiting.

His whiskey gaze takes a leisurely stroll down my body in a way that makes me bristle. “Oh yes, you are.”

My lips part in outrage, anger flaring in the pit of my stomach. My heart flutters at this dose of the playboy billionaire treatment like the traitor it is. What the hell is with him today? And me, for that matter?

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Whatever this new flattery scheme is.” I lodge a black varnished finger in his direction. “I don’t like it and it won’t work.”

He holds his hands up in surrender. “Just trying to have a joke with you.”

“Well, don’t.” I fold my arms, tilting my nose up.

“Shall we?” He ignores that and saunters toward me like a cheetah on the savannah, all sleek grace and power.

“Shall we, what?” I fight the urge to take a step back, steepling my spine.

“I have a car waiting to take us to one of my manufacturing plants,” he says casually, adjusting the rolled cuff on his shirt. “The name on the passport came back as bogus, but I scanned the image through our security system and the person on that document visited this plant six months ago.”

“What?” I blurt out, my hand leaping to my throat, and despite myself, a kernel of excitement flickers. I love this part of the chase, where the information I’m after dangles before me, just out of reach.

Propping his brows up, he gives me a small, twinkling smirk. He slides large hands into his pockets, broad shoulders straining at the fine material of his white shirt. “Care to mock my investigation skills now?”

Well, shit. He’s got me there. Pressing my shoulders back, I drop my hand and rearrange my features into what I hope is serene indifference. “I’ll give you that one. Lead the way.”

The elevator journey down is painfully slow. Soft classical music serenades us in otherwise awkward silence. To clarify, the awkwardness is all mine, because he looks perfectly at ease. Employees carve a wide path in the busy lobby when they spot him like they’re a shoal of glittering fish and he’s the deadly great white shark. A five-story high chamber that’sall sleek silver and dark marble, with a real tree in the center that grazes the domed ceiling. Yes, a real live tree. A Japanese species, I believe, from the twisted trunk and burgundy leaves.

When we reach the shiny glass and brushed silver doors at the front of the building, he slows, placing a hand at the small of my back to guide me through first. My teeth grind at the barely-there touch through layers of fabric, inciting those pesky tingles again from yesterday. The sound of the city wraps around us, peppered with the clip of his shoes on a sidewalk that should be coated in decades of grime, but instead looks oddly polished.

I swallow my snort when I spot the sleek black stretch town car waiting. Of course the prince of privilege wouldn’t drive himself. He holds the door open for me, and our eyes clash for the first time since we left his office. He’s still got that infernal smirk on his face that seems to say, “I know something you don’t know.”God, he’s an ass. But I’m not, so I offer him a clipped, “Thank you.”

The partition conceals the driver, but they must be aware of our destination because soon after Chase lowers himself into the wide back seat beside me, we begin to move. Something intensely masculine invades my senses, his expensive woodsy smoke and a hint of something sweet. I smooth my leopard-print jeans over my crossed legs and try to take shallow breaths so that it doesn’t do that voodoo thing to my brain. You know, like when you’re in the grocery store and you smell cologne that makes you want to start panting like a dog, but then you turn around and it’s an old man with very little hair? This is kind of like that.

“I don’t bite,” he drawls, turning his rich coffee gaze on me. He’s likely referring to the way I’m nestled against the door—as far away from him as possible. “Not without permission, anyway.”

Do. Not. React. “Glad to hear it.”

A low noise rumbles in his chest, only fleetingly. Like a contemplative hum, but deeper.

I train my eyes on the towering buildings slipping past. Parts of this city can be dull to look at, and at a glance, the financial district might be included. A sea of sandy, grimy white, or grey brick, but I know that all you have to do is look up. That’s where the history is, not at street level where businesses have buffed and polished entrances, but skyward where you get flashes of colonnades or exquisitely carved stone. Sunny and I spent so many days wandering around the city when she first moved here that my neck ached when my head hit the pillow at night.

I feel that ache now, but this time it’s from poor sleep and quite frankly,worry. I had a call with my fancy new attorney this morning, and I’ve been given an arraignment date. I’m told that the court systems are so backed up that getting a date in this quickly means some serious strings were pulled by the state’s attorney. My lawyer says the actual trial date isn’t likely to be for a couple of years, but I’m terrified to hear what the formal charges are against me.

“What are you thinking?”

“About whether I want sausage or chicken for dinner,” I lie, slowly guiding my sight back to him and finding that he is staring at me intently with that X-ray vision again.

“That’s not true.”

I raise one eyebrow slowly. “Unless you’ve developed some top-secret mind reading technology I don’t know about, there is no way you could possibly know what I’m thinking.”

“I am very good at reading people, Peppercorn. I’ll admit, you’re trickier than most, but…” He tilts his head a fraction and a lock of dark hair slides over his tan forehead.

I can’t quite decide if it’s brown or black. In the confines of the car, surrounded by black leather, it seems to gobble upthe light into a deep inky noir. It’s longer on top, tapered down the sides and back, with a slight curl that I’m sure has wrapped around many women’s fingers.