The Morning After

My fingers stopped just short of touching the ash on Jameson’s white shirt. “You smell like smoke,” I told him.

“I don’t smoke, Heiress.”

Jameson Hawthorne, master of deflection. “That’s not the kind of smoke I’m talking about,” I said, but Jameson knew that, just like I knew from the expression on his face alone that he wasn’t going to say a single word about fire or flames or how close he’d come to getting burned.

What happened? I searched his eyes, and then my gaze went back to the cut at the base of his neck—deep at its lowest point, shallower as it went up. Who did this to you?

Instead of asking anything out loud, I ran my fingers over the lines of dried blood on his chest—streaks of it, like heavy drops of blood had run down his chest like tears. I could see sweat beaded on his skin even now, and when I brought my gaze back up to his face, there was something guarded about the set of his features.

Jameson was still smiling, but everything in me said that smile was a lie. Bleeding is a good look for me, he’d quipped.

“I’m not done asking questions,” I warned him.

Jameson reached out and touched me, a light brush against my cheek, like I was the fragile one here. “Never thought that you were, Heiress.”

The sound of footsteps alerted me to Oren’s approach. My head of security rounded the corner and took in the scene in front of him in a heartbeat: Jameson, me, the blood.

Oren folded his arms over his chest. “I also have questions.”