I stared. “Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“It’s three in the afternoon.”
“So you have plenty of notice.”
Despite everything, a laugh slipped out of me.
His mouth curved slightly at the sound, but his gaze never left mine. “Seven,” he said. “Can I pick you up this time?”
There was something dangerously unfair about the way he asked it. Just certain enough to make it very hard to remember all the reasons I should have hesitated.
Maybe I should have.
Instead, I heard myself say, “Okay.”
Something in his face changed at once. Satisfaction, maybe, alongside something warmer I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“Seven, then.”
He pressed a final kiss to the corner of my mouth, brief enough to feel gentle after what had just passed between us, and then he pulled back properly, leaving me dazed on my own sofa with food on the counter and my pulse still refusing to act normal.
I watched him go a few minutes later with far too much awareness and by the time the door closed behind him, one thing was painfully clear.
It wasn’t my safety that was in the most danger anymore.
It was my heart.
CHAPTER 9
EMILY
“He’s probably old money,” Nora said through a mouthful of cereal.
At least, I thought that was what she said.
I was too busy staring at the enormous bouquet of lilies that had just been delivered to my door.
“Sorry, what?”
I buried my nose in the flowers, breathing in their soft, expensive perfume with an undignified amount of pleasure. That was the thing about Pietro. He listened to everything. A few days ago, in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation, I had mentioned that lilies were my favorite flowers. I hadn’t thought about it again.
Apparently he had. Because here they were, beautiful and very much not in season, sitting in my arms like proof that the man missed nothing.
Nora pointed her spoon at the bouquet. “I said that man is taking game to a whole new level.” She shook her head. “I’m sending Jared a picture. He needs to improve immediately, because in comparison my boyfriend is underperforming.”
“Pietro is not my boyfriend,” I said without thinking.
Nora’s brows lifted. “No?”
I shifted the bouquet in my arms and tried very hard not to sound as unsure as I suddenly felt. “I mean…not officially. We haven’t had that conversation.”
“That is not a no.”
“That is also not a yes.”
She made a vague motion with her spoon, like labels were beneath her. “Fine. Mysterious almost boyfriend, then.”
