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Feeling him at my back, the immense pressure of him wrapping around me was even worse. He followed me closely, all the way to my kitchen counter. “Can I get you anything?” I asked.

Nothing but a low grunt of denial left Adrian’s throat. I moved to make myself a cup of tea, if only to busy my hands with a task.

Adrian tracked me as I moved around my kitchen, his eyes branding every inch of my skin. If the attraction would go away, it would make this easier. But I had a sinking feeling I’d never stop feeling this aggressively drawn to him.

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the dried herbs I was stirring.

“Reyna,” Adrian said in warning. “You know what you said to Emre yesterday. You didn’t respond to my note.”

I could deflect. Yes, that would buy me more time with him. “I’m not hearing a question.”

Adrian was out of his seat and stalking towards me, backing me up against the counter. He planted both hands down on either side of my hips, leaning down so that our faces were level.

I couldn’t think with him this close.

“Fine,” he said, the words falling onto my lips. “What changed? You leave my bedroom two days ago looking content and freshly fucked. Now you look scared of me.” He said the last words like they disgusted him.

I could tell him that he didn’t scare me.Couldn’t. But this wasn’t about what was true. This was about saving him.

I shrugged one of my shoulders, praying for nonchalance. “I don’t think we should keep doing this.”

Adrian’s face slammed down into a hard mask. But not before I caught a glint ofsomethingin his eyes. “What?”

I breathed in, hating the words before they even came out. “I think we should end this.”

Adrian’s nostrils flared on a sharp exhale. Then fury, hot and molten, poured over him. “You made me a promise.”

“Well, I’m breaking it.” Something certainly felt like it was breaking. Just not my promise to him. Adrian seethed, staring at me like he didn’t recognize me. I could feel his hands curling into fists on the counternext to my hips, like he was restraining himself from something. “Should I be worried about what the payment for my sins will be?”

Adrian’s fury pulsed, his head cocking as his tongue ran over his teeth. “I would never do anything to hurt you, reputation or otherwise. If you don’t know that, then you don’t know me.”

We both knew I did know him. And he knew me. Which was making this so much harder. It didn’t seem like I was convincing him of anything other than the fact that I was hiding something.

“Reyna, if—” Adrian broke off. Something I’d never heard him do. Not once. “Is someone making you do this?”

I breathed in. “No.”

I wouldn’t have been able to sayyes.Even if it was the truth. Sebastian hadn’t asked me to do anything. Just forced me into it by threatening the people I loved most in this world.

Adrian studied me intensely, his eyes darting to every corner of my face. Flaying me out and leaving me a raw, desperate mess. I didn’t know what to say.

I just let him look at me like he both knew every inch of my skin by memory and didn’t recognize me at all.

Finally, he spoke. The words low, but sounding like a clap of thunder in my silent kitchen. “Get through tonight. Then, I’ll let you go.”

Please don’t. “What’s tonight?”

The fact that I didn’t remember seemed to do something to Adrian. Pushed him closer to one decision over another. “We have dinner with your parents.”

Oh.

No.

No, that wasn’t a good idea.

“That was something you were doing to helpme,” I tried to argue, though my tone lacked fire. Dammit, my conviction was waning. “There’s no need.”

Adrian scoffed, shaking his head slightly. In quick moves, he stepped beside me, turning off the burner and pouring my tea into a mug. Adding just the right amount of honey to make it as sweet as I liked my coffee. “Tonight. Then I’ll do whatever you want.”