Page 1 of Severed Rivalry
1
sex and suspicion
Sariah
“To new beginnings.”
Glasses lift all around me, and I do the same, plastering the brightest fake smile I can across my face.To new beginnings.
Again.
Damn, I’m so tired of new beginnings. I have them way too often. But at least I get them. That’s all that matters.
“Excuse me.” The rich melody of a man’s voice glues me to my seat. I know that voice.
“Renée?”
“I’m sorry. No. You must have me confused with someone else.”
He doesn’t. But I can’t tell him that, because doing so would give everything away. And that’s not an option.
“I don’t think so.” He hedges as his fingers tap the table top where I sit with my new work colleagues. “I feel like we’ve met before.”
Metis an understatement.Love of my lifeis more accurate.
“No. But I get that a lot.” That’s a lie. I never get anything like that. In fact, my goal is to lay low and be as unremarkable and forgettable as possible.
I’m an ordinary girl, average height, slight build, mousey light brown hair. I could be a generic American girl slipping through any city and never turn a head.
Nothing about me is captivating.
Except my eyes.
Huge arching eyebrows frame heavily lashed eyes. I have a beauty mark just outside my right one, as if a fairy dropped a freckle in a place that could be beautiful if it were on anyone else. My gray blue irises, which are neither clear nor bright, could be generic, but that damn right one has a hazel-amber spot on the outside.
It’s the giveaway. It’s how we both know I’m lying.
“Are you sure?” His gaze bores into mine.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Do you want to join us?” The woman across the table from me pipes in.
“Oh, that’s not a good idea.” I try to quash the thought before anything more can come of this.
“I’d love to.” He slides in next to me, taking up way too much space with his large build and sitting way too close.
The heat from his body warms me from my shoulder to knee. His thigh presses fully against mine. It’s downright intimate. And I know intimate all too well with this man.
There’s something in him that relaxes me even if I can’t afford to be at ease in his presence. There’s way too much at stake.
“I’m Cian.” He extends a hand to me, his gaze lasered on mine.
I know. And I’m so, so sorry.
“Sariah. Nice to meet you.”
“Sariah,” he repeats. My name is a caress on his tongue. It’s sex and suspicion. It’s my fate sealed with his.
