Page 121 of Hidden

And stopped.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. For one suspended, breathless second, all he did was stare.

His eyes moved over me slowly, first catching on the jacket, then on the bare skin of my thighs, then climbing back to my face. And the expression that settled over him was far more dangerous than shock. It wasn’t softness either. It wasn’t even relief. It was something darker than all of those things. Something possessive. Something that looked almost painful in its intensity.

I tilted my head, forcing myself to hold his gaze even though my pulse was thundering in my throat. “Good evening, Mr Vice President.”

His jaw clenched. I saw the pulse jump in his throat, saw the way his fingers flexed at his sides as though he was physically restraining himself from crossing the room and taking hold of me. When he finally spoke, my name sounded wrecked on his tongue.

“Gabriella.”

There was no humour in it. No trace of the boy who had once grinned at me like I was the punchline to his favourite joke.

“Well,” I said softly, because I couldn’t bear the weight of that silence for another second, “that’s no welcome at all.”

He shut the door behind him without looking away from me. The click of the latch seemed to echo through the room, making the air feel even tighter, even heavier.

“You should not be here,” he said, though the words lacked any real force. If anything, he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“No?” I asked, keeping my tone light even though my body was strung so tight it ached. “Because I seem to remember spending quite a lot of time in your room once upon a time.”

“That was before.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “I know.”

His gaze dropped again then, slower this time, tracing the line of the jacket over my body, taking in what I had done and why. I watched the exact second understanding hit him. The exact second he realised this was deliberate. That I hadn’t come here in a blind panic. That I had come to him on purpose and dressed for the significance of it.

“I thought we weren’t playing with fire anymore?” he asked me.

“I decided you were worth the pain of the burn,” I whispered back.

He moved forward then. And with every inch he closed between us, my resolve began to tremble beneath the weight of what I had set in motion.

When he stopped in front of me, he was close enough that I could smell the outside on him—cold night air, faint smoke, leather, a lingering trace of whiskey. Close enough that if I leaned forward, my mouth would brush his stomach through his shirt. But I didn’t move. I made myself sit there and hold his stare.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve,” he said quietly.

“I know.”

“You snuck into my clubhouse.”

“I did.”

“You’re wearing my fucking cut.”

“I am.”

“And you’re looking at me like you don’t understand why I’m trying not to lose my fucking mind right now.”

That almost made me smile. Almost. Because beneath the heat of it, beneath the adrenaline and the recklessness and the dangerous thrill of being here, there was something far sadder sitting beneath it all. Something desperate enough to make my chest hurt.

“I didn’t come here for a fight,” I said softly.

His laugh was sharp and humourless. “Then what the fuck did you come here for, Gabriella?”

I held his stare for a second longer before slowly pushing myself to my feet. The jacket slipped lower on my shoulders as I stood, and his eyes followed the movement instantly. I took hold of the lapels and shrugged it off, letting it slide down my arms until it fell soundlessly to the floor between us.

The room changed.