Page 41 of Carnal Wagers

Your guest looks bored.

Right on cue, his eyes skipped up to his tablemate, who was white-knuckling the table. Sweat rolled down his face. The councilor nodded at whatever Cillian said, then proceeded to dab his forehead with his cloth napkin. Poor guy.

Enjoy the rest of your night.

See you again soon.

My phone vibrated as I stepped off the barstool, but I didn’t check it. This way, I kept control over our discussion. Inside, I both floated and plummeted.

Seven years of no communication, and all it took to get a response from him was anonymity. More than ever, I wondered what it was about me—Alizé De Villier—that disgusted him so much. That put my mind at war with itself. One side of me hated him and aimed a pitchfork at his soul. The other begged for patience, preening under his scrutiny, and sought to peel back his layers to discover what he hid behind that blank stare.

I swallowed the last drop of my cognac. The sweet burn down my throat heightened my awareness of him. The sweep of his gaze over my body. The high-handedness he exuded. The way he tracked my saunter to the exit without turning his head. Not to mention the flick of his finger that sent his two guards after me.

Too bad they were no match. I’d been trained by the best—my brother and Erel—and I slipped away between cars and into the night before the large brutes even made it outside.

“So?” Erel asked as I snuck into his rental Lexus LX after Cillian’s men ventured back into the restaurant.

“Phase one is in play.”

All I had to do now was keep at it.

Chapter 12

She was stalking me. That much was clear. Her angle, however, remained muddled, and that kept me on edge better than a death wobble on a highway.

Her presence niggled at me everywhere I went. It started as a tingle at the base of my nape, then a rush of frenzy, and each time she stepped into view, a zing of sparking embers heated a path from my shoulder blades to my groin.

It began that first night. She sauntered by me at the restaurant as I carved a warning into Councilor Anderson’s knee under the table after his unsanctioned collaboration with the Italians, Russians, and Colombians. Then she proceeded to taunt me.

The following day, at one of my family’s bars, I drank alone at a corner table, waiting for my brothers to arrive. I wound my knife around my thumb, attention glossing over the regulars and boozers as they cheered on one of the last Red Sox games of the season when the first sense of her hit. She blended into the crowd, weaving in and out, nothing more than a blur of ash-brown hair among many, her delicate fruity perfume lost to spilt beer and greasy chicken wings. But I knew, and it stirred a hunger in me for a glimpse of her.

A swamped server set a tumbler of Irish whiskey neat before me. A little yellow umbrella hung off the side of the glass.

“From an admirer,” he said, then rushed back to the bar.

Another drink, another game. I twisted the glass in front of my face. The bar’s ambient light refracted off the glass edges and the golden color of the liquor. I plucked out the umbrella and sucked the bead of whiskey off the toothpick. If she poisoned it, too bad for me.

My phone vibrated, and I eyed the newest message flashing along the screen with a toss back of my original beer.

Unknown

Prefer this one?

I took a sip of her offering. Dry nuttiness against notes of orange and spices, and I hummed with approval. It wasn’t a bad choice at all. She knew her liquor.

Better.

But not good enough?

Where are you?

Does it matter?

My finger hovered over the phone, because no, it shouldn’t.

I don’t like liars.

??