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I tapped my bottom lip. “Wait, I think I do remember you now. Weren’t you naked the last time we met?”
Mrs. Ramsbottom sucked in a shocked breath.
“Half naked,” he corrected.
“Which half was it again? Remind me.”
“Anyway, back to you and your considerable talent. Who was it you studied under? It had to be a master if you’ve achieved so much knowledge and are obviously so young.”
I smiled tightly as my heart sped. Gage clasped his hands behind his back as he watched me, and I felt Mrs. Ramsbottom’s and Faith’s gazes on me too. My mind went semi-blank, the way it always did when I tried to lie. My eyes slid behind him to the bookshelf. “I studied under…” My gaze flew across the titles. “Professor…Hugo…Dick…Stoker.”
Gage made a choking sound at the back of his throat that he covered with a cough and I heard Faith let out a hiccup from beside me. Gage turned and walked in a slow circle, his gaze hanging on the shelf behind me, likely taking in a book by Victor Hugo and another by Bram Stoker, and the title Moby Dick.
“Professor Hugo Dickstoker?” he asked when he faced me again, his voice strangely high.
Admittedly, it was an unlucky combination I’d come up with on the fly.
“Mm,” I hummed. “Yes. He’s a legend.”
“I bet he is.”
“Look at the time!” Faith said. “If we’re going to make our next appointment, we’ve got to be going.” She jumped up and then grabbed my hand and gave me a hard tug. I came to my feet and then followed her as she turned toward the art in the case on the table. “Mrs. Ramsbottom, we’ll have these pieces back to you just as soon as Aurora’s had time to look them over thoroughly.”
“Yes, thank you,” Mrs. Ramsbottom said, her forehead creased as though she wasn’t sure what had just happened. “Ms. Castle—”
“Aurora, please.”
“Aurora, it was lovely to meet you.”
“You as well,” I said as Faith zipped the case closed and then picked it up by its handle. “Thank you for entrusting me with your pieces. I’ll treat them with the utmost care.”
Faith gave me another tug and we both scooted past Gage whose eyes were hung on me, a small smirk on his far-too-handsome face.
“You have a nice day, Gage,” Faith said, and I turned my head toward him as we moved past, giving him a small wave and crossing my eyes before turning and practically running from the room.
“Gage, is there something going—” I heard Mrs. Ramsbottom say, but then footsteps sounded behind us and we picked up our speed as Gage’s voice called, “I have to warn the others about the blight! It was nice to see you, Edna!”
I couldn’t help the giggle that exploded from my mouth as we fast-walked to the massive door in the marble entryway, a butler stepping from the shadows and causing Faith to let out a small shriek as the expressionless man opened the door and waved us through.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Gage said from behind me as we ran for Faith’s car. I heard Gage’s feet on the pavers as he pounded after us and whirled around just as I made it to Faith’s car, no time to open it and slide inside.
He skidded to a stop as I pressed my back to the door, our breath mingling as we all but collided. “Caught,” he said, the wicked smile he’d had on his face as he’d pursued me dwindling.
For a few moments, we simply stood there, our chests rising and falling together, eyes held, the expressions we’d worn evening out. He leaned in slightly as if inhaling my scent and my heart did that odd spiraling again, dipping and rising and making me slightly dizzy. I felt his heat and smelled him too. His cologne brought to mind silk sheets and the leather interior of some luxury car that I couldn’t begin to name because I knew zip about expensive automobiles. It made me picture a dimly lit bar in Paris where a pianist played classical music on a sleek grand piano. It was sophisticated and divine. It spoke of polished masculinity and the finer things in life.
It was so perfectly Gage Buchanan.
And I was…a fraud. A nobody.
And even more than both of those things, there was an extremely legitimate reason why I could not and would not engage in this strange form of flirting or foreplay or whatever it was that we’d somehow began playing at. Running from him had started from a place of panic, but there was something undeniably electrifying about—literally—being pursued by Gage and I’d given in to the impulse. I could see anger simmering in his tense expression, but I also saw the way his pulse was pumping swiftly at his throat, and I’d noticed the glint of excitement in his eyes as he’d chased me. We’d played games with each other from the start, but again, all that needed to stop. And not only because otherwise the pedestrians of Calliope were in grave danger.
I turned my head, breaking eye contact. “Mr. Buchanan. Did I forget something?”
The window rolled down at my back and Faith called from the driver’s seat, “Rory, are you—”
“Give me just a minute, Faith,” I said, and whatever she heard in my voice made her roll up the window.
“Is your name really Aurora Castle?” he asked once the window closed.
