Page 7 of The Silent Hour

"More than a few," I answered simply, because it was easier than admitting I’d been mentally undressing a man who'd put me in his guest room and fed me.

He didn't push, just watched me with a steady gaze, the kind that made my skin prickle.

"Are you familiar with the name Marcelli?"

The question came out casually. The way someone might ask if I knew a good coffee shop in the neighborhood. And I did know that name. I knew it well, actually, but I had never associated it with any specific person, and I didn’t want to reveal I was aware of his family tree quite yet.

Then I would have to reveal mine and the two had intersected long before the two of us had.

It made me even more intrigued about this man, and a fraction more comfortable. He wasn’t a total stranger to the world I grew up in or around.

That put him on a completely different level than the man I’d drag into my bed. Although, technically, taken me into his.

I took a slow sip of water. The glass was cool against my palm, condensation beading where my fingers pressed.

"Should I be familiar with it?"

He smiled at me, those dimples appearing again. "Some people are."

I laughed softly. “Maybe I’m not some people.”

He studied me for a moment, the smile lingering at the corner of his mouth like he was deciding whether to believe me. Then he set his mug down on the counter and straightened.

"What do you want to do today, Julia?"

I blinked. "You're the one who asked me to spend the day with you," I pointed out, leaning back against the island behind me. "I never agreed to anything. I just haven't left yet. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Absolutely. One is an invitation. The other is a hostage situation with good bedside manners."

That earned me the dimples again. Full this time, both cheeks, and God help me, I felt that response everywhere.

"Fair enough." He crossed his arms, the linen of his shirt pulling tight across his shoulders. "Consider it an invitation, then. What would you like to do?"

I opened my mouth—to deflect, make some joke about going home and nursing my dignity, but his gaze dropped before I could get a word out. Down past my face, past the linen shirt hanging off one shoulder, past the rolled waistband of his gym shorts pooling at my hips, all the way to my bare feet and polished toes.

His brows drew together, just slightly. "Are your regular shoes a six and a half too?"

The question was so unexpected and out of sequence with anything we'd been circling, that I laughed.

"What?"

"Your shoes." He gestured vaguely toward the hallway, where my heels were probably still lying where I'd kicked them off. "I need to know what size you are."

Well, wasn’t he racking up the brownie points? I appreciated a man who'd already thought three steps ahead and was now politely asking for the information he needed to execute.

I pressed my lips together and looked down at my own feet, as if they might tell me something I didn't already know. My toenails were painted a dark burgundy, and his floor was so clean under them, I could see the faint reflection of my own skin.

"They are the same," I answered. Then, because I couldn't help myself: "Why? Are you planning to Cinderella me?"

He didn’t reply, but his boyish grin told me that he'd been planning exactly that and didn't mind being caught.

CHAPTER THREE

BY NOON, WE WERE OUTSIDE, the city unfolding before us with no set destination in mind. The sun warmed the back of my neck as Ethan guided me past the courthouse—a grand, weary building where he said he’d “cut his teeth.”

He pointed out a narrow alley where a cigar lounge hid behind what looked like a speakeasy door, its brass handle worn smoothly by use. Then came a bookstore I must have passed a dozen times without noticing, its window cluttered with stacks of old paperbacks and a discreet sign pointing upstairs to a whiskey bar.