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She gave me a disappointed frown.“Guys like that can have any woman in the room. It has to feel like a challenge. But you stared at him and showed all of my cards.”
The rest of that night, she was a grouch, especially when we watched the tatted-up man leave with a leather-clad bottle blonde an hour later. I won’t make that mistake again.
“You definitely cannot look,” Natalia says. She drops her eyes to the bar top. Her face is pale, making her pink blush stand out even more. “Do not under any circumstances turn around, okay?”
“What is it?Whois it?” I’m bouncing with excitement. Maybe I am pathetic if this is enough to get my adrenaline pumping.
Natalia looks up at me slowly. She’s rearranged her face into an unnaturally relaxed expression. She looks like a dog who got into a tray of pot brownies and is trying to play it cool when his owners come home. “Stay perfectly still, okay? Or no, scratch that: be natural. Be normal. Er—shit, I dunno. Kirill just walked in the door.”
Instantly and without any control over my body, I spin in my stool.
The seat rotates so quickly that my arm actually bounces off of the bar top and sends me back in the other direction. I have to grab the wooden ledge with my fingers to stabilize myself. All the while, my eyes are pinned on the tall, dark-haired man who just waltzed in to ruin my life again.
Kirill’s green eyes are almost golden in the bar light, glowing as he stares right back at me. For a second, I’m mesmerized by the hazel undertones in his eyes, the dark shadows across his cheekbones. He’s a beautiful optical illusion. The longer I look at him, the more I’m convinced he isn’t real.
“He can’t be here,” I say, still looking straight at him.
Natalia grabs my arm and spins me around. The seat must have been oiled recently because I almost go flying again. My ribs smash into the bar, and I wince. “Ouch!”
“What the hell are you doing?” Natalia hisses.
"You told me to be normal! This is what I'dnormallydo."
"Okay, but I told you not to look.”
“Yeah, which means I was almost certainly going to look. If you didn’t want me to look, you shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’ll remember that next time you’re about to step in front of a bus. Instead of yelling, ‘No, Rayne, come back,’ I’ll just stand back and hope for the best.”
“This is not the same thing as walking in front of a bus.”
“Isn’t it?”
Natalia is hunched forward in her seat, speaking half an inch away from my face. She’s being far more conspicuous than I was, but I can feel Kirill’s gaze still piercing into my back and it’s distracting.
“You were practically comatose the last time he left,” Natalia continues. “I didn’t hear from you for weeks. When I did, you were pale and skinny andpregnant.”
I lunge across the space between us and slap a hand over her mouth. “Shutuprightnowwhatthehellareyoutryingtodo!”
It all comes out a wordless jumble, but she gets the idea. Natalia holds up her hands in surrender.
“I’m going to take my hand off of your mouth—but if you say a single word about you-know-what,” I warn, “I will kill you.”
She nods, and I slowly peel my hand away.
"If I was you,” Nat suggests, “I'd do the exact opposite of what you just asked me to do and scream aboutyou-know-whatfrom the rooftops. I’d buy a billboard. I’d buy a megaphone. I’d buy a billboard of a megaphone."
I glare at her with so much venom she slouches down in her seat. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “I was flustered and I… I don’t know. It won’t happen again.”
“You’reflustered? You talked to him a couple hours ago! You’re going to work for him. Most of all, you don’t have ayou-know-whatwith him. How do you think I feel?”
Natalia keeps glancing over my shoulder, her eyes shifting position slightly each time so I know Kirill is on the move.
Is he coming over here?I mouth.
Natalia answers with an indecipherable shrug.
Suddenly, she goes awkwardly still. She half-turns towards the bar, and I follow suit. Even though what I really want is to turn around and lay eyes on Kirill. Having him lurking out of sight feels like turning my back on a predator. I should be making myself big and claiming territory. Instead, I’m sitting idly by and waiting to see what will happen.
