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Being caught in those bright blues was akin to catching sunlight for the first time after a lifetime in the dark. It was blinding, warming, and utterly disarming.
Of course, any positive impact she sparked dissipated the moment she opened her mouth.
“Gabriel Stryker.” She stalked across the lobby, a proud and unpredictable predator. “I’ve been looking for you.”
In the periphery of my awareness, I noticed people stopping to watch our interaction. They didn’t matter. My focus sharpened on Layana as she reached me in four long strides. She jutted out her chin and quirked up the corner of her lips ever so slightly.
The air between us grew heavy, a wordless battlefield crackling with anticipation. The challenge—who would strike first?
She sucked in a sharp breath, and parted her lips.
Before she could speak, I repeated her own words to her. “First it was the unsolicited dick pics, now this? You’re upping the creep factor by showing up at my place of work.”
Her eyes hardened to steel.
I shouldn’t antagonize her. I needed her help, after all. But I couldn’t seem to help myself.
She took a step closer. If she thought I’d step back, she was sadly mistaken.
Her next words were softer, little more than a whisper, so only I could hear. “Now Ihaveto send you dick pics. You’ve requested them, so they’re totally solicited.”
A small tick of pain formed in my temple, but it did nothing to tamp down the thrill blooming through my chest. “What are you doing here, Layana?”
“I would have waited for you to run by Eterni-Tea, but you stopped running.”
“I still run. I changed my route.”
She didn’t move her feet, but she pulled away so that the space between us seemed infinitely larger.
A fleeting shadow of doubt crossed her face, momentary but unmistakable. “Why? You’re so…predictable in your schedule.”
“Two reasons.”
“Which are?”
“One—I was assaulted on my last route when some maniac attempted to kill me with a door.”
“If a little bonk is all it takes to kill you, I was doing you a kindness, putting you out of your frail misery.”
I knew I should be offended and I knew I should stop baiting her, but I was powerless to stop. “Two—I was told to never return.”
“I told you never to return tomy home.You don’t show up uninvited when you weren’t given an address or any indication that you were supposed to.”
“Like you’re doing now?”
A devious spark filled her eyes and an equally disarming grin crossed her lips. She’d gone full Cheshire cat. “Ah. See, you don’t have me on that one. I’ve got you. This is an office building, not where you live.”
“The distinction is most likely due to you not being able to find my personal address.”
She shrugged, self-satisfaction beaming from her every pore. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter. I win. You were wrong.”
This was it, quite possibly my only chance to redirect this conversation, let alone my only chance to convince her to help me.
“I apologize for making you uncomfortable at your home,” I said. “That was never my intention.”
“So let’s start over,” she said, her smugness completely forgotten, replaced by what appeared to be sincerity. “What exactly was your intention?”
“I wanted to offer you a job.”
