Chapter 5
AMELIA
The elevator doors slid open, and for half a second I was just a tired woman thinking about coffee.
The lobby yawned wide in front of me—muted carpet, neutral art, the faint clink of dishes from the breakfast area. A family corralled two kids near the juice machine. A businessman checked his watch by the front desk. Normal. Boring. Safe.
Then I saw him.
He was turned slightly away, talking to the woman at the front desk, one hand on the counter, backpack slung over his shoulder.
Dark hair a little longer than the last time I’d seen him, black T-shirt stretched across a chest I’d once had my hands on, jeans riding low on hips I’d wrapped my legs around—
My stomach lurched.
No.
No, no, no.
The floor seemed to tilt under my bare feet, the patterned carpet swimming for a heartbeat. I blinked, hard. Jet lag, I told myself. Leftover dream. A trick of the light.
He shifted, profile coming into view, and any hope of that died.
Levi Dane.
In my hotel lobby.
In Charleston.
My entire body misfired—fury and something hotter slamming into each other like a head-on collision. My heart did this humiliating little stutter, my skin buzzing like I’d grabbed a live wire. I could feel my pulse in ridiculous places—my throat, my wrists, between my legs.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
His head turned. His gaze met mine.
The world narrowed.
Brown eyes, darker than I remembered. A new line at the corner of his mouth. Same mouth, though—soft and obscene and burned into my nervous system. For a beat, everything in his expression went still.
“Emerson,” he said, low.
It was ridiculous how much just my name in that voice hurt. Like he’d reached into my chest and squeezed.
My jaw locked.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to turn around, to pretend I hadn’t seen him, to go back to the elevator and ride it to some other city, some other country, some other life. But the part of me that had walked into war zones on purpose?
She moved my feet.
I stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby, each stride deliberate, my cotton shorts swishing against my thighs, my oversized T-shirt hanging off one shoulder. Bare face, bare legs, hair scraped up in a knot I’d twisted without looking. He’d last seen me in dust and Kevlar and sweat.
Now, he got me half asleep and barefoot in a hotel lobby.
Good.
Let him see the woman he’d walked away from, stripped of every protective layer.
“Of course, you’re here,” I said when I stopped in front of him. The words came out sharp, edged in disbelief and venom. “Of course.”
He took me in—T-shirt, shorts, bare feet—and something flickered in his eyes. Not amusement. Not exactly surprise either.
“Good morning to you, too,” he said.
That calm, that steadiness—it made me want to slap him. Or kiss him. Or both, in rapid succession.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
The front desk clerk’s gaze ping-ponged between us, sensing a storm. She sputtered something about breakfast hours and loyalty points and then wisely found an excuse to duck into the back.
We were alone. Not actually alone—there were still people moving through the lobby—but the bubble around us felt thick and private. Like the air had decided we were the only two who mattered.
Levi didn’t look away.
“Checking in,” he said simply.
I inhaled through my nose. “Cute. Try again.”
One corner of his mouth edged up. “I’m serious. I flew in this morning. I need a room. This is a hotel. That’s generally how it works.”
“You’re in Charleston.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I noticed.”
“You’re in my hotel.”
“Didn’t realize you had territorial rights to the Embassy Suites, Emerson. Should I have asked permission first?”
Rage flared, hot and immediate. God, he was good at this—playing it cool, pretending like the fact that he’d dropped into this zip code felt less like coincidence and more like fate taking a bat to my kneecaps.
“You followed me,” I said.
His brows twitched. “No.”
“Levi—”
He cut me off with a look. “I didn’t follow you.”
We stared at each other, my breath coming a little too fast. I could feel eyes on us—the receptionist peeking from the back, the breakfast hostess hovering near the doorway, a kid with a waffle pausing mid-syrup—but I didn’t care.
“What are the odds?” I asked. “All the cities in all the world, and you walk into the one hotel where I’m trying to keep my head down?”
He took me in again, slower this time, like he was cataloguing changes. The lines at the corners of my eyes. The way my T-shirt slipped low enough to show a hint of collarbone, of strap. The tired, jagged edges I usually hid.
“Maybe the odds were never in your favor,” he said quietly.
My throat tightened. “You have no idea what’s in my favor.”
His gaze softened by a fraction. That made me angrier than anything.
“Can we talk somewhere that isn’t the middle of the lobby?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
The word was out before I could temper it. Sharp. Absolute. Final.
I wanted him to flinch. He didn’t. He looked around instead, taking in the hovering staff, the watching eyes.
“Suit yourself,” he murmured. “You always did like an audience.”
Something ugly and hurt and old snarled inside me. “You don’t get to talk about what I like. You forfeited that right.”
He went still at that, jaw tightening just enough to let me know the hit had landed.
“Emerson,” he started.
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Do not say my name like that. You lost that right, too.”
For a second, for a heartbeat, we were back in the tent—the heat, the press of his body, his mouth at my ear. The way he’d said my name then like it tasted good.
I slammed the door on the memory so hard I could almost hear it.
“I’ve got somewhere to be,” I said, because it was either that or start screaming in the middle of the hotel. “Enjoy your stay. Charleston’s … humid.”
I tried to move past him.
He stepped into my path.
Not close enough to touch. Close enough that my body remembered exactly how he fit against it.
My pulse leapt, traitorous.
“Get out of my way,” I said.
“I’m not here to fight with you in a lobby,” he said, tone even. “Or anywhere, if I can help it.”
“Funny,” I said. “Because I’m pretty sure you’re the one who loaded the weapon last time.”
His eyes flickered. There. There it was—the crack. The reminder that he wasn’t as impenetrable as he wanted to be.
“I’m not your enemy, Amelia,” he said softly.
I laughed. It wasn’t nice. “You sure about that? Because from where I’m standing, the last time we saw each other, you did a damn good impression of one.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked like he was choosing between a dozen things he could say, none of which I trusted.
A bell chimed somewhere deeper in the lobby. Someone wheeled a suitcase past us. The moment stretched.
“Breakfast?” he asked abruptly.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Breakfast,” he repeated. “You look like you haven’t eaten in twelve hours.”
“I was at a gala,” I said.
“At a gala where you were working,” he countered. “Which means you were probably too busy watching the room to actually eat anything.”
My stomach, traitorous asshole that it was, chose that moment to growl.
His mouth curved. “See?”
I wanted to die.
“That is not an argument,” I said. “That’s biology.”
“You can interrogate me over eggs,” he said. “Or you can keep glaring at me on an empty stomach and pass out in the middle of your big investigative breakthrough. Your call.”
The worst part was, he wasn’t wrong. My head ached. My limbs felt like they belonged to a marionette operated by someone with shaky hands. The adrenaline of seeing him was the only thing keeping me upright.
But sitting across from him? Letting him have my attention for forty-five uninterrupted minutes?
I’d rather embed with a unit that thought “cover” was an optional suggestion.
“I don’t do interviews with sources who don’t disclose their conflicts of interest,” I said.
He huffed out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “That’s not a no.”
I stared at him. Big mistake. Up close, the changes were more obvious. A new scar near his hairline. Deeper shadows under his eyes. The same solid, unshakable way he took up space.
I remembered the weight of him. The sound he made against my throat. The feel of his fingers digging into my hips as if he was afraid I would disappear.
Then I remembered the anger. What he did.
“I’m not here for you,” I said finally. “I’m here for a story. For the truth. Whatever the hell you’re doing in Charleston? Stay out of my way.”
His gaze sharpened. “What story?”
“Nice try.”
“You know I’m not a journalist,” he said. “I don’t have to pretend I don’t ask questions.”
“No,” I said. “You just pretend you don’t owe anyone answers.”
We stared at each other, the air between us tightening again, coil on coil.
He sighed once, slow. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Have coffee with me. You can walk away after that and never talk to me again if that’s what you want. Maybe I can help you with your story.”
Infuriatingly, he was right.
Two minutes ago, I would’ve sworn I’d rather chew glass than sit at a table with him. Now my reporter brain was kicking in, shoving everything else aside.
Information.
Opportunity.
Access.
He was in Charleston. That wasn’t nothing. Whether he was connected to my story or not, he was something. A variable. A potential danger. You didn’t ignore a live grenade just because you didn’t like the way it looked.
A few minutes, I told myself. I could give a few minutes. Pick his brain. Gauge his presence. Confirm he was a coincidence and not a symptom.
And then I could walk away.
“Fifteen,” I said.
He tilted his head. “You bargaining up?”
“Fifteen,” I repeated. “And you answer my questions. As many as I can ask in that time.”
He hesitated, then nodded once. “Done.”
“Fine,” I said. “Then we’re finished. For good.”
Even as I said it, something in me knew I was lying.
He stepped aside, gesturing toward the breakfast area with one gentlemanlike sweep of his hand. “After you.”
I brushed past him, refusing to acknowledge the way the proximity made my skin buzz. His scent hit me—soap, clean sweat, faint trace of something cooler, like he’d stepped out of an air-conditioned car.
The hostess greeted us with a too-bright smile, clearly intrigued by whatever weird tension we were radiating. “Table for two?”
This is a mistake, every cell in my body chorused.
“Yes,” Levi said.
We were led to a table by the window, away from most of the other guests. Sunlight spilled across the tablecloth, illuminating a basket of pre-wrapped muffins and a laminated menu.
I took the seat facing the room, back to the wall, habit more than thought. Levi slid into the chair across from me without comment, leaving his backpack at his feet.
The waitress appeared, pen poised. “Can I start you off with drinks?”
“Coffee,” I said. “Black.”
“Same,” he said.
She jotted it down and disappeared.
For a moment, we just sat there, the silence bleeding into awkwardness.
This was stupid. I should’ve stayed in my room. I should’ve pretended I hadn’t seen him. I should’ve remembered the last time I’d trusted this man with anything.