Page 105

"And that someone is you. A man who kills people for a living."

"Among other services."

I laugh, and it comes out of me easy and unplanned. His eyes drop to my mouth and stay there a beat too long. The room shifts. It does that around him, the temperature changing without anyone touching a thermostat.

"Eat," he says.

I eat. The eggs are stupidly good, which is its own kind of insulting, that this man can break a person's orbital bone and also knows the exact moment to pull eggs off heat. I make a sound around the fork that I don't fully authorize.

"Good?" he asks.

"Fine. Adequate."

"You moaned."

"I did not moan. That was appreciation. Culturally appropriate appreciation."

"No." He leans back, arms crossing over all that ink, and one corner of his mouth lifts in a way that turns my spine into warm liquid. "I know that sound now. I learned it last night. Twice in the shower, once on the washing machine."

The fork stops halfway to my mouth. Heat climbs my throat and settles in my cheeks, which is ridiculous, because I have done significantly more embarrassing things in front of this man.

"That's different," I manage.

"It's the exact same sound." His voice drops lower, rough around the edges. "Same pitch. Same little catch at the end. If my cooking gets that reaction out of you, bella, I'm insulted on behalf of everything else I did for you yesterday."

"Oh my God."

"Finish your breakfast," he says, perfectly calm, cutting into his eggs like he hasn't completely derailed my morning. "Then we can revisit the discussion."

I press my thighs together beneath the counter and immediately regret it, because of course he notices. The man probably notices structural weaknesses in buildings from three blocks away.

"You're a menace."

"You're wearing my shirt and eating my food. Who's the menace?"

"Still you. By a wide margin."

He huffs through his nose and goes back to his plate.

For a minute, we just eat. The last chime fades into the morning.

A month ago, I would've filled the silence. Pulled out a story. Asked a question. Performed conversational CPR until the room started breathing again.

Now I drink my espresso and watch this dangerous, infuriating man eat eggs in the morning light. The silence doesn't feel awkward. It feels comfortable.

"Ten days," I say eventually. "Walking. You'd really do that? Tourist stuff?"

"With you?" He doesn't even look up from his plate. "I'd walk the whole goddamn city."

Something warm settles low in my chest. Not excitement. Not hope. Something quieter.

I let myself picture it for a second. His hand around mine. A narrow street. No one looking for us. No one needing anything from us.

Just walking.

"That's a very romantic answer for someone who pretends not to be romantic."

That finally gets his attention. He looks up.