Page 51 of Dishonored

“You can’t still be thinking about it,” Cain said.

“Thinking—considering. It’s all the same, isn’t it?”

“But why?”

“Maybe there’s something there,” Caesar offered, saying nothing more. The less Cain knew, the better it would be for him, anyway. He didn’t like to involve his friend in his schemes when they got to be too dangerous. It was his way of caring, if it were possible. “I don’t think she’s—”

Caesar stepped into his place, dropped the keys into a waiting crystal bowl next to the door, and quieted instantly. It wasn’t the faint hum of Cain in his ear interrupting him with more concerns, or even the fact that the hallway light was turned on when he knew he had shut it off before he left that day. None of that made him hesitate.

“Hey, you okay?” Cain asked. “You went quiet.”

Was he okay?

That distinct floral scent that seemed to be a favorite of Aria’s lingered in the penthouse hallway. It was faint, sure, but un-fucking-mistakable. All at once, it made his blood boil, his dick hard, and his confusion shoot up.

That woman made him a mess.

“Caesar,” Cain said again.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he replied, snapping out of the daze for a second. “I will call you back, all right?”

“What? We’re having a conversation here.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go fuck your wife and blow off some steam.”

“Hey.”

“Later.”

Caesar ended the call, and dropped the phone into the pocket of the blazer he then shrugged off. He also pulled the gun out that he kept hidden in the inner pocket, but left it hanging limp at his side as he walked deeper into his place.

Apparently, it wasn’t just the hallway light that someone had turned on, but also the living room. It was there that he found her—sitting on the chaise that rested in front of the tall floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a busy downtown Philly.

Aria passed him a fleeting glance over her shoulder at his entrance, but little else. She went back to staring out the window as though she had better things to do. “This is a great view.”

Caesar kept a tight hold on his gun—he wasn’t quite ready to lift it or let it go just yet. “How did you get in here?”

“I flirted with the security guard, and told him you were expecting me. A gift from a friend, I said. He fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

The money he paid for good security in this goddamn shithole, and this is what they do? Well, that fucking idiot was going to have to go.

Caesar didn’t say that out loud.

“I suppose they probably see enough women coming in and out of your place that it wouldn’t be such a stretch for one to be sent to you as a surprise,” she added.

“Wrong.”

Her shoulders tensed, but she didn’t turn around. “Pardon?”

“Women don’t come here. I don’t bring them here, either. Ever.”

Which was exactly why the security should know better.

Aria reached for a glass of water sitting on the small table next to the chaise, and picked it up for a drink. The sight made Caesar’s throat tighten—she had gone further than his hallway and living room if she had gotten herself a drink.

“Did you search my place?” he asked.

“What would I find?”