Page 81 of Sinful Promise

I scan the rows and rows of empty seats.

Emily went into this lecture half an hour ago for her economics lecture, and I made sure to stand outside the door when it finished so I would be able to find her easily among the sea of students.

Yet somehow, she managed to slip past me.

My eyes land on the emergency exit door to the right of the projector screen, and I know that’s where Emily went. She would have known that I would have been waiting for her, and she decided to make me sweat by ducking out without me knowing.

Thank fuck for the tracking app on her phone, otherwise I would be losing my mind right now.

Perhaps I need to get Alexei to have a word with Emily about this. My eldest brother can be pretty intimidating when he wants to be, and maybe that’s what Emily needs.

At this point, she can’t get any more pissed off with me, so if I have to pull out the big guns in order to get her to stay in line, so fucking be it.

If she’s angry at me, it means she’s still alive, and that’s all I care about right now.

As I load up the app on my phone, I groan when the little dot with Emily’s name flashes five blocks away at a café we used to frequent back when I was a student here.

How the hell did she get so far away so quickly?

I pocket my phone and sprint out of the lecture hall, hoping that Emily doesn’t decide to prolong this game of cat and mouse.

The sightof Emily sitting in the window of the café, chatting away animatedly to her friend Clara, has me breathing a sigh of relief. She notices me immediately, but then goes back to talking with her friend, as if I’m nothing more than a stranger passing by the window.

Will she ever look at me like she did before, where her green eyes would light up and a huge smile would spread across her face whenever she saw me?

She used to look at me as if I was her whole world, and now she’s doing everything she can to get as far away from me as possible.

I head inside the café and order myself a double espresso, which I drink at the counter, so I have a perfect view of Emily’s table.

The moment her little coffee date with her friend is over, I make my move and take her friend’s place at her table.

“What the hell was that about?”

Emily rolls her eyes as she packs away her notebooks. She looks especially stunning today, wearing a lavender sundress with her blonde hair loose around her shoulders.

“Emily, look at me. Do you not care that your fucking life is in danger?”

Emily’s head snaps up, and she glowers at me.

“Is that what you think? That I don’t care?”

“You’re joking, right? How else would you explain the fact that you’re doing everything you possibly can to avoid me?”

“I wasn’t alone. And it’s not my problem if you can’t keep up. If you want to follow me, then so be it. But it’s up to you to notice when I sneak out of the emergency exit.”

I run a hand over my face and do my best to put a lid on my anger.

“I don’twantto follow you,” I state as calmly as I can manage.

“Oh, really? It doesn’t seem like you fought very hard against Dimitri’s request. But then again, I know you value his opinion of you more than anything.”

She gets to her feet.

“Come on, Emily. You know that’s not true.”

“I didn’t ask for any of this, Danil.”

There’s such sadness in her eyes as she looks at me, and I don’t know what to say to make any of this better.

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