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Until they don’t.
When Raphael’s hands still and his shoulders tighten, the dust particles floating inside the sunbeam fall stagnant, as if they’re holding their breaths on my behalf. Shadows shift to accommodate the planes of his face as he lifts his head and meets my gaze.
My pulse strums violently; my aching muscles brace for impact. For three loud heartbeats, I’m trapped in his glare.
Then, he does something I don’t expect.
He laughs.
It’s soft. Dark. As gentle as a kiss on a collarbone and no good could ever come from such a sound.
“Are you obsessed with me, Penelope?”
His tone is cushioned with amusement but there’s something around its edges that tugs at my nerves.
“Yeah, that’s exactly why I’m in the hospital,” I reply sarcastically.
His gaze sparks with confusion, before turning a few shades darker. It carves a lazy path down my neck. My breathing stills as it crackles over the thin fabric of the hospital gown, and when it settles like a heavy weight in my lap, the warmth in my stomach simmers half a degree hotter. It’s irritation—nothing more. Because, although I’m used to men staring at my body while wearing a lot less than this, there’s something about the way he regards me—clinically, objectively—that makes my jaw stiffen.
“You were there.” I catch the flare of his nostrils before they disappear behind his knuckles. When he speaks again, it seems to be just to himself. “Of course you were there.”
“What, you think I bombed the port, or something?”
His eyes meet mine again. A pensiveness mars the ever-present amusement behind them. “Or something.”
With a cocktail of frustration and annoyance flaming inside me, I huff out a shaky breath and turn my attention to harsh fluorescent lights lining the hallway ceiling. Obviously he knows I had nothing to do with the explosion—he wouldn’t be sitting next to a stack of bribe money if I did—but I hate how the suspicion in his tone, even if fake, mirrors my own.
It’s pathetic, but the idea that I’ve lost my luck is scarier to me than anything else in this world. Scarier than threats by Atlantic City casino owners, and scarier than the fear of my biggest sin catching up with me.
“Lucky charm?”
A voice flecked with ice-cold scorn slices the silence. My eyes skim down from the ceiling to find Raphael looking at my necklace with tight disgust. I didn’t realize I was running the four-leaf clover up and down the chain.
“No,” I lie. Then I straighten my spine and lie a little more. “I don’t need a lucky charm. I’m lucky enough.”
My voice is hoarse and sounds pathetic, thanks to the desperation woven within it. It’s obvious I’m only trying to convince myself.
“So you said.” He runs a slow tongue over his top lip as he nods to the bandage on my forehead. “You don’t look so lucky to me.”
I swallow the wedge in my throat. “I’m lucky to be alive.”
His gaze slides to mine, dark and hot. “For now.”
Silence eats up the oxygen between us. I can’t stop staring at him. His threat was subtle, elegant, delivered on a velvet cushion upon a silver platter. I have no doubt he’d follow through with that thinly-veiled threat if provoked. So why the fuck does everyone on this Coast think he’s a gentleman? That he’s somehow different from the rest of his family, from his brothers?
Most people have an IQ big enough to spot a lion in sheep’s clothing, surely?
My jaw tightens as I realize the truth. It’s because he doesn't act like this around other people.
Suddenly, it clicks.
“This is about your watch,” I announce, a quiet glee humming in my aching bones. “That’s why you hate me so much. Your fragile male ego can’t handle a woman getting one over on you.”
I don’t get the reaction I’m expecting. Just another laugh. “Nice, but still, no.”
I watch the chip glint with every revolution, taunting me. When the last of my self-restraint dissolves, I jerk my chin toward the bunch of suit-clad idiots loitering in the hallway. “Do I get to choose?”
He cocks a brow, still spinning his chip.
