Page 33 of Finding Denver

She scoffs. “I don’t want your fucking clothes.”

A muscle tics in my jaw as I face her. “Denver, it’s freezing outside?—”

“We’re not outside.”

“Points for observation, but you will be when you getoutof the car, so do you want a shirt or not?”

“No.”

This fucking woman.

“Fine.” I sit back. “Which hotel?”

She folds her arms. “I’m not telling you.”

“Then we can explore the city while you freeze to death. Which. Fucking. Hotel?”

The anger is practically radiating off her. “The Rosalia.”

“Thank you. Taf, the Rosalia.”

He grunts in response and puts up the partition, as if maybe he’s sick of her, too. We sit in silence as we ride, and the traffic is likely due to the cops who are on their way to the restaurant. Finn will have left in his own car but will be on the phone to whoever can clean up this mess quietly.

“How do you know it was the Capellis?”

“Contacts,” she says, staring out the window.

“What contacts?”

She looks at me, her smile sardonic. “Secret ones.”

I hope she does freeze. “Ones you’re willing to protect if the Capellis start cutting your fingers off?”

“You worry about you, I’ll worry about me,” she says, facing the window again. She suddenly pats her jacket and jeans pocket. “We have to go back. I left my phone.”

“Returning to the murder scene isn’t advised. Get a new one.”

“But I need to call—” She pauses. “Never mind.”

I fish my phone out of my pants pocket. “You can call Ranger from my phone. I have his number.”

She eyes me. “Why?”

“I thought I’d need it one day.” Our gazes lock, and only then does it really hit me that this is Denver Luxe.

It’s her eyes that make me pause.

The deep, steel gray, the ring of darkness on her outer iris that makes the color more penetrating.

Her lashes are darker than her hair, which is currently a blood red as it slowly dries from the heat inside the car. Her plump lips are a soft pink, and droplets of freckles cover her nose and some of her cheeks. The last time we were this close, she was unconscious, but now she’s very much awake. Alert.Alive. That life radiates from her like a beacon. Everything she’s feeling flits across her face in real time—the pull of her auburn brows, the line between them that deepens with every second, and the fire behind her eyes that tells me she very much dislikes me.

But she also saved me.

“Why?”

Her frown deepens. “Why what?”

“Why did you kill him?”