"I've been thinking."
"About?"
"Exit strategies." I pick up my fork. The food is exceptional, which is the most offensive thing in this building. "How many people know I'm here?"
"Relevant personnel."
"How many is that?"
"Enough to keep you alive. Not enough to get you killed."
I chew. Swallow. Look at the art on the dining room wall. A dark, abstract canvas — all shadow and a single slash of red. Someone hung that on purpose. Someone who understands negative space.
"Did you choose that painting?"
Luca glances up. "Yes."
"It's violent."
"It's honest."
I look at him for a moment longer than I mean to. "That's either the most pretentious thing I've ever heard or the most self-aware."
The corner of his mouth moves. Not quite a smile. Close enough to be distracting.
I look back at my food.
Don't look at his mouth. Don't look at his mouth. Don't?—
I'm looking at his mouth.
The hard line of it. The way the lower lip is just slightly fuller than the upper. The way he presses them together when he's thinking, like he's holding back words he's already decided not to say.
I think about that mouth on my throat.
Then I stop thinking about that mouth on my throat because I am at brunch and I am a professional and I have lost my goddamn mind.
I reach for my water glass.
His hands. I keep coming back to his hands. Large. Controlled. The kind that wrap around a whiskey glass like they know how much pressure everything deserves. The same hands that caughtme in that car, wrapped around my arms for three seconds I'm still thinking about.
What those hands would feel like slower. More deliberate.
Fuck. Stop.
"You keep looking at the door."
"Occupational habit. I always know my exits."
"So do I." His eyes don't leave my face. "You won't make it past Raf."
"I wasn't planning on tonight."
"When, then?"
I meet his gaze directly.
Mistake.
