Page 47 of Cozen

“I never say things I don’t mean.”

Sargon closed the passenger door before he said something else. Or rather … did something else.

“You don’t have to walk me right to my door,” Cozen grumbled half-heartedly over her shoulder.

Sargon simply lifted a brow, but said nothing else in response. He lingered a step behind her as she climbed the flights of stairs to her apartment. All the while, occasionally throwing words at him like she wanted him to respond.

Or maybe to see if he would.

Sargon was trying to control his nonsense. Nothing more. That meant keeping his mouth shut, regardless of what he was screaming inside.

Sargon stepped up to the door for Cozen’s hallway as she reached for the handle, and quickly pulled the door open before she could.

“Thanks,” she said, strolling past him.

“It’s what a gentleman does—or so someone told me once.”

That caught her attention.

He was not good at this keeping quiet thing, clearly.

“Who is this someone?”

“My mother,” he admitted. “She once told me that even men who are not entirely good in everything they do can still be gentlemen at the end of the day.”

Cozen came to a stop in front of an apartment with a brass 7 on the door. “And does that mean you’re not an entirely good man, Sargon?”

“I am a lot of things.”

“Is good one of them?”

“Depends on who you ask,” he murmured.

Cozen took her time unlocking the door of her apartment, and once it was opened, she turned to him again. “Thank you for seeing me to my door.”

“My pleasure.”

“Was it?”

He smiled, and caught himself getting lost in memorizing the soft lines of her heart-shaped face. He swore that depending on the moment or situation, Cozen changed in subtle ways. Like a chameleon, he wondered what her true colors were.

“Very much so,” he confessed.

Cozen glanced away before saying, “I think had Jett gotten his way tonight, you would not have needed to see me home at all.”

“I’m sorry?”

“He asked if I would like to spend the night with him. I could pick any hotel in the city, he said, and we would have a room until I was ready to leave.”

Instantly, that burning tightness was back in Sargon’s chest and gut again. Like fire ravaging his insides, and a noose had suddenly tightened around his neck.

Jealousy was a monster.

He did not particularly wear it well.

It seemed Cozen also didn’t miss the heat that flashed in Sargon’s eyes, never mind the sneer that worked its way over his lips. Her soft, almost knowing, smile reflected back at him.

“Do you enjoy that?” he asked.