Page 81 of Dirty Game

He doesn't kiss me, doesn't run his fingers through my hair the way he did at the safe house, and he doesn't pull me against him in the night when nightmares wake me.

Something isn’t right. He won’t even hold my gaze for more than a second before finding something urgently requiring his attention elsewhere.

It's like the safe house never happened, like he never showed me what pleasure could be, like he never took my virginity.

I've convinced myself I did something wrong.

Maybe I wasn't good enough—too inexperienced, too eager, making the wrong sounds or moving the wrong way.

Maybe I was too clingy afterward, too emotional, too needy.

Maybe he regrets touching me at all.

Maybe now that he's had me, the mystery is gone, the challenge conquered, and I'm just another obligation tied to my uncle's debt.

Maria tells me I'm being ridiculous. "Men get weird after emotional intimacy," she says, finding me staring out the penthouse window this morning. "They feel things they don't understand and panic. Give him time."

But time feels like sandpaper against my skin, each hour of distance scraping me raw.

Tonight's charity gala is mandatory—a who's who of Vancouver's criminal elite pretending to care about orphans or cancer or whatever cause launders their money best this year.

Varrick told me about it this morning, barely looking up from his phone. "We leave at eight. Maria has your dress."

That was it. No explanation of what to expect.

No preparing me for who would be there.

No touch, no kiss, not even a brush of fingers when he handed me my coffee.

The dress is stunning—red silk that pours over my body like liquid fire, clinging to curves I've learned to appreciate, dipping low in the back to show the delicate line of my spine.

The front is modest enough for a charity event, but cut in a way that suggests rather than reveals.

Maria pins my hair up in an elegant twist, leaving a few tendrils to frame my face.

The makeup she applies makes my blue eyes look enormous, my lips look bitten and full.

"You look like a million dollars," she says, stepping back to admire her work.

"Six million," I correct quietly, remembering my price.

"No," she says firmly. "You look priceless. He won't be able to keep his eyes off you."

She's half right.

When Varrick sees me descending the stairs, he stops mid-conversation with Jensen.

His eyes track over me slowly, taking in every detail from my silver heels to the diamond earrings he left on my dresser earlier without a word.

Something hungry flashes in his expression, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it.

But all he says is, "You look appropriate," before offering his arm, careful to keep fabric between our skin.

The ride to the gala is silent except for Jensen occasionally speaking into his earpiece, coordinating security.

Varrick stares out his window, I stare out mine, and the space between us in the backseat might as well be an ocean.

The Whitmore Hotel is a fortress of luxury, a place so exclusive most people don't even know it exists.