Page 25 of Their Arrangement
I didn’t blink.
I waited. Hoped for something. A lifeline. A scrap of kindness. A look that said this wasn’t as bad as it felt.
Instead, he said?—
“You need to be better prepared.”
I blinked. “I wasn’t told?—”
“I told you not to be late,” he said softly.
“And I wasn’t.”
“I didn’t tell you not to be ready.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
And I sat there in the silence, the echo of his words louder than anything else in my head.
It felt like failure. Like the kind that didn’t get second chances.
I pushed my chair back.
The leather peeled from the backs of my thighs with a sound that made me wince. I stood slowly. My knees locked. My heels wobbled on the slick tile.
I walked out into the hallway.
Head down.
Eyes on the floor.
And then I felt it.
That sting of awareness.
The weight of a gaze so sharp it cut.
Like a wire stretched tight between my shoulder blades.
I looked up.
And there he was.
Wolfe.
Leaning against the far wall like he belonged there. Like the whole building tilted toward him.
His posture was casual. One leg crossed. Arms folded.
But there was nothing casual in the way he watched me.
He wasn’t blinking.
He wasn’t hiding it.
His jaw was set hard, a muscle ticking beneath his cheekbone. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and the silver watch on his wrist caught the light like a blade.
His eyes dragged over me slowly.
