Page 70 of Entangled

“Yes.” His narrowed eyes pick apart my face. “We do share some similarities. Not all that uncommon for the people from that region.” He turns his head to Coop, effectively shutting down our conversation. “Do you have the drive?”

“Yeah.” Coop pulls a small external hard drive from his pocket and slides it across the table. “Everything you need is—”

He’s cut off by his phone ringing in his pocket and moves to pull it out, brow drawing down as he looks at the screen. “It’s my sister, I’ve been trying—”

“Take it,” I tell him, tagging on a playful wink. “We’ll be fine.”

His eyes move between Alec and me in warning as he exits the booth. “Play nice. Both of you.”

“Of course, brother,” Alec answers with a smile, pocketing the drive and spreading his arms wide on the booth behind him.

As soon as Coop walks away the good-natured friend act is gone with my playfulness right alongside it. Alec’s eyes turn cold as we look across the table at each other and I lift my head in challenge. His dead gaze slides along my skin, taking in everything that’s visible above the booth and making me feel all sorts of uncomfortable before he lifts his eyes back up to meet my narrowed ones.

He smiles viscously. “I do get it.”

“Get what?”

“The allure. The thrall he’s in with you.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on the table, eyeing my face in consideration. “You’re a different kind, aren’t you? Dangerous and seductive. Eyes filled with secrets and a face to launch a thousand ships. Beauty to rival that of the gods.”

I cock my head at him. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“Not always, no.”

“Then what?”

“And yet… when I asked, he didn’t tell me your last name.” He pauses, searching for a reaction and I make sure to hold myself perfectly still. “Which tells me one of two things. Either you’re of a bad sort that he’s fallen in with or he doesn’t know because you’re playing games.”

“What exactly…” I lean forward and bring my arms up to rest on the table, not backing down. “Have I done to make you dislike me?”

“Nothing.” The laugh that leaves him drips with condescension. “But I’ve worked with Coop since he started with Bainbridge and he’s never turned down a job. Hell, I’ve never even seen him go on a date.” He dips his head, nodding down at my neck. “And that pretty mark he put on your skin to scream his possession at me and make clear who you belong to tells me that my boy isn’t messing around.” He pauses, tilting his head at me. “So tell me, Helen of Troy, what are you doing with him?”

My silence is deafening, sounding as loud as a scream between us and I hate it. I hate it so much because I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for him. I had rules, I had a plan, and somewhere along the way I lost all of my carefully laid boundaries.

One kiss. One laugh. One ice cube. One poem. One chip at a time.

He nods once at my answering silence and leans back in the booth. “For all her allure, do you know what Helen of Troy left in her wake?”

The sound of my own angry breathing sounds in my ears as he continues.

“Death and destruction.” He smirks coldly. “Try not to do the same.”

My nails dig deep into my palms on the table. “Screw you.”

My anger must be written all over my face because the next thing I know Coop is there, sliding into the booth next to me and sending his friend a dangerous look.

“What did you say to her?” His voice is low and lethal.

Alec turns his head and eyes Coop calmly, opening his mouth to answer.

But I won’t let him win. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how he got to me.

“Nothing,” I interject, forcing nonchalance into my tone and body. “He was just telling me about some local history.”

I see the flash of admiration in Alec’s eyes from across the table before turning my head to meet Coop’s disbelieving gaze. Reaching up, I run my fingers soothingly through the back of his dark-chocolate hair and force my signature bratty smirk to my lips.

“It was nothing.”

Chapter 18

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