AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I went to college, but I wasn’t very academic...’
‘You dropped out?’
‘More like I was invited to leave, which was fine because I had begun to make money with the blog, which seemed so amazing at the time. I’ve always been lucky.’
‘And accident prone,’ he commented.
‘People died in that accident so I was still lucky,’ she retorted.
‘I’m guessing you are a glass-half-full kind of person.’
‘I really hope so...’ She turned her head to look at the glass-fronted building he had pulled up in front of.
* * *
‘I won’t be long.’ He leaned across and snatched the phone she was nursing on her knee.
A moment later he tossed it back to her. ‘My number’s in it, and if you see or hear anything, call me,’ he directed sternly.
It took her a few moments to realise what he meant. Some of her antagonism faded, but she remained sceptical that his caution was warranted.
‘I think Spiros might have been exaggerating the danger.’ Other than the initial couple of distant sirens, which was not exactly unusual, they had encountered nothing that suggested widespread rioting.
‘You might be right.’ He gave a concessionary nod and slid out, closing the door behind him with a decisive click.
Chloe leaned back in her seat, relaxing enough for her shoulder blades to actually make contact with the leather, and she watched him walk away, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, up the shallow steps to the building. He paused for a moment and she heard the decisive click of the car doors locking.
‘I don’t believe it!’
There was no one to hear her exclamation, and her angry bang on the window went unnoticed. Then there was nobody but the uniformed security guard, who’d come out when Nik went in, who just stood there ignoring her, his eyes constantly scanning the areas to left and right.
When Nik reappeared exactly three minutes fifteen seconds later, the two men shook hands and exchanged a few words before the man walked back into the building and Nik got into the car.
Chloe stared stonily ahead as he flung some files onto the back seat. ‘You locked me in.’
‘I didn’t want any looters stealing my car.’
She compressed her lips. ‘That man ignored me—’
‘That man is an ex-marine. He knew what you were doing.’
‘Oh. Do you have a lot of ex-marines working for you?’
‘The transition is not always kind to men who have given their lives to protect us. Dave, back there, flung himself on a landmine and saved three others in his squad, but he lost a leg below the knee.’
Their eyes connected and in his dark gaze she saw something she didn’t want to acknowledge. In seconds the heat banked inside her burst into life, starting low in her pelvis and spreading out until her entire body was suffused by the same blazing fire. The instant conflagration scared her witless... It was a warning, she told herself, a warning that said if she had an ounce of self-respect she’d get the hell out of that car right now.
Panic hit her hard. ‘Stop the car.’ She used the anger when he ignored her to drag herself free of the last of the dangerous languor that lingered in her brain. ‘I said, stop the car,’ she said calmly.
He took his eyes off the road to briefly glance at her face and she could hear the irritation in his voice. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
The only stupid thing she had done so far was getting into this car with him and Chloe had every intention of keeping it that way.
‘You’re acting as though we have unfinished business, but that’s not the case. Look, I spent the night with you, end of story. It is not something I have any wish to repeat.’
‘So you want to pretend it didn’t happen at all.’
The suggestion, his tone, his attitude they all struck a jarring note inside her, so she counted to ten and fought to dampen the resentment she knew she had no right to be feeling.
