Page 50 of The Perfect Deception

“Don’t bring it down, Dina. You said you wanted to party.” He grabbed her hand and stum­ble-danced down the hall. He gripped her against him and she could feel his heart­beat against her chest. They banged into the wall and she winced.

“Oh, shit, Dina. Are you okay?” His gaze grew sur­pris­ingly clear and his eyes re­flected his worry for her for a mo­ment be­fore glaz­ing over again.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Maybe we should sit down, though.”

He took her hand and led her into the liv­ing room. Once again, the heat from his hand warmed her en­tire body. She tried not to fo­cus on it.

He sprawled onto a black leather sofa and pulled her down be­side him. Now the sides of their bod­ies were touch­ing, from their shoul­ders to their hips and thighs. That was even worse.

“Bet­ter?” he asked. He hadn’t let go of her hand yet and he be­gan play­ing with it, run­ning his fin­gers along her palm and wrist, and driv­ing her crazy. Mr. Flashy­pants was also the King of Dis­trac­tion.

“Tough day?” she asked.

“Don’t wanna talk about it.” He frowned, his gaze fo­cused on her hand. “Your skin is so soft.”

His body was close enough to her, she could al­most hear his heart­beat. Or was that her own pulse rac­ing in her ears? “Thank you.”

“Why do you put up with me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just go­ing to chase you away.”

“I doubt it. Did you have din­ner with friends tonight?” She needed to fo­cus and fig­ure out a way to get to what was both­er­ing him. The di­rect ap­proach wasn’t work­ing.

“Tried to.”

“What’s that mean?”

“My dad showed up at the restau­rant and made a scene.” She raised her eye­brows.

He lifted his whiskey glass to his lips, but it was empty, and he started to rise. She pulled at his waist­band and he fell back onto the couch. “Oh, is that what you want?” He leaned to­ward her, his breath a mix­ture of whiskey and him. She pushed against his chest un­til he was once again sit­ting next to her.

“First, tell me why your dad made a scene.”

He glared at her, but didn’t move.

His eye­brows were caramel-col­ored, a shade deeper than his hair and she pressed her hands to­gether to keep from run­ning her fin­ger along his brow. “He said I needed to learn my les­son.”

“What les­son?”

He lurched off the sofa and over to the side­board, where he sloshed whiskey into his glass. “Want one?”

She shook her head. Some­one had to stay sober.

Ap­par­ently, he’d over­ruled her, be­cause he brought the glass over and handed it to her. “Drink up.”

She took a sip and the am­ber liq­uid burned her throat. Cough­ing, she held the glass out to Adam, who banged it on the mar­ble cof­fee ta­ble, re­liev­ing her of hav­ing to drink any more of it.

“What les­son, Adam?”

He fo­cused his trou­bled green eyes on her and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, and prom­ise that ev­ery­thing would be al­right. He rose, banged his leg on the edge of the ta­ble and paced the room. She knew the only way he’d feel bet­ter is if he got out what­ever was tor­ment­ing him. In­stead, his jaw was clenched, his body rigid and he wouldn’t look at her. Each time their gazes met, his took off in a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion.

But he con­tin­ued to re­turn to her and she knew it was only a mat­ter of time be­fore he had no choice but to stop and talk. So she waited.

Af­ter a few more cir­cuits around the beige area rug, he sank onto the couch next to her, his fore­arm cov­er­ing his eyes.

“What les­son?” she asked again.