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I slowed to a stop when I saw him leaning against the wall. He lifted his face only to push to a stand when he saw me.
“Hey,” he said softly, shoving his hands into his pockets. A look of regret crossed his features.
Fearing the worse, I said, “Hey,” back in the same quiet, wary tone. All the while, my stomach dipped into my knees with dread. Why did he look so sorry?
“You worked late,” he noted, his gaze drifting over me as if taking note of every inch.
Still feeling as if something was off, I lifted my hand to touch his torso, just inside his open jacket. “I wanted to finalize the deal with the leather company, and then I helped Brick work on the portfolio he’s supposed to turn in to you on Friday. I swear, he doesn’t get around to working until early afternoon every day, and then he has to stay late to get anything finished. Why he doesn’t just come in until one or two, I’ll never know. Seems like it’d fit his schedule better.”
“He’s definitely his own kind of person,” Ezra answered, shaking his head. “But he’s always gotten the work done, so I can’t complain.”
I looked up into his face. He was looking down, not at me. And he wasn’t touching me back.
Insecurities crept in.
But he was here, and nothing bad had happened to us—I hadn’t even seen him since he’d visited Brick’s office this morning—so I couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation as to why I felt like something awful was about to happen.
“Come on in,” I invited, dropping my hand from his warm ribcage so I could move to my door. But he didn’t follow me.
“I’m not staying,” he said, his voice so quiet I could almost pretend as if I hadn’t heard him. Except, oh, I’d heard him loud and clear.
I took a moment to breathe in deeply, preparing for, well, anything. Then I turned and looked up into his face. He looked sorry again.
“What’s going on?” I asked, reaching for his cheek. He caught my hand before I made contact, but only so he could help me press my fingers to his face. Then he closed his eyes as if he relished the contact.
When he opened his lashes to study me, he gently removed my touch from him. “What Hayden said today,” he started. “It’s starting to sink in.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, not sure what that meant.
Sighing as if exhausted, he rested his back against the wall beside my door and closed his eyes. “I had two flat tires at the office when I left work.”
Not expecting that, I stepped toward him. “Oh my goodness. Two? That’s crazy. Did you drive through a construction zone or something? Pick up some stray nails in the road?”
“No.” He shook his head and ran his hands over his face before finally looking at me directly. “The repairman said he found a similar cut in each tire, on the sidewall a couple inches from the rims, which he then mentioned was the best spot to slash a tire.”
My mouth dropped open. “What? Someone slashed your tires?”
He shrugged, way too nonchalantly for my taste. “Appears that way.”
“Wait.” I clutched his arm. “You don’t think…” My eyebrows lifted. “Lana? Do you?”
“I don’t know what else to think,” he muttered, pushing away from the wall so he could pace the hall. He ran his hands through his hair and cursed under his breath. “The timing is right. She’s the only person who I know with a certainty has any kind of beef with me. And slashing a tire is a trite, immature, vindictive move, which is totally up her alley.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I hugged myself and watched him stalk the floor one way and then the other. I wanted to apologize, but I’m not sure what for. It just felt as if this never would’ve happened to him if I hadn’t gone outside into the courtyard with him during the Halloween party. Yet, I couldn’t regret that night, because dammit, it’d been too magical.
Stopping suddenly in front of me, he turned to look into my eyes. “If this was Lana, and she is coming after me because I was seen with a woman in the elevator, then Carmichael was right. I don’t want you caught in the crossfire.”
“But—”
He cut me off with a kiss, a warm, soft, achingly precious kiss where he cupped my face in his hands as if he were saying goodbye. Then his lips slid reluctantly away from mine. “Right now, it’s just between me and her. You don’t have to be involved at all. And I’ll be damned before you get hurt because of me.”
He took a step backward, his blue gaze full of turmoil.
I lifted my eyebrows. “Don’t you think I have a say in that?”
Shaking his head, he began to back away from me. “Not this time.”
I scowled and set my hands on my hips, not at all ready to say goodbye like this. “What about everything you said last night? That you weren’t going to let an obstacle like Lana come between us?”
