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Kai hesitated. “About Saturday—”
“It was a mistake.” I interrupted him before he could state the obvious. “I know. You don’t have to say it. We shouldn’t have done…what we did.”
His frown deepened. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
I faltered. “It’s not?”
The clock ticked in the ensuing quiet. My heartbeat ticked right alongside it, rising and falling with the tide of emotion threatening to sweep me under.
“No.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “Unless you truly think it was a mistake.”
“I…” On one hand, it was a mistake. Kai and I came from different worlds. His role as Young heir probably involved marriage to a proper society heiress like Clarissa. Getting even more involved with him was a sure path toward heartbreak. I’d been there, gotten the T-shirt, and I never wanted to go back.
On the other hand…
I swallowed. I didn’t know what Kai and I currently had, but the thought of severing it cleaved through me like a scythe.
“You don’t have to answer now.” Kai stood and nodded at his empty glass, his expression unreadable. “Put it on my tab. I’ll be upstairs.”
By the time my brain processed his words, he was already gone.
I’ll be upstairs.
His parting statement played on a loop while I cleaned and closed out the bar. He had no reason to tell me that unless…
You don’t have to answer now…I’ll be upstairs.
A choice. I could go home, pretend the kiss never happened, and move on with my life.
Or I could go upstairs.
New Isabella should do the smart thing and choose option one, but it was obvious by now that no version of me was good at doing what sheshould.
I locked the bar door behind me and made my way to the second floor. A part of me knew I was risking my job by doing this. Unfortunately, that part was so faint I could barely hear it over the drum of my heart.
I could rationalize away my attraction to Kai all I wanted, but the truth was he made me feel more alive than anything else had for years.
I stopped in front of the piano room and rested my hand on the doorknob. The drumming in my chest intensified.No going back now.
I opened the door, stepped inside…and there he was, lounging against the side of the piano in a deceptively casual pose.
Dark hair, dark eyes, devastation inked onto every inch of him.
Even if he hadn’t dropped the upstairs hint, instinct would’ve guided me to him. The melding of gazes in a crowded ballroom, a chance meeting in a quiet hallway…no matter where we were, an invisible force drew us together like magnets to steel.
Our eyes locked.
Emotion flickered over Kai’s face. It was there, then gone, like a ship passing in the night, but it was enough.
It pulled me toward him at the same time as he straightened, his body lined with tension.
Five steps.
Four.
Three.
Two.
