Page 3 of The Faking Game

We emerge out onto the busy New York street. People are lining up to enter the club, and we pass them all, straight to the large black vehicle idling at the curb.

“What were youthinking?” West’s voice is frustrated as he releases my elbow. “You didn’t bring the security I assigned.”

“I don’t want guards following me around.”

His handsome face hardens, turns into an angry mask. I wrap my arms around myself. It’s late April, but the evening air is not nearly warm enough for the thin dress I’m in. It’s one of my newest designs.

“Why not?” he demands. “They reported to me an hour ago, saying that you left using the back door of your apartment building without informing them of where you were going.”

“It’s none of their business, and it’sdefinitelynone of yours.”

“It is mine. Your brother made it mine.” His eyes narrow. “Andyoumade it mine when you moved to New York.”

“I’m here to work, not to be monitored.” I left that behind in Europe.

West stills. It’s a scary stillness, his whiskey-colored eyes narrowing. Judging from his suit, he was probably out somewhere when he got the call about me. Did I interrupt him? Ruin his evening?

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he says, “which I won’t be, but you’ve been receiving threats for the last four months. Letters, texts, messages and, most recently, photos that make itveryclear that someone is stalking you. Rafe organized a private security detail for you back in Paris. Now that you’re here, the task has fallen to me. And yet youthoughtit was a good idea”—he leans in closer—“to go to a club in the middle of the night without protection?”

“I was surrounded by people. I was in public the whole time.”

“Yes. Strangers.”

“I can take care of myself,” I say.

He laughs. It’s a short, humorless sound. “Clearly. That’s why I had to rescue you from that drunk idiot pawing at you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” I snap. “Those security guards should not report to you directly.”

“Of course they should. I’m the one who’s been asked to take care of you.”

“I may be Rafe’s little sister, but I’m not a child.”

His jaw clenches. “No, you’re not. Not anymore. You need to take this seriously.”

“I just wanted a normal night out,” I say, and how dare he? I am taking this seriously. I’ve been taking it seriously every single day since the weird messages started. But I’m in a new city and hoping so badly that I’ve left all of that behind. I just wanted to make a friend.

The wind picks up, lifting my brown hair.

West’s gaze drops to where goose bumps race across my arms. His face sets in even harder lines, and he shrugs off his suit jacket. “Here,” he says, draping it over my shoulders.

“Thank you.” I hate that it’s warm. I hate that it smells good even more.

He nods toward the car. “Let’s go. I’m taking you home.”

I hesitate, clutching his jacket tighter around me. “I can get a cab. You don’t have to?—”

West sighs. “Get in the car.”

“Fine.” I step past him, my heart beating fast. I can’t handle conflict. Never have. But he has always seemed to bring it out in me. I get snappier around him than I do with anyone else.

I slide into the back seat of the sleek black SUV. West moves like there’s gravity to him, rearranging the world around him with every stride. Shifting my own course for the night.

He’s always been larger than life.

His last name is a household name in this country, not to mention many others. One of the classics from the Gilded Age. The Astors. The Vanderbilts. And the Calloways. One of the few whose company is still intact and their manor family-owned.

He’s the heir to a legacy too large to contemplate. I bet the arrogance is part of it. Handed down from father to son in the Calloway line. Rulers of their own little kingdoms.

---