Page 5 of The Price of Power

The jerk turned his attention toward me, and I could see that his face wasn’t just pale anymore. There were beads of sweat dotting his brow.

Damn, he really was scared.

Scared enough to make me wonder if maybe I should be, too.

“Please forgive me,” the jerk continued, his voice shaking so badly that I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “I didn’t realize you were with?—“

“Leave,” the stranger cut him off one more time, his voice commanding enough to fill the entire lounge.

Then I watched with wide eyes as the drunk shot out of the bar like his ass was on fire.

Only then did I turn to the stranger.

“Wow,” I said, not bothering to hide my amazement. “Thank you. That was…impressive.”

And more than a little scary.

At least, everyone else in the lounge seemed to think it was.

I, on the other hand, was more intrigued than anything else.

“It was my pleasure,” he said. Even though he’d given up the commanding tone, his voice was every bit as deep and rattily as before. “I could hear him giving you trouble from the bar.”

And he’d come over to help while everyone else had just shot me withering glares.

“Though now I’m worried the staff is going to kick us out for making a scene,” I said.

The stranger just shook his head. “No one here would dare.”

“You sound pretty confident,” I said. “You must be a VIP.”

It was easy to imagine him staying in the famous Royal Suite. He certainly held himself with the swagger of a man who could drop 30 thousand a night without blinking.

But the stranger shook his head, his enigmatic smile growing even wider. “I’m not guest. I live a few blocks away.”

Hmm…that didn’t explain why everyone in the lounge was acting so deferential to him.

Was he famous?

I never kept up with celebrity gossip. I was so out of touch that it was possible I could be sitting at a table with a giant movie star and not realize it. This neighborhood around Central Park was home to the wealthy and powerful, after all.

“I’m Liv,” I said, extending my hand across the table, and silently adding devilishly handsome strangers that chase away jerks to the list of people who got to call me by the shortened version of name.

The stranger took my hand, the warmth of his skin against my palm feeling surprisingly intimate for such a common gesture. “Gabriel.”

I’d hoped that if he was a celebrity, his name would spark a memory inside my head, but no such luck. All I knew was that his name suited him. Just like I knew, he never shortened it. He was never Gabe. Never.

This man was a Gabriel, through and through.

I was in danger of holding on to his hand a second too long but fortunately just then a text alarm chimed and he pulled his phone out of his coat’s inner pocket.

I quickly pulled my hands back, cupping them together tightly in my lap.

“Again, I really appreciate your help, but don’t let me keep you,” I said.

His gaze came back to mine a second later, as he tucked his phone away. It could have been the low light and candle flicker, but his eyes seemed extraordinarily dark and magnetic.

“Actually, I’m alone tonight as well,” he said. “I was hoping to run into someone, but it looks like they stood me up.”