Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Stop talking, Bailey.
"—it's not like I was trying to be dramatic or anything, I'm just apparently a dying whale now—"
STOP. TALKING.
"—sorry. I'll stop."
I want to die.
But then I see something.
And suddenly, I want to live again.
Because his horribly handsome face...
I saw...something.
Not softness, exactly. Nothing about this man could be described as soft. But the hard line of his mouth changes, just fractionally. The corner of his lips twitches, and for a moment—just a moment—he looks almost...
Amused.
At me.
Because I'm ridiculous.
"You weren't brought breakfast," he says. It's not a question.
"I—no. I don't think so. Maybe? I wasn't really paying attention, I was—" Planning an escape from your heavily guarded mansion, "—no."
He picks up his phone, presses a button, and speaks in rapid French that's too fast for me to follow. The only word I catch is maintenant—now—delivered with the kind of impatience that suggests someone is about to have a very bad morning.
He sets the phone down. Looks at me again.
"You're either telling the truth," he says slowly, "or you're the most creative liar I've ever encountered."
"I'm not lying."
"Then you're a problem I don't know how to solve." He rises from behind the desk, and even though I knew he was tall, even though I was literally carried by this man yesterday, the full height of him still catches me off guard. "I dislike problems I can't solve."
He moves around the desk. Toward me.
My heart rate picks up. My breath catches. Every instinct tells me to step back, to put distance between us, but something keeps my feet rooted to the floor.
Pride, maybe.
Or something stupider.
He stops in front of me. Close. Too close. I can smell him again—that cedar and smoke scent that my brain has apparently decided to catalog against my will—and I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
This is fine. I'm fine. I can have a conversation with a terrifyingly attractive mafia king from three inches away without my brain short-circuiting.
Probably.
"In my world," he says, "mercy is seen as weakness. Unknown threats are eliminated. Quickly, efficiently, without hesitation." His voice is low, measured. "By rights, I should have you questioned by people far less patient than myself."
I should be terrified.
I am terrified.
So why is my stupid heart doing something that feels less like fear and more like—
No. Absolutely not. Do not finish that thought.
“But—”
He reaches out.
His fingers catch my chin, tilting my face up toward the light from the windows. It's the same gesture from yesterday—assessing, clinical—but this time his thumb brushes along my jaw, and the touch sends something warm and startling down my spine.
I stop breathing.
He turns my face slightly, like he's examining me. Looking for the lie. The light catches my cheekbone, my temple, and I realize with a jolt that this is exactly how I'd position a subject for a portrait. He's composing a shot. Reading me the way I read photographs.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
Third time.
I'm still counting.
Every time he does it, my pulse goes reckless and my brain forgets how to function. Every time his eyes come back up to mine, I have to remember how to breathe.
This time, when his gaze meets mine, there's something in it I can't name. Something that makes the air feel thick. Something that makes me very, very aware of how little space exists between us.
"You talked back to me," he says softly. "In my own chapel. Surrounded by my men. Either you're very brave or very stupid."
The defiance rises up before I can stop it. The same defiance that got me into this mess. The same defiance that keeps surprising me, like there's a version of myself I'm only now meeting.
"Maybe both."
Something happens to his face.
His mouth doesn't curve. Not quite. But something around his eyes changes—a slight crinkling at the corners, a barely-there shift that suggests the possibility of a smile without actually committing to one.
The almost-smile.
It's devastating.
The almost-smile is somehow worse than an actual smile would be. Because an actual smile I could dismiss. I could tell myself it's just a smile, people smile all the time, it doesn't mean anything.
But this—this almost—feels like something I earned. Something rare. Something he doesn't give to just anyone.
Oh no.
Oh no, Bailey. No.
He releases my chin. Steps back. And just like that, the almost-smile is gone, replaced by cool authority.
My jaw tingles where he touched it. I resist the urge to press my fingers there, to see if his touch left a mark. It didn't. Of course it didn't.
But it feels like it should have.
"Three days," he says. "Prove you're not my enemy, or I'll treat you as one."
Three days to prove I'm not a conspiracy. Three days to convince a mafia king that I'm just a photography assistant who got lost between worlds.
Three days until a wedding I never agreed to.
"And if I prove it?" I hear myself ask. "What then?"