Page 26 of These White Lies

His head tips back and he laughs, a gesture so strangely genuine I can’t help but stare. My own lips twitch in response.

“So, you’re saying thereisa price?” His chest is still heaving as he tries to stop laughing. “I’d like it noted that just because Iknowescorts, doesn’t mean I partake.”

I roll my eyes. There’s no malicious intent in his eyes. He’s teasing me, and I smile despite myself.

When was the last time someone teased me? Not since I left home, and I’m surprised to realize I miss the feeling.

“Everyone has a price.” My joke falls flat, his eyes darkening.

“Too true.”

“I wasn’t spying, by the way. I was... lost.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.” His lips tighten. “You need to be careful exploring dark hallways here. Not everyone here would ask if you were working… first.”

My jaw drops. “You think Carrow brought escorts to his engagement party”

Then again, his fiancée doesn’t have a problem having sex in a hallway during it.

Still… I thought Natalya’s taste was bad before… but this?Thisis a whole new level of catastrophic decision-making.

“I know he did.” Mystery man says it so casually I doubt myself.

No, I mentally shake myself. It’sdefinitelyweird to bring sex workers to your engagement party.

“If you’re not a spy, who are you?” He walks toward the bar cart, but spins on a heel and lifts a finger. “On second thought, no names. More fun that way.”

And then he winks at me.

He just throws out a devastatingly sexy wink like it’s nothing, and plucks a bottle of scotch off the cart, while I’m trying to identify the warmth flooding my chest.

“Straight from Carrow’s private stash. We’ll call it retribution.”

“Retribution?” I follow him across the room.

“For having to endure his taste in parties.”

He pours two fingers each into a pair of heavy tumblers, handing me one with a slight bow.

I take it, my fingers brushing his for the briefest moment, a crackle of awareness sparking up my arm.

We clink glasses lightly.

“You know,” I say, thinking of Natalya and his comments about escorts. “Carrow doesn’t really strike me as the type to share, but I don’t know him well.”

A flash of something dark crosses his face, gone before I’m sure I saw it.

“No,” he agrees. “He’s not.”

There is something in the way he says it that makes my skin prickle. This man doesn’t like Carrow any more than I do. And for some reason, that puts me at ease.

“So, you aren’t one of Carrow’s friends?” I don’t know why it’s so important to me that he’s not.

“No. We have intertwined business interests.”

“That’s vague.”

“Deliberately so.” He flashes another grin.