"I’ll take you where you want to go."
"No," I snap.
"Yes." His lips twitch.
He finds this entire conversation a hoot, does he? I raise my foot and smash my heel down on his more-expensive-than-my-entire-monthly-salary boot. He doesn’t even flinch.
"Who’s this?" Penny’s voice sounds from my left as she draws abreast.
"Is this the big, bad mob guy who rescued you?" Olivia asks as she flanks me on the other side.
"Ladies." Smooth as you please, the alphahole tips an imaginary hat in both their directions.
Penny visibly simpers. Olivia stares at him like he’s an alien from another planet. Or a god who’s descended from Mt. Olympus. Or an actor stepped off a runway at Fashion Week.
I clear my throat and both women seem to snap out of their befuddled state. Something burns in my chest. Clearly, it’s because I haven’t eaten dinner yet. I must be so hungry that my stomach’s juices are attacking the lining. Yep, that’s all it is. I’m not jealous at all that my friends find him so attractive. Not at all.
"If you think I’m going to simply fall in line with your command, then you have another thing coming."
"Think," he drawls.
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"You have another think coming. It’s think, not thing."
"No, it’s not. Think?" I scoff. "That makes no sense at all." I try to brush past him, and this time, he grabs my arm.
"Have you been crying?" He peers into my face. "Youhavebeen crying." His voice hardens. "What happened?"
Damn him and his over-attentive gaze which never seems to miss a thing. And this time, it is thing. Not think. It couldn’t have been think in that previous sentence, could it?
I try to pull my arm away, but he holds on. "Tell me, Angel. What made you cry?"
"Nothing," I snap.
"It’s something."
"She was removed from the lead role," Penny pipes up.
I shoot my friend a murderous look. Penny raises her hands with a 'what-did-I-do-wrong' look on her face.
"They replaced her with me," Olivia says in a low voice. "I was her understudy. I never expected to go on, to be honest, but our director decided otherwise."
"Why?" He glances from them, back to my face. He must see something in my expression because his features go solid. His already pronounced cheekbones seem to hone to a razor-sharp edge that could, surely, cut diamonds.
"Because you were away the last three days. That’s why you lost the lead role," he surmises.
I glance away.
His entire being seems to coil with tension. Anger thrums off of him with such intensity that my chest tightens. My pulse begins to beat so hard, I can feel it at my wrists, at the base of my throat. I jerk my face in his direction, and his gaze sears me. It’s as if forest fires flare deep in those eyes, the way he surveys my features.
A pulse tics at his jaw and a nerve pops to life at his temple. He releases my arm and brushes past me and toward the door that leads into the theater.
I blink once, twice, trying to compute what he’s up to.
Next to me, Penny and Olivia stare after him, then turn to me.
"Of course he has to stomp away in anger. Typical Mafia guy behavior," Olivia mutters.