I shook my head. “Not this time.”
He laughed and, God, it sounded nice. Warm and soft. Like a fluffy blanket in winter, wrapped around your shoulders.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” he said.
“How do you know you’re not already on it?” I asked.
He paused for a moment and then I heard a small, soft sigh. It wasn’t like the ones he usually gave. Those long, desperate-sounding ones. “It wouldn’t really surprise me if I was. I think most of my staff feel that way about me.” I sensed a sadness in his voice and took the opportunity to broach the subject.
I turned in my seat. “And why is that?”
“Why is what?” he asked, as if he had no idea what I was even talking about.
“I think the great Ryan Stark has a secret,” I said.
He turned and our eyes met. “Secret?”
“Yup, and God forbid anyone ever discovers it,” I added.
“And what’s my secret?”
“That Ryan Stark might actually be, on occasion—shock, horror, gasp—a nice guy,” I said, feigning a shocked face.
He didn’t turn and look at me this time, and the atmosphere in the car suddenly changed. Oh shit, had I crossed a line?
“I’m not very good at . . .” He spoke softly and slowly. An air of subtle vulnerability in his voice. “Not good at being nice. It doesn’t come easily to me.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t know too many people that take pigeons to the vet, help fix broken bicycle wheels and door locks—even if I didn’t ask—and give strangers a lift to and from work or carry them on their backs when they don’t have shoes.”
There was a silence. “Maybe being nice just comes a little easier with certain people,” he said.
My fingers started to tingle. The tingle moved into my arms, shooting up them and into my shoulders, into my face and then into my lips.
“And what about you and all your secrets?” he asked.
“My secrets?” I tried to sound innocent.
“Are you a criminal?” he suddenly asked. His tone had changed.
I burst out laughing. “A what?”
“I’m asking because you’ve been wearing a wig. And I’m pretty sure those glasses weren’t real either?”
I shook my head. “No. Not a criminal.”
“In some kind of trouble with someone?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said again. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“So you’re not in any danger?”
I shook my head again.
“Not in the witness protection program?” he asked.
“Nothing like that.”
There was a long pause and then he spoke again. “Are your intentions malicious?” he asked. He sounded less playful and more serious now.
