Chapter Two
HERE'S A THING NOBODY tells you about being rescued by a beautiful stranger who refuses to give you his name. You'll think about him. A normal, healthy amount. Constantly. For four days.
So when I walk into the lobby of the nicest hotel I've ever been asked to interview inside of, all marble under my thrift-store heels and a chandelier the size of my apartment and a doorman who looked at my resume folder like it might be a weapon, and I see the back of a very specific set of shoulders across all that marble, I do the mature thing.
"Hey, Mr. H!"
Two hundred people in evening wear turn to look at me, but I only have eyes for one, and that's my dear Mr. H, who now has an adorably pained expression on his handsome face.
For four solid days I've been telling myself I oversold him in my head. That nobody's really that much. That my alley brain was high on adrenaline and made him up.
But...nope.
All of my doubts evaporate at the sight of him. I definitely didn't oversell. If anything, I lowballed. He's so much more handsome than my mind was capable of remembering. And hotter. Because those are two completely different things, and yet he's both, and oh? He's not alone?
I belatedly notice the man next to Mr. H. Black hair, eyes an unfair shade of blue, a suit that probably has its own accountant. The friend watches the two of us with the still, patient attention of a man who bills by the hour and has just been handed something for free.
"You know her?" the friend asks.
"I don't."
Oh, Mr. H.
I love it when he's acting all mafia-boss-cool like this, and oh my gosh! I finally get a proper look at the friend and my brain prints a fact before I can stop it. "Aren't you that famous lawyer who won a case for the mafia guy?"
"Ex-mafia," his friend corrects gravely before studying me with contemplative blue eyes. "Theseus Kartides. And who might you be?"
"Jassy...Beale." My voice fades a little as I shake his hand because now I'm thinking...maybe I got it wrong? Someone working undercover would've been more careful not to be seen with someone like Theseus Kartides, and so...
"Will you tell me your friend's name?" I ask impulsively.
"No." Mr. H, ever the killjoy, is the one who answers me. "He won't."
Theseus looks at us with interest. "What does H stand for?"
I open my mouth to answer him, but when I see the way Mr. H is glaring at me—
"It's a secret." Smart girls always tell the truth, and so this is the safest answer I can come up with that doesn't require me to lie.
"I see." Theseus's blue eyes are gleaming with amusement this time, and I'm starting to understand why they're friends. They have lots in common, like being handsome and hardly inclined to laugh and—
"May I ask why you're here?" Mr. H's friend asks unexpectedly. "Or is that a secret, too?"
"Oh, not at all. I'm job hunting."
"What happened to your old one?"
"A wise man once told me that no job is worth getting killed," I say solemnly as I turn to Mr. H, "so here I am, just a girl standing in front of a boy..."
Mr. H still isn't laughing. Or smiling. But his eyes are also gleaming like Theseus's, and that's good enough to make my heart forget to be careful because it's now thump-thump-thumping like crazy, and mm. Since he seems to be in a good mood...
I dig my phone out and ask, "Will you give me your number?"
I haven't even finished when I see how his expression changes, and I already know he's going to say no, but— "He will."
Thank goodness for Mr. H's friend, who from now on I'll look upon as my guardian angel, with how he's taken my phone out of my hand and starts typing.
"Theseus, dammit."
Both my guardian angel and I ignore this, and I can't help giving a little squeal of joy when Theseus hands me back my phone. Not only did he give me Mr. H's mobile number, but he also gave me his office number and address, his email, and—
"Any chance you'll give me his real name, too?" I ask hopefully.
Theseus smiles. "Not a chance."
I smile back. I knew he'd say that, but smart girls never stop trying. And in any case—
"Thank you for this, Mr. K!" I clutch the phone to my chest like a woman who's just been handed the deed to a house. "I have to go now, but I hope you're his best man at our wedding!"
MAXIMO ALREADY KNEW what his friend had to say as Jassy waved at them for the seventh time before completely disappearing from view—
"Not one word, Theseus."
But this only had the other man smiling. "That bad, is it?"
Maximo had a feeling he would regret asking this, but he asked it anyway as he turned to face Theseus. "What is?"
"Her effect on you."
And indeed, he was right.
"She's nothing to me," Maximo said curtly.
"What I saw implies otherwise." "She doesn't even know my name."
"But you're still talking to her instead of asking my firm to issue a restraining order. That implies something, too."
Maximo didn't answer. The lobby moved around them, all that money and marble, but he saw none of it, with his thoughts revolving around a girl who didn't seem to realize how wearing her heart on her sleeve made her so dangerously vulnerable.
"Seriously. Who is she to you, Maximo?"
"Someone forbidden," he answered at last.
Theseus frowned. "Because she's too young?"
A humorless smile twisted over Maximo's lips.
If only it was just that.
"No. It's worse."
Theseus's gaze narrowed. "How so?"
"Because she has Mary's heart."