Page 5 of My End

I pressed my hand to the glass, and my heart ticked a little faster.

Something about him hit wrong and right at the same time.

Like stepping into cold water that you know will feel amazing once you get used to it.

He wasn’t one of Boone’s politician friends.

He wasn’t one of the house staff.

He wasn’t…

He looked up.

Directly at me.

I gasped and stumbled back a step with my hand still on the glass.

His sunglasses were gone. His eyes, dark, sharp, and utterly unreadable, locked onto mine like he already knew every secret I’d ever painted into a canvas.

I didn’t move.

I didn’t breathe.

He didn’t look at me like a staff member. Like someone told to be polite.

He looked at me like I was a puzzle he wasn’t sure he wanted to solve, or maybe like he already had the pieces.

I exhaled slowly with my heart still stammering like a teenager who just got noticed.

“Get a grip, Tilly,” I muttered and brushed a lock of light brown hair out of my face.

I peeked again with just a quick glance. Jim was still talking to him now on the front steps.

And the man, he didn’t talk much. Just nodded. Eyes always moving. Watching. Cataloging.

I’d never painted men like that before. In shadows. With angles and charcoal eyes.

I turned away from the window finally and crossed the studio again while trying to focus.

I stood in front of the canvas, and all I could think about was the stranger in black.

The man who looked like sin dipped in ink.

The man who made me forget which blue I was chasing.

And I had a feeling I hadn’t seen the last of him.

Not even close.

Chapter Three

Stretch

I didn’t know what the hell I was walking into.

Dinner, Jim had said. Six o’clock in the kitchen. Like I was supposed to just show up, sit down, and play house with a bunch of people who didn’t know I was here to rip the whole damn thing apart from the inside.

I ran a hand over my beard as I stepped out of my room and into the hallway. The temperature dipped a couple degrees outside that concrete box they called a room. Down there, it was utility over comfort—no frills and no distractions. Upstairs, it was all rich-people glamour and hush-money silence. The tile sparkled. The lights were recessed just right. The artwork on the walls screamed modern money.