King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2)(14)

Kai’s eyes darkened at the edges. Neither of us had moved, but I had the uncanny sense we were barreling down an invisible track headed off a cliff.

Get it together, Isa. You’re conversing in a piano room, for God’s sake, not bungee jumping off the Macau Tower.

I dragged my attention back to the conversation at hand. “So I was right about all the lessons.

Predictable.” The words came out more breathless than I’d intended, but I masked it with a bright smile. “Unless you also have some exciting hobby I don’t know about. Do you tame wild horses in your free time? BASE jump off the top of that tower in Dubai? Host orgies in your private library?”

Embers smoldered, then cooled.

“I’m afraid not.” Kai’s voice could’ve melted butter. “I don’t like sharing.”

The ground shifted, throwing me off-balance. I was scrambling for a response, any response, when a loud laugh sliced through the room like a guillotine.

The electric link sizzled into oblivion. Our heads swiveled toward the door, and I instinctively jerked my leg away from his.

Luckily, whoever was in the hall didn’t enter the room. The murmur of voices eventually faded, leaving silence in their wake.

But the spell had shattered, and there was no gluing the pieces back together. Not tonight.

“I have to go.” I stood so abruptly my knee banged against the underside of the piano. I ignored the pain ricocheting up and down my leg and summoned a flippant smile. “As entertaining as this has been, I have to, um, feed my snake.”

Ball pythons only needed to be fed every week or two, and I’d already fed Monty yesterday, but Kai didn’t need to know that.

He didn’t show a visible reaction to my words. He just inclined his head and replied with a simple, “Good night.”

I waited until I was out of the room and down the hall before I allowed myself to relax. What the hell was I thinking? My night had been a spectacular series of bad decisions. First, going to the piano room instead of heading home to work on my manuscript (in my defense, I usually wrote better after a piano session), then staying and semi-flirting with Kai.

My run-in with him must’ve knocked my good sense loose.

I made it halfway down the stairs when I ran into Parker, the bar manager.

“Isabella.” Surprise lit her eyes. With her lean frame and platinum pixie cut, she bore a striking resemblance to the model Agyness Deyn. “I didn’t expect to still see you here.”

My shift had ended two hours ago.

“I was in the piano room,” I said, electing to tell the truth. Some Valhalla managers got testy about employees using the facilities even in accordance with the rules, but Parker knew about my hobby and encouraged it.

“Of course. I should’ve known.” Her eyes twinkled.

Parker was a gem, as far as managers went. A thousand times better than Creepy Charlie or Handsy Harry from my previous places of employment. Besides my friends Vivian and Sloane, she was also one of the few people in New York who knew—and kept—my secret. For that, I would always be grateful.

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, but congratulations on your upcoming work anniversary.”

A smile warmed her face. “I’m glad I have you on my team.”

Warmth sloshed in my stomach, eroding some of my earlier guilt. “Thank you.”

Take that, Gabriel. He might not have faith in me, but my manager said I was one of her “best employees.”

Parker’s words followed me all the way across town to my apartment, where Monty snoozed in his vivarium and my manuscript sat, seventy-nine thousand words short of its eighty-thousand word target.

Bartending paid the bills, but like with piano, I wasn’t interested in it as a career. Still, it felt good to be good at something. Parker had worked at Valhalla for years; she’d seen plenty of people come and go, and she was impressed by me.

I couldn’t let her down.

That meant keeping my nose clean, staying focused, and staying far, far away from a certain British billionaire.

But when I climbed into bed that night and fell into a fitful sleep, my dreams had nothing to do with work and everything to do with dark hair and stolen touches.



CHAPTER 7

Isabella

“Romantic comedies are overrated and unrealistic.” Sloane frowned at the montage of cute dates and passionate kisses flickering across her TV screen. “They’re setting people up for failure with false hopes of happily ever afters and cheesy grand gestures when the average man can’t even remember their partner’s birthday.”

“Uh-huh.” I grabbed another handful of extra buttered popcorn from the bowl between us. “But they’re fun, and you still watch them.”

“I don’t watch them. I—”

“Hate-watch them,” Vivian and I finished in unison.

We were curled up in Sloane’s living room, gorging on junk food and half paying attention to the cheesy Christmas rom-com we’d picked for the night. Some people might say it was too early for Christmas movies, but those people would be wrong. It was October, which meant it was practically December.

“That’s what you say every time.” I popped a fluffy kernel into my mouth, taking care not to drop any crumbs on my laptop. “You’re not entirely wrong, but there are real-life exceptions. Look at Viv and Dante. They’re proof lovestruck men and cheesy grand gestures exist in real life too.”