moment, a fly caught in amber, then murmurs, “Aardvark.”
We gaze at each other across the island, both of us knowing we’ll soon be wearing out that word.
I take a breath and ask the question that needs to be asked. “I’m not sleeping with you, Mr. Black. So why am I here?”
“I think we can dispense with the formalities of surnames, considering you watched me shoot a man in the face.”
His logic passes the sniff test, so I start again. “Okay, Liam, why am I—”
“Killian.”
The forcefulness with which he interrupts me is startling. “Excuse me?”
“Call me Killian.”
I wait for him to provide an explanation, but he doesn’t. “Why would I call you that, when it’s not your name?”
His jaw works. He gazes at me in silence so long I almost start nervously laughing. Then he says, “It is my name.”
I open my mouth, close it, then open it again. “So Liam is like a nickname or something?”
“No.”
“Is it…your middle name?”
“No.”
We stare at each other. Finally, I sigh. “You don’t want to tell me.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I can’t.”
“Uh-huh.” I narrow my eyes and peer suspiciously at him, but it feels as if he’s telling me the truth. Since the situation is ludicrous anyway, I decide to roll with it. “Okay, fine. If we’re going by other people’s names, I want you to call me…Sophia. No, wait. Seraphina. That sounds kind of badass.”
He says softly, “But you’re already going by someone else’s name, little thief.”
I was picking up the bourbon to drink, but freeze with the glass halfway to my mouth.
“Aardvark?” he inquires, sounding amused.
I set the glass down carefully on the marble countertop. My heartbeat picks up, my hands turn clammy, and a knot forms in my stomach.
What the hell am I doing? This is dangerous. This is insane.
Looking at the glass instead of him, I say quietly, “I’d like to go home now.”
After a tense moment, he says, “Look at me.”
When I do, eyeing him warily, he shakes his head. “I don’t care if you have secrets. I don’t care if you call yourself Cinderella or Mary Poppins or anything else. What I care about is that you understand there’s nothing more important to me than my honor.”
“Meaning?”
His eyes burn straight through me. “Meaning I gave you my word I’d never harm you. That stands no matter what.”
I don’t understand him at all, and that frustrates me. My father could give his word you’d be safe with him, then five seconds later turn around and shoot you in the back.
I’m not exaggerating. I’ve seen it happen.
Because that’s what gangsters do. That’s what they are: liars.
“I believed you when you said you wouldn’t hurt me, Li—Killian, but you can’t promise the no matter what part.”
“Aye, lass. I can.”
Thunderclouds are gathering over his head, but I’m feeling reckless. “Even if I tried to kill you?”
His answer is swift and unequivocal. “Even if anything.”
We stare at each other until he adds, “And the reason you’re here is because there’s nowhere safer for you.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “A bunch of men in riot gear carrying military-grade weapons just tried to kill you. I don’t think being near you is safe for me at all.”
He pauses, his gaze dark and unreadable. Then he says softly, “I’m not so sure it was me they were after, Juliet.”
9
Killian
I watch her face pale. I watch her lips part. I watch her knuckles turn white around the glass.
I watch all that and know that this gutsy young thief with luminous brown eyes that convey emotion like a silent movie star’s has skeletons in her closet that rival mine.
She might even have more, if that’s possible.
Swallowing, she moistens her lips. She clears her throat. Then she says, “What makes you say that?”
Her voice is shaky. For the first time since we met, she looks vulnerable.
That causes such a strong surge of protectiveness to flood through me, I have to take a moment to steady myself before I speak. “One of them didn’t recognize me.”
“How could you tell?”
“He thought I was your bodyguard.”
He sputtered it before he bled out from the bullet hole I’d put in his neck, cursing me for protecting “the girl.”
The interesting part was that his curses were in Serbian. I don’t have any Serbian enemies. I keep very careful lists.
Even more interesting is how still and pale Juliet has become, staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes.
Keeping my voice soft and low, I say, “If you tell me who