What the fuck, Tobias? Get your shit together. She works for you.
“I need someone to go with me to meetings. Make sure everything I sign is legit. Make sure this transfer of power is beyond reproach.”
She watches me for a second, and then she does something I don’t expect. She nods without protest.
“I can do that,” she says.
“Good, then let’s go.”
Her eyebrows pinch together. “Where are we going?”
“So many questions from one little mouth . . .” I trail off as I stand. Not giving her time to object, I start to walk. From behind me, I can hear her heels hitting the concrete as she scampers to catch up. This is going to be fun. Or it’s going to be the death of me.
Either way, it’s a hell of a way to go.
Skye Matthews is my obsession. My past.
My future.
My downfall.
12
Skye
This man is trying to kill me. Not literally. Figuratively. But he will be the death of me. That’s for sure.
If I could wipe the smug look off his face, I would. I would use a bleach-covered towel and hope the fumes burned his eyes out, too! Eyes that I know were checking me out.
The worst part about this whole thing is that I liked it. Every look, every glance, and every smug gesture. I should have been mortified, but I wasn’t.
Sure, at first, I was. But the moment I saw his eyes dilate with lust, all thought of embarrassment went out the window. Now that I’m dressed in his shirt, it’s even worse.
It smells like fresh dry cleaning and hints of his cologne. The way his fragrance wraps around me shouldn’t make my belly warm.
And now my face is getting hot.
I hope he doesn’t notice.
Sparing a glance at him, I see he’s still looking at me. And instead of lust, I see ownership.
He likes how I look in his clothes, and fuck my life, I like how it feels. I cannot be around him for too long if this is how he makes me feel when he looks at me. As I look back at him, well—he makes me think things I shouldn’t.
Like how his hands would feel on my hips. What his lips would taste like during a kiss.
I have to focus on the job at hand and not his body.
Twisting my hands on my lap beneath the table, I wring out my anxiety. I’ll never let him see that he has me all worked up. I have mastered my façade, and no drop-dead gorgeous asshole is going to make me take that down.
“Now that you have me here, care to tell me what we are doing today?” I ask.
“Today, we have a meeting with Trent Aldridge.”
He doesn’t need to explain who that is. I’m well versed in mafia underworld bullshit. The hedge fund manager to the corrupt. This should be interesting.
Together, Tobias and I head to a car in the underground parking lot—a shiny, brand-new Range Rover—but something tells me this isn’t a run-of-the-mill Range Rover. This one has all the bells and whistles.
“I bet it’s even bulletproof.”
“It is,” Tobias responds, and that’s when I realize I mumbled it under my breath, and he could hear me. I have to stop doing that, or I’ll blurt out something really bad. Like what cologne is on this shirt? How do your kisses taste? Ugh. Stop. This. Skye.
“Nice.” I grunt as a man I have never seen before swings open the door for me.
“Thank you, Leo.”
“Thank you,” I respond as a mimic, then shimmy into the back seat.
It’s so freaking cold in here with the air on full blast, but it doesn’t matter because, as he slides in next to me, Tobias Kosta steals all the oxygen from the small space between us. The car might as well be a million degrees Fahrenheit.
My face is warm. My hands are warm. My whole damn treacherous body is warm. I take a deep inhale and then push the air out of my mouth.
“You okay over there?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?” I can hear the taunt in his voice. I need to rein in my emotions. Normally not one to give anything away, this man reads me like a Skye Matthews for Dummies book.
“I’m fine. Totally fine.”
As soon as we pull out of the underground space, I turn to face out the window, trying desperately to calm myself and not pay attention to the man beside me. I do a damn good job for about four seconds. That’s when he places his hand on the center console and brushes it against mine. I pull back as if burned.
Turning to look at him, I see he’s reading something on his phone and has no concept of the turmoil he is causing me.
Bastard.
I turn back to look outside, and this time, I watch the road as we drive uptown. In typical New York fashion, there’s traffic, and it takes way too long to make it to our destination. The morning has only just started, and I’m already exhausted by my own inner ramblings. Will today ever end?
I look down at my phone. Great. Just great. It’s only nine twenty.
A full day ahead of me and no way to escape.
“Already planning your escape?” he says, and I pivot to look in his direction. How does he do that? So not fair.
“Why yes, actually. Believe it or not, my life doesn’t revolve around you,” I snip back.
“See, that’s funny because here I thought it did.” His lips part. “Or at least that’s the impression Seth gave . . .” Gritting my teeth together, I refuse to fall into his trap. “No response? No funny little comeback? That’s a first.”
Nope. Not going to do it. The car goes quiet again. He’s finally realized he won’t be able to lure me into this battle. He goes back to whatever he was doing, and I go back to what I was doing.
I swear, the moment the car rolls to a stop, I’m unbuckling my seat belt and moving to open the door and escape.
“Not so fast,” I hear from beside me.
“What?”
“My team needs to do a sweep.”
His team. That’s when I notice we aren’t the only car parked in this garage. In front of us is a similar Range Rover, and there is one behind us as well.
A caravan. I’m in the middle of a freaking caravan.
Decoy vehicles.
The kind of stuff you only see in movies. For the first time in my life, I realize just how dangerous my life is.
No. Not true. I’ve been in more—
“All clear now. Are you coming?” Tobias’s words break through my memories. I push them down.
Now is not the time to think about that. In order to get through the day, I don’t think about anything from my past. That doesn’t mean I don’t catch myself wanting to rub at my wrist to calm the pounding in my heart. But I don’t.
Instead, I take a deep breath.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Push all thoughts away other than this meeting.
I follow Tobias as he leads us to a bank of elevators. The doors open, and his men walk inside first. It’s crazy that these men have been with us the whole time, yet I never noticed them.
Were they in my office building that day he came to see Seth? Were they in this morning when I grabbed my files?
I look at them with my eyes narrowed.
“You have a question?” he asks.
I turn to face him. “Were they with us the whole time?”
“They go where I go.”