For a second, her blood ran cold as her eyes darted over the fighters and then the audience, searching for a matching head of short, red hair. Instant relief swept her, though the dread hadn’t vanished altogether, forming a pit in her stomach. He could still be here in this building.
“Something wrong?” Drake’s voice drawled in her ear, accompanied by a rush of breath.
She tilted her head away from the brute. “I’m just in awe of the scene.”
“Still pretending, are we?” the brute countered.
She glared at him. “Pretending what, exactly?” She wouldn’t offer up the truth just because he knew it. If he wanted to allude to something, he’d need to point it out!
“That you’ve never been to a fight.”
“This may come as a surprise to you,sir, but I haven’t. This is my first.” She only knew about her brother’s moniker and all that through his loud boasting on nights he gathered with his friends, and quite honestly, because of that, she’d always found such events distasteful. After all,hehad enjoyed them, so they couldn’t be all that great.
“That so?”
Drake’s tone annoyingly slid over her like midnight silk. Could the man sound less provocative, please? “Yes, thatisso.”
“Then I must be mistaken.”
She eyed him. “Mistaken about what?”
He shrugged. “You seemed to be looking for someone just now.”
“I am merely observing,” she replied crisply, heart secretly hammering athisobservation. She hadn’t realized she’d been that obvious. “A woman can look without having an ulterior motive, can’t she?”
“It’s funny that you should use that particular phrasing.”
Curse this suspicious man. Her eyes locked with his. “It’s why you brought me here, correct? Just as it’s why you took me to your dungeon.”
“Mm.” His gaze dipped down her body before returning to her face with laziness. “Is that what you were doing the other night? Observing?”
Her pulse skipped. So here it was. A direct question.
There was no use in denying the truth. Not with a dog who’d sniffed out a bone. She would, however, stick to the story she’d parted with that night as well. Perhaps if she repeated it enough times, he’d believe her. Denial saved lives.
“I stumbled in by accident,” Violet muttered.
He grinned at her. Wickedly. “Finally admitting it?”
“Why not? You already knew.”
“You might have saved us both some trouble and admitted the truth the moment I first came to you.”
“But then I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of locking you up in your own dungeon,” she quipped, unable to resist. “I’m curious. Howdidyou recognize me?”
He reached out and caught a tendril of hair between his fingers. “Quite an unforgettable color.” Leaning in closer, he said in a low tone, “Quite an unforgettable voice.”
She barely managed avoiding clutching her heart at that. “What a memory you have then, since we’d never formally met.”
“One glance, one sentence is enough.”
What an inconvenient skill. “How fortunate you are.”
He brought the tendril of hair up to his nose and inhaled before letting it slip through his fingers. “Your life,” he murmured, “happens to intersect with mine rather suspiciously of late.”
What the devil?
Violet almost caught that same tendril and gave it a whiff as well.Don’t rise to the bait, Vi.“A coincidence,” she said, feeling pressed.
