Chapter 3

"Why," I croaked, "is it always you when my life falls apart?"

"Maybe it isn't bad luck." He tilted the umbrella toward me. "Maybe you just have terrible taste in fiancés."

"At least my fiancé never pointed a gun at me!"

Something flickered across his face. "Do you still want to marry him?"

"None of your business." I grabbed my suitcase and turned to leave.

Behind me, he coughed. It was a real, wet, ugly cough. I turned around. His hand was pressed to his side, and blood was dripping between his fingers onto the wet sidewalk.

"You idiot. I told you no fighting for three days!"

"Go," he rasped. "I'll be fine."

"You're going to die on a sidewalk to prove a point?"

"Would you mind?" he asked quietly.

I didn't answer that. "I'm taking you to a hospital."

"No hospitals. Too many eyes. If the wrong people find me, they'll find you too."

"Then where?"

The smile came back, weak but wicked. "You're good at hiding men in motel rooms."

I wanted to strangle him. Instead, I hooked his arm over my shoulder.

The Langford Hotel's night clerk was a bored older woman sipping tea. She looked up at the blood, then at his face, and choked so hard she spat her tea across the counter. She went white.

"He's my fiancé," I blurted out. "We were mugged. Please, we need a room."

The stranger leaned on me and gave her a single flat look. "You heard her. I'm her fiancé."

Her hands shook as she slid a gold keycard across the desk. "Penthouse suite. Our best. No one will disturb you, I promise. No one."

In the elevator, I muttered, "She was scared of the blood."

"Mm," he said.

In the suite, he stripped off his shirt without warning. I spun around with my face on fire.

"Put that back on!"

"You've seen it before." His voice was laced with laughter. "And we're engaged now, remember?"

"For the clerk!"

I tore out the ruined stitches and redid them under the lamp while he watched me with that unbearable focus. At one point, I looked up and our eyes locked. His were blue and burning. My hands forgot what they were doing.

Suddenly, he grabbed my wrist and pulled. I fell across the bed, and he rolled over me, caging me in his arms. Our breath tangled.

"Why are you so far away," he murmured, "when you're supposed to be taking care of me?"

"Lie down," I ordered, pushing him off with my heart pounding.

The fever hit him at 3 a.m. He burned and shook. When I tried to pull away to wet a cloth, his hand locked around mine.

"Don't go," he whispered.

Something in me cracked. "I'm not going anywhere. Not until this breaks."

I fell asleep holding his hand.

I woke up alone in the bed under a heavy black coat. Panic shot through me, and I ran for the door barefoot.

I crashed straight into a wall of warm, wet muscle. He was fresh from the shower in nothing but a towel.

"You. Are. Always. Naked."

"My clothes were bloody." He shrugged. "I'm hungry. Go buy us breakfast."

"Excuse me? I paid for this room. I paid for your meds. You owe me."

"You keep a tab?"

"Down to the penny."

He laughed low in his throat, took my right hand, and slid a heavy black ring onto my finger. It was engraved with a coiled serpent around a crown. It fit perfectly.

"Payment," he said.

"Is it even worth anything?"

He leaned close to my ear. "More than you could imagine. Don't lose it."

Twenty minutes later, I was crossing the lobby when the doors swung open. Ethan strolled in with Chloe on his arm, and Chloe smiled like a shark.

"Look who's still in town," she said. "A wounded man is staying upstairs with you? Funny. The news says the police are hunting a wounded gunman from last night's shootout." She snapped her fingers at her bodyguards. "Search her room."

"You can't!"

The front desk clerk went pale. "Ma'am, I'm begging you. Do not go up there. You'll regret it."

Chloe laughed in her face.

They took the elevator. I ran the stairs and got there just as a bodyguard kicked the penthouse door off its hinges.

Chloe stepped through first. Then she screamed.