Page 45 of The Scarab's Game

“You were out late.”

Me?“You were still at the bar when I got in.”

“I don’t have anything scheduled in the morning. I can sleep late.”

“It was a working dinner.” Sort of. Ithoughta lot about work, at least.

“Where’d you go?”

“Le Ciel. He said he saw you at one of the tables.”

The door opened on our floor, and he waved me out ahead of him. “Awfully posh for a working dinner.”

“You don’t like him, do you?”

He fell into step beside me, pulling out his phone when it buzzed, then shoving it back into his pocket. “I didn’t think he was your type.”

My type? Bad boys. Liars and cheaters. Awful men.Why do you keep choosing men like that?I rolled my eyes, more at myself than at him.

No, Dante didn’t seem like my type at all.

Emmett was that type.

At least, that’s what my father always said. Emmett used to get into fights when he was younger and was suspended too many times to count. He always did well in school, but had a temper. Then something happened around the time of our one and only kiss, and all that changed. Scarlett never knew what it was, but she thought Emmett and their mother had a talk that helped him.

After he stopped getting into trouble, my father still insisted he was bad news. No matter what Emmett did as he grew up, my father would talk about him like he was still a kid, getting into scuffles.

And my dad never let go of what Joseph Reynolds did, either. Some of the boys we knew thought Emmett was cool because his dad was a spy. Emmett never thought that. He never wanted to talk about his father. Scar said it was even like that at home.

We walked down the curving white hallway, past the gold paintings and the embossed doors, to our suite. Why did he care if Dante was my type?

“What exactly do you think my type is?”

He frowned, deep lines creasing around his mouth. “That’s none of my business, is it?”

Was Dante right? Did Emmett want me andthatwas why he’d been acting weird?

If it was, why not say something? He always knew what to say and could talk anyone into anything. Why not come closer to me last night?

Wait.

Emmett kept coming back to my room last night, getting me settled with the water and then with the food and wine. I’d assumed he was worried about my mental state after the break-in. Had he been imagining the two of us together in the same bed, instead of rooms apart?

Heat pooled in my core, and I drifted closer to him as we walked. “Were you waiting for me downstairs?”

“I needed a drink.” That was bullshit, wasn’t it?

“You had wine in the room last night. Why not order room service again?”

He slowed and produced his keycard as we approached our door. He didn’t answer me. Just opened the door and held it while I went in.

I stopped in the small vestibule, rather than heading for the living room or down the short hallway to my room. I was tired. My back hurt. My eyes were sore.

Dante’s words kept circling around my brain.‘How long has he been in love with you?’

“Emmett…” I barely got one word out before my throat closed. What was I going to say? I couldn’t ask him if Dante was right. I couldn’t tell him how I honestly felt—all I could manage was his name. I couldn’t stand to turn around and look at him.

“What do you need?” The earlier irritation had vanished from his tone, and his body drew closer to mine. It was that same soft tone he’d used in my hotel room yesterday. The tender one I’d dreamed about.