Never Gonna Happen - Cynthia Eden Page 0,8
the cork after some twisting and semi-severe struggles, then chugged some champagne right out of the bottle.
“Alyssa?”
She plunked the bottle back down in the ice bucket and huffed out a breath. “Sorry. Needed that. First the date from hell, then the gunfire.”
“Please, help yourself,” he invited. “Though you have a little bit right…here.” His hand reached out. His fingers slid tenderly over her chin.
Heat surged through her. Dang it. She caught his wrist. “Stop it.”
“I was helping.”
Since when? And he’d totally been BSing earlier. The man was no Good Samaritan. He was a badass, a troublemaker, a heart breaker. Her list could go on and on. Sebastian had enemies for days and… “Obviously, I was not the target tonight.”
“Excuse me?”
She let go of his hand and turned to knock on the privacy screen that separated them from the driver. “Hello?”
The driver didn’t respond.
“Alyssa, you have to hit the button to lower the screen.” Humor slipped beneath Sebastian’s words. Humor? Now?
She rummaged around until she found a button that lowered the screen. And as soon as it lowered… “I want to go home.”
The driver made no response.
She rattled off her address. “Take me there, now, please.” Another thought hit her, and she spun back around toward Sebastian. “We need to call the police!”
“I’ll take care of them, after I’ve taken care of you.”
“Sebastian, I hate to break this to you, but the last thing I need is for you to take care of me. Wait, scratch that. I don’t hate to break it to you. It is my pleasure to inform you,” Alyssa crisply corrected, “that I don’t need you.”
“Then why did you look so happy to see me when I showed up in the theater box?”
“I…” Damn. Because the date was a disaster.
“And, sorry, I guess my memory is a little hazy, but when I saved your life a few moments ago, weren’t you pretty happy that I was there with my quick limo that was waiting to whisk you to safety?”
Her eyes narrowed. There was a faint, blue glow in the back of the limo. It ran along the interior, and she was pretty sure that blue glow would transform into party lights with the flick of a switch. Everyone knew how much Sebastian liked to party.
Behind her, she heard the faint whir that told her the privacy screen was sliding back up. Alyssa whipped around and her fist instinctively tapped on the glass. “Hey! You’d better be taking me home!”
“Glass is up,” Sebastian told her patiently. “He can’t hear a thing.”
Then she’d just put that glass right back down. Her fingers flew to the button. She jabbed it, but the screen didn’t lower. “You turned it off.”
“What?”
“There’s another button somewhere back here, and you disabled this one.” Her breath huffed out as she glowered toward Sebastian. “Take me home.”
“You’re stressed.”
Ya think?
“Why don’t you take a few breaths and try to let some of that tension out?”
“I am always stressed when I’m around you.” Truth. She closed her eyes. “But this is worse. A thousand times worse than normal because tonight, I was almost hit when someone tried to take a shot at you.”
Silence. Then… “Want to say that again?”
Her eyes flew open. “You are the one with enemies!”
“I have been known to piss off a few people,” Sebastian allowed. He didn’t sound particularly concerned. Typical Sebastian. “Some would say that’s part of my charm.”
“No. No, it is not charming to be an asshole. I don’t know who told you that—”
“Well, the PR people at the company have mentioned that my—”
“If you tell me that the whole badass persona you have going on sells games, I will scream.”
He laughed.
Something else she hated—he always seemed to laugh at her. “No wonder people are shooting at you.”
“Uh, don’t want to alarm you, but I think those bullets were meant for you.”
That made zero sense. “Why would someone be shooting at me?”
He didn’t respond.
“Exactly.” Yes, sure, Isaac was probably not a super fan of hers at the moment, but she didn’t have a long line of enemies. At least, Alyssa didn’t think she did. She was kind to animals, she was friendly to children, and she never, ever flirted with another woman’s man. The shots must have been intended for Sebastian. “Unless…” Now she considered things from a new angle. “Maybe the shots weren’t meant for you or me. Maybe it was all just random.”
“That what you going with now? A random event?”
It was an option. “The police will sort this out.”
“I’m