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“My brother told me one of my girls was on the loose.”
My girls.
Two words that both please me and annoy me at the same time. I’m not sure how I’d feel if it had been singular.
Unable to shake the uneasy awareness that comes with imminent danger, I glance between the seats, as if expecting a suit-clad lackey to emerge from the trunk. “No minions tonight?”
Raphael smirks and glances in his rear-view mirror. “You don’t think I can handle myself, Penelope?” He looks at me sideways, eyes dropping to my chest and back up again. “You think I can’t handle you?”
There’s a toneless edge to his questions. It rolls through my blood like oil in water, sliding around and making me squirm. It’s unreadable, unpredictable, and for once, I wish he’d just make polite small talk with me like he does with everyone else.
“Well, your gun is fake, right?”
He laughs coarsely. Drops his head against the headrest. “Ah, yes. And so it is.”
He turns the wheel with the heel of his palm and I realize we’re pulling onto Main Street. Disappointment prickles at my chest. Ironic really, considering minutes ago, I didn’t want to get into his car at all.
Suddenly, the seat belt cuts into my collarbone as I’m thrown forward. I gasp, reach out to the dashboard, and whip around to Raphael.
“If that was an attempt at killing me, it was pathetic.”
But he’s too busy glaring out my window to reply. His expression is treacherous, not an inch of gentlemanremains on the sharp planes of his face.
“Why is the front door to your building open.”
It’s not a question and he’s not hanging about for an answer. Hissing something ungodly under his breath, he pulls his fake gun from his waistband and lunges for his car door.
I grab his forearm and he freezes. We both look down at my fingers; his expression tightens with irritation, and I can feel the embarrassment burnt into mine.
I shift over Nappa leather. “Relax, it’s always open.”
His gaze slides up from my fingers to the watch around my wrist. I don’t know why I’m still wearing it, but I’d be lying if I said it’s because I forgot to take it off. It’s warm and weighty and impossible not to notice. “What do you mean, it’s always open?”
“What I said—it’s broken.” He looks up at me like I’ve just called his mother a whore. “But it’s fine, my apartment door has a lock.”
“Your apartment door has a lock,” he repeats, mockingly. “Christ.” He scoops up his cell from the center console and the screen illuminates the fury etched into his face. My fingers bob over the tendons flexing and contracting in his forearm as he types out a text, and suddenly feeling drunk on the knowledge it shouldn’t be there, I drag my hand away.
He doesn’t notice. Instead, he tosses his cell into the cup holder and continues driving past my apartment. “It’s getting fixed.”
I blink. “What, now?”
He nods, barely listening to me.
“Yeah, right. No locksmith is coming out in the middle of the night.”
A sardonic smile deepens his dimples. The way he rakes his teeth over his bottom lip feels like a breathy whisper against my clit. “One of the perks of being filthy, stinking rich, Penelope.”
Well, there it is. We’re back to smug smirks and quick-witted comebacks, and although I roll my eyes, I’m secretly relieved to have safer ground under my feet.
I rest my head against the window. “Well, thanks, I guess. You can just drop me off at the diner and I’ll wait for it to get fixed.”
He glances at the time on the dash. It’s nearly one a.m. “You hungry?”
I’m always hungry. “Little bit.”
With a lazy shrug, he palms the wheel again, turns in the street, and parks haphazardly on the sidewalk outside the diner.
“Pretty sure this isn’t a parking spot,” I mutter under my breath, bringing a dark smirk to Raphael’s lips.
