Champagne Venom (Orlov Bratva, #1)(8)

“Should I?”

“You should. Unless you have someplace you’d rather be…?”

His eyes glow. I’m pretty sure he’s making fun of me.

He opens his wallet and puts five hundred dollars in cash on the table. It’s four times the cost of the meal, easily. I get the sense he is trying to make a point: that even if I did turn him down, it wouldn’t matter to him. He’s bored. Or maybe just horny. Whatever the case, if I say no, he’ll just find another woman. With his face and that roiling confidence, it wouldn’t be a hard ask. He could just stick his head out of the door and have every female on the block fawning and ovulating in an instant.

For reasons I’m not entirely clear on, I don’t like that idea one bit.

“I’m not sure I should.”

“It’s not like you have a husband to go home to. Or, for that matter, a home to go home to.”

That, finally, is what makes me leap to my feet. “Buying a pizza doesn’t entitle you to sit there and rip my life to pieces,” I snap. “My husband left, yeah, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the victim here.

You’re just a smug douche with a gaudy watch.”

He says nothing. Those eyes gleam.

That pisses me off more than anything he could’ve said.

I turn and storm away, though there’s a twinge of regret in my gut for all the pizza I’m leaving behind and the hungry days that lie ahead. I wind between tables, past the gawking patrons who’ve begun to file in, and burst back out into the night.

The air is bracingly cold, even colder than it was when I went in. My stomach rumbles again, but I silence it as I look up and down the sidewalk.

Silver Eyes was right about one thing: I don’t have anywhere to go. Left, right, it doesn’t matter. I’m about to flip a coin in my head and march off in a random direction to find somewhere I can huddle up until morning.

But before I can…

A hand clamps down on my wrist.





5





PAIGE


I whip around with a scream on my lips to see, shocker of all shockers, Silver Eyes standing there, framed by the light from the restaurant.

He looks like a god with that backlighting. Like something on fire. His gray suit fits his shoulders perfectly, and the snowy white of his button-down shirt glows in the moonlight.

I’m honestly stunned that he followed me out. He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who chases after things. Life just falls in his lap effortlessly. But chase me he did.

I don’t know if I like that or not.

I wrench my wrist out of his grasp, though the heat of his touch remains like a brand on my skin.

“Hands off.”

“You’re a sensitive one,” he remarks.

“Yeah, well, I’ve had a pretty shitty week. I keep running into assholes.”

He tilts his head to the side. “There’s a saying about that: when you meet an asshole, you just met an asshole. When everyone you meet is an asshole, you might be the asshole.”

His breath fogs in the night air. Truth be told, I’m a little dizzy from the sudden deluge of calories and emotions, so I’m having a hard time puzzling out what he’s trying to convey.

“Are you calling me an asshole?” I ask at last.

He chuckles. “I’m offering you a place to stay for the night, Paige. No expectations. Just a soft bed and a door that locks.”

My frown deepens. “No expectations?”

“None whatsoever.” He holds up his hands to show me they’re empty. His watch reflects the streetlight overhead and inky black tattoo tendrils crawl up the underside of his wrist.

They really are big hands. Capable hands. Dangerous hands.

“Fine,” I say. “But you’d better keep those to yourself.” I point at his hands so he knows what I’m talking about.

“As you wish.” He tucks them into his pockets, then looks over my shoulder.

I follow his gaze to see a sleek black Porsche purring at the curb. “That’s yours?”

“That’s ours,” he corrects.

He walks around to the driver’s side while the valet opens my door. I get into the passenger’s seat, trying to decide if this is a hunger-fueled fantasy or if this is really happening.

Either way, I decide to see it through. For right now, as we pull away, I enjoy the wind running cool fingers through my hair and the comfort of having someone by my side.

Reality can bite me in the ass again tomorrow. I’ll take a beautiful lie for tonight.





6





PAIGE


My heart is hammering so hard that the walk from his car through the hotel lobby is a blur. I’m barely standing, let alone taking in my surroundings. I only clock back in when I walk into the sprawling, palatial suite that he had the audacity to call a “room.”

“What on earth is this?” I blurt, pivoting on the spot. “Who are you?”

To say this place is fancy is like saying the ocean is deep. There’s a sitting room with white plush furniture to my left, glass double doors that open onto a private balcony with a marble-lined jacuzzi, and a wet bar off to the right. Around a corner is another set of doors that leads to what I assume is the bedroom. Looming over the living room is the head of an honest-to-goodness rhino. I shudder to think what the ivory in those tusks might be worth.