Page 44 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)
If she hadn’t been caught off guard by some bizarre, emotional tsunami, Jules might have laughed. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
He shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Sure.”
Argggh. What in the world had her friends seen in this guy? More to the point, what had she seen—for a few, brief seconds of insanity? Dante de Marco was clearly the most arrogant, obnoxious man it had ever been her misfortune to meet. “Well, I’m not a tailor.”
“What, then?”
Time to end the world’s least fun game. “I’m a firefighter.”
“Really.”
What gave him the right to offer her a really loaded with as much or more incredulity than hers? “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“I mean, you’re…” Dante flapped a hand in her direction again. So obnoxious. “Small.”
Jules gritted her teeth. “I’m five-eight. That’s not exactly short. And I’m stronger than I look. I work out every day.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I can lift a hundred-and-sixty-pound man.”
The music, which had been ear-splitting the entire time they’d been attempting to converse, suddenly cut out, just in time for her to practically shout those words out into the dead-silent void.
People sitting at the tables all around them turned to look at her.
Heat crawled up Jules’ neck. The smirk that crossed the face of the guy across the table from her didn’t help.
All right. She’d wasted enough of the precious minutes of her one life on Dante de Marco. Before she could open her mouth, offer him that lame excuse about a sick cat that she’d been formulating in the back of her brain, and beat a hasty retreat, he said, “What made you get into that?”
The words expressed an appropriate amount of interest in her that was completely undermined by the look of absolute boredom on his face. He didn’t even glance at her when he asked, only scanned the room, his gaze stalling on a leggy redhead standing at the bar.
Seriously? Dante de Marco might be the last person on the planet she had any intention of opening up to about her reasons for choosing the career she had. She waited long enough to respond that he finally tore his gaze away from the scantily clad woman and shifted it back to her.
Jules lifted her shoulders. “I saw Backdraft as a teen, and it stuck with me.” When he only stared at her blankly, she shifted her chair slightly back from the table. Time to go.
Dante beat her to it. Shoving to his feet, he announced, “I’m going to the men’s room,” before taking off, wending his way between and around tables and leaving her staring at the dark jacket hanging on his chair. Which, frankly, was more fascinating and appealing company than its owner.
Her mouth hanging slightly open, Jules watched her date shove his way through the crowd toward the back of the place.
Had he chosen this location intentionally to make her as uncomfortable as possible?
The heat and darkness in the pub were suffocating, and she suddenly couldn’t take it a second longer.
She stood, so abruptly she had to grab the back of her wooden chair to keep it from tipping over.
Thankfully, she hadn’t bothered to remove either her fitted black jacket or her cross-body bag, so she didn’t have to grab anything before storming toward the rear exit she should have done them both a favor and exited through after leaving the restroom earlier.
Planting both palms on the metal bar, she burst out into the dimly lit alley, gulping in mouthfuls of the warm September air.
As tempted as she might be, she wouldn’t simply take off without telling her date. She just needed a minute to cool down before calmly returning to the table, wishing Dante de Marco a nice life, and then leaving like an adult who had actually been raised to treat people with respect.
Ignoring the acrid smell of rotting garbage drifting on the air, Jules tucked herself into a shadowy corner between the wall and a forest-green dumpster and grabbed the phone from her pocket.
The text icon was lit up, and she stabbed it with her thumb to open the group text and read the response to her heated accusation that her friends had set her up with the most deplorable human being on the planet.
Kelli: The most deplorable? Out of all eight billion people. Really? What about Nicolás Maduro or Rodrigo Duterte or Recep Tayyip Erdo?an?
Not about to get into a who’s the worst dictator debate with her political journalist friend, Jules only typed,
Give me any of their numbers. I’ll call them right now.
Brie: Before you resort to dating a global despot, could you give this guy you’re already with five minutes? He can’t possibly be that bad.
Jules: I assure you he is. Worse, even. Enough that I have escaped to a dark alley to calm down before I go back in there and end it. Do you know that when I asked him what he thought I did for a living, he said a tailor. Tailor. Do I look like a tailor to you???
Kelli: Well, you do have nice clothes.
Jules: Then guess fashion designer or model, not tailor.
The screen remained blank for an insulting amount of time before she typed again:
Really? You send me on the date from you-know-where, and you can’t give me model?
Brie: Of course you could be a model. So, strike a pose and catwalk your way back in there. Failing that, pretend it’s a burning building and he is in need of rescue.
Jules: Given his reaction to me so far, I’m pretty sure he would refuse to accept said help even if the house were engulfed in flames and I was his only hope of survival.
Kelli: At least go tell him?—
A muffled scream captured Jules’ attention, and she jerked her head up.
The phone clattered to the pavement, drowned out by another scream, this one abruptly cut off.
Shadows flickered off the wall near the far end of the alley.
Goosebumps pebbling her skin, Jules plunged a hand beneath her collar to grab the silver locket.
Clutching it tightly between her thumb and forefinger, she edged along the dumpster, her back to the cold metal.
When she reached the front corner, she peered cautiously around the edge. Was someone in trouble?
The sounds of scuffling echoed off the brick walls. A couple of guys fighting, maybe. Although the screams had sounded like a woman. If so, and someone was hurting her, Jules needed to intervene. Her throat tightened as she stepped out from behind the dumpster.
In the dim glow of a lightbulb attached to the side wall of the pub, she could clearly make out the shape of a man standing in front of a woman, close enough to pin her against the wall. His hands were around her neck, and she was frantically scratching at his arms and face, trying to get away.
Before Jules could move or cry out, the woman’s arms dropped to her sides, and she slumped against her assailant. Jules let out a cry and then smacked a hand over her mouth.
The man stepped back and turned toward Jules as the woman collapsed on the ground at his feet, blonde hair splayed across the concrete.
Run, Jules . Despite the frantic thought, her body refused to obey, terror turning her limbs to concrete. Beyond letting go of the locket and lowering both hands to her sides, she couldn’t move a muscle.
Slowly and deliberately, the man started toward her, making no effort to conceal his identity.
Mesmerized by the cruel smile that had crossed his face, the scratches marring his pale cheeks, the splatters of crimson on his arms, Jules could do nothing but stare back at him as he approached.
The only part of her capable of motion was her heart, which pounded as loudly in her ears as the rock music had inside the pub.
Run. Run. Run. The word pulsed through her with every erratic beat. Her body refused to obey the frantic commands her mind was issuing it. His shadow on the wall next to him grew massive—a black, looming monster bearing down on her. Much taller than the man, although he was tall enough.
The stranger’s eyes had locked on hers, and Jules was powerless to break away from their hold.
Something almost but not quite tangible swirled around him—something darker and far more chilling than the massive shadow.
The temperature in the alley dropped as shudders rippled through her.
Lord. That was as much of a prayer as she could summon as the man closed the space between them. Fifteen feet. Ten. Eight.
A sudden burst of song—a creepy, dissonant ringtone emanating from the stranger’s shirt pocket—yanked her from her trance. Still moving toward her, he pulled out the device and hit the button on the side to silence it.
Belatedly, Jules’ sympathetic nervous system kicked in, the sudden shot of epinephrine sending her stumbling backwards three steps before she turned and lunged for the door. The man did not attempt to stop her as she flung it open and dove inside.
Dante. If he really was a cop, Jules needed to get to him.
Her entire body trembled, and she pressed a hand to the wall as she lurched along the hallway and into the seating area.
Ignoring the heated looks and irritated huffs of other patrons as she pushed past them, banged into the backs of two different chairs, and nearly knocked a loaded tray from the hands of a server, she made her way across the floor to the table in the far corner.
It was empty. Dante’s jacket had been hanging over his chair when she left, hadn’t it? Unable to visualize the scene, Jules clawed through the thick fog of panic swirling in her mind to see if she had mentally documented that fact. She was pretty sure it had been, which meant one thing.
For the first time tonight, Jules actually wanted to be in the presence of Dante de Marco, and, true to his contrary nature, the man was gone.