Page 30 of My Fallen Saint

His eyes never leave my face, and his expression gives nothing away.

He’s Alex Leto, and yet he’s not.

He’s the man from the parking lot, and yet he’s not.

He’s power and strength and danger combined, and I don’t know how I never saw it before. That raw force that burns inside him. That wild, raw energy that, when wrestled down into a controlled intensity, had given him the strength and willpower to build something like the Devlin Saint Foundation.

And I wonder if that’s also where he got the strength to walk away from me.

The desk is huge and sleek, Danish modern in teak polished to a sheen. Unlike his assistant’s minimal desk, this one is essentially a brick, keeping the man behind it separated from everyone who steps into the room.

A sliding glass door is behind him, and I know it opens onto the fourth floor balcony upon which he’d been standing yesterday when he was watching me.

I shouldn’t be intimidated, but damn me, I am. In the parking lot, we were on more or less equal footing. Now, the scales have tipped wildly. I’m out of my element, a stranger in this pristine, polished room. A supplicant begging for crumbs of information, with no control over the situation whatsoever, and no real certainty why he summoned me.

More important, I can’t hold onto the fiction that I know this man at all. In this room, the difference between Alex Leto and Devlin Saint is clear. And more than a little unnerving.

I gather my courage and walk to the sofa, then sit down and cross my legs. “Well?” I demand, with more aplomb than I feel. “Shall we get started with that interview?”

He comes around the desk, moving with an efficiency and grace that’s almost poetic. He’d always been a pleasure to watch. But now there’s a poise to him that hadn’t been part of the younger model.

He heads for the wet bar in a perfectly tailored dark gray suit that makes him look both suave and powerful. He pours two glasses of whiskey from a decanter then brings them both to the sitting area. He puts one glass on the table in front of a chair, but he hands the other to me.

I reach for it, and as I pull my hand back, his forefinger brushes over the back of my hand. I suck in air, hating myself for reacting even as I crave more. Something intimate to match the spark of heat that his single touch had fanned inside me.

I don’t mean to, but I look up and our eyes meet, and for a moment everything else evaporates. The years, the hurt, the loss. It’s just me and Alex, and I want to fall on my knees and cry, I’ve missed him so much.

Then he looks away, and time snaps back into place. I look down, hiding my burning cheeks, and set the glass on the table with a thunk.

He sits opposite me, then reaches for his own glass. If he’d felt anything in that moment, he isn’t showing it now. His expression is as hard as stone and just as unreadable.

I force myself not to reach for my own glass, even though right now all I want to do is slam it back, then refill it.

He takes a sip, the ice tinkling against the crystal, his eyes never leaving my face.

As he does, I notice for the first time that his knuckles are red and raw, and it’s that tiny peek at humanity that steels my spine. “Fist fight?”

“Something like that.”

I smile sweetly although my heart is pounding. “Did you piss someone off? Or did you just have some energy to burn after last night? Are fist fights a remedy for blue balls? That’s something I never thought to look up on Wikipedia.”

He doesn’t react and I force the smile to stay in place, but I can tell my upper lip is sweating.

Seconds tick by and still he says nothing.

I don’t know what happened in the years between the boy and the man, but all of his raw edges have been worn away. He commands a room now, and it’s very clear that he understands the extent of his own power.

It’s overwhelming. And more than a little exciting.

I fight not to fidget. We’re playing chicken now, and we both know it. And even though I’m determined not to be the one who caves, I hear myself saying, “Well?”

He leans back, comfortable in victory. Then he takes a sip of his bourbon, puts the glass back down, and says, “I told you to go.”

And there it is.

I settle into my chair, because now I’m okay. The steel is back in my spine, and I remember why I’m pissed. Why I don’t need to be intimidated. Because guess what? I’m not the asshole here.

I don’t answer right away. Instead, I follow his lead and reach for my drink. I swirl the ice, watching the circular flow of the liquid with the same intensity of someone reading tea leaves. Then I take a long swallow and finish off the entire damn drink.