“That’s not very subtle, Mr. Ingles.” Through the double frosted doors, and into the outer hall, finally, elevators looming ahead.
“Sorry?”
“You know.” She managed a coy look, a little elusive smile, and wondered if she imagined the way Toly’s fingertips dug into either side of her spine. “Dropping a little mention of yourexlike that.” She didn’t know what compelled her – the hand, it was the hand on her – but she reached to lay her own hand, briefly, on Greg’s jacket sleeve, flashed her teeth as her smile widened. “Not very subtle of you.”
His cheeks pinked handsomely. When they reached the elevators, he leaned forward to press the Down button. “Well, I wasn’t…”
“Don’t be bashful. A girl likes to think she hasn’t completely gone to pot off the runway.”
His head whipped around, expression aghast. “No.” His gaze traveled all the way down to her pumps, and back up, lingering in places, and his tone firmed up, surer now, edging toward cocky thanks to her encouragement. “Definitely not.”
The elevator arrived, doors gliding open.
Toly all but growled a terse, “Miss Blake.”
“Yes, yes.”
Greg’s phone rang, for which Raven said a silent thanks, and he held up a finger. “Sorry, sorry.” When he checked the screen, he made a face. “I’m sorry, but I really need to take this.”
“That’s fine. We’ll speak soon, I’m sure.” She stepped into the elevator, Toly half-shoving her. “Good afternoon. Greg.”
He was smiling at her, phone pressed to his ear as the elevator doors closed.
The moment they were alone, Raven let her smile drop away, face aching from the effort of holding it in place as long as she had. She whirled, and tried to slap Toly’s hand away – but he yanked it back too fast.
He was scowling at her, and for a moment, she considered slapping him across the face, but he’d doubtless dodge that, too.
“Are you out of your bloody mind?” she demanded. “Speakingin front of him? Actuallytalking? You don’t talk!”
“Am I forbidden from speaking, your highness?” he shot back, and it was only then, seeing the wild gleam in his eyes, hearing the vicious edge of his voice, that she realized he wasfurious.
She wasn’t going to back down, though. Sod him if he thought he could bully her. “You’re not supposed to draw attention to yourself! You’re there to observe, and report. To intervene if you see a security threat. You aren’t supposed to reveal anything about yourself. Now he knows you’re Russian!”
“So? Lots of people are Russian.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t exactly a low-profile position you’re in, Anatoly! Everyone in the bloody New York underworld knows who my brothers are. They know I’ve got my hands dirty – or they suspect I do.” She paced away from him, as far as she could, breathing hard, sweat prickling beneath her clothes. “Christ. If I’ve got some silent, brooding Russian man in my office all the time, people aren’t going to think it’s a coincidence. They’ll start connecting dots.”
“And think what?” Even without looking at him, his voice was awful. “That you hired Kozlov? No one will think that,” he scoffed.
“They might! You don’t know!” She hit the corner of the cab and turned around, arms held out to the side in invitation. “What were you even doing? For weeks you’ve done nothing but hold up that one section of wall, and today of all days – in front of someone who might or might not be a potential threat – you decide to open your gob? Did you not see his face?” she pressed on, when he started to respond. “He had no idea what to make of it – what to make ofyou. And, frankly, neither do I. You’re a terrible actor on a good day, and now you might have spoiled everything.”
A muscle leaped in his jaw. He raked an absent hand through his hair, loosening more strands that flopped onto his forehead, after. It was a good look on him: like elegance coming unwound at the end of a long night. She could envision his tie loose, and his top button undone, and the kohl around his eyes smudged. Liquor on his breath when she–
No. No, no, no.
“Whatwere you thinking?” she demanded.
He made a lovely, dangerous portrait, feet braced apart, hips cocked, jacket pulled tight over his arms and chest. Hand still clenched in the hair at the back of his head. One made lovelier when his lashes lifted, gaze locking onto hers through their dark screens.
“Do you like him?” he asked, and sent her spinning for the second – or was it third? – time in too short a span.
She blinked at him. “Beg pardon?”
His voice had attained a new layer of gravel. “You were throwing yourself at him. You must like him.”
She blinked some more. Anatoly Kobliska, she decided, was going to get her placed on blood pressure pills. “Throwing myself? Are you mental?”
His nostrils flared, an aggressive little movement that ratcheted her anger up another notch.
