Page 7 of The Fixer

“It’s bad.”

“No! It’s not—”

“It’s bad. Admit it.”

Her smile was shy but radiant. She looked away, rolling her face toward the ceiling, then the wall to her left, giving me another look at her dimple. Color rose to her cheeks. “Okay. You’re right.” She ducked her head, leaned closer and shrugged. “Maybe it is a little bad.”

“It’s very bad.”

Her laughter rose like bells at Christmas. Her slim hand pressed to her chest, fingers fluttering over her throat. “You’re so bad.”

A hum rolled through my throat. “If you only knew.”

Her grip tightened on my arm and her laughter stopped before her eyes became the color of dark chocolate. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip, and I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined the shiver that raced through her or if I’d just hoped it was there.

“What about you?” I dipped my head, showing her she had nothing to fear. “Eliza?”

“Short for Elizabeth.”

“How very Alexander Hamilton of you.”

Her laughter returned, along with that shy little smile. “What can I say?” she said with a shrug. “My father really loved finance.”

When I hummed again, her eyes were drawn to my throat. They dipped when I swallowed, following my Adam’s apple before raising once again to my face.

“It’s a beautiful name.” A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.

And that girl blushed, her cheeks reddening beyond that gorgeous peachy color she wore so well, and I had to wonder if she heard my thoughts. Or if her beauty had knocked me so off-kilter I’d spoken those words aloud.

She tucked a hair behind her ear, then blinked up at me, looking as if she was going to speak. Before she did, a voice behind me intruded on the little world I’d tucked myself into the moment we collided.

“Eliza? There you are. Where did you disappear to?”

Rather than jerking back, pulling away, doing anything I would have expected, Eliza’s hand reached once more for my arm, clamping down as if asking for help.

“You can’t just go running off,” the man said, his bespectacled eyes dropping to where we were attached. “People are expecting you. Why are you standing here with this man?”

Eliza sucked in a breath, her eyes flashing to me before returning to him. “Forgive me, Niles, I was in the bathroom.” When his eyebrow rose, hurried words tumbled across her pink lips. “I stumbled on my way out, and Jet”—she squeezed my arm— “stopped my fall. I was just thanking him.”

Niles’s head bobbed frantically, the kind of acknowledgement that often came from someone who hadn’t bothered to listen at all. “Of course, of course. Are you ready?”

If a woman like Eliza told me she’d stumbled and almost fell, I wouldn’t be pushing her to move along. I’d stay with her for as long as she liked, listening to her until her laughter rang and her eyes glistened in the sunlight.

But this man, this much older man, with curly gray hair and a belly that drooped over his belt, did nothing of the sort. He raised his hand, curling his fingers quickly as he summoned her to his side.

I wanted to crush him. To throw him out of the building and make it so he never came back. To keep Eliza with me, to hear her beautiful laugh, bask in the heat of her gorgeous smile, find out if her freckles tasted like the cinnamon they reminded me of.

“Eliza,” he demanded when she failed to move at his speed. “It’s time to say goodbye to your father. Everyone is waiting on you.”

Say goodbye.

Say goodbye.

My attention whipped to her face, and my stomach dropped before it did a couple backflips in my gut.

Jesus, how did I not notice it before?

Those dazzling chocolate eyes were rimmed in red. That silky dress that was such a deep green, it could pass for black in certain light. The way she clung to me like she needed the support, the way so many mourners had done to my father’s staff as they awaited the funeral of their loved ones.