Page 86 of King of Envy

I finally turned. “So should you.” I kept my voice light and airy. “You’re the one who followed me.”

Vuk regarded me from half a dozen feet away. His face was hard and unsmiling.Tell me to leave.

“No.”

The word traveled between us on a thread of defiance. I hadn’t come this far to back out now. If he wanted to leave, he’d have to do it himself. I wasn’t going to give him an easy out.

Vuk released a sharp exhale.You didn’t get dressed up to hang out with me in a library.

Maybe not, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t hoped Vuk would make an appearance tonight.

“Once again, you’re the one who followed me here,” I said, knowing full well I’d baited him into doing so.

And you’re the one who wants me to stay.

Also true.

The seconds ticked by without a response from me or a movement from him. The silence stretched, smoldering with all the banked heat and breathless yearning we shouldn’t want.

Vuk’s gaze slid from my face down to my throat and over my chest. It skimmed past my stomach and hips and dragged, leisurely, over the length of my legs before coming back up to meet my eyes.

All the breath swept out of me in one soft wave. A thousand fireflies danced over my skin in the wake of his scrutiny. It’d been so warm, sointimate, that I felt it as surely as a lover’s caress.

Why did you come to me first the other week?

I was so light-headed it took me a moment to piece together his question. He was asking about Wentworth.

“Because you’re the one I wanted to see in that moment.” The truth came out easily. In another time or place, I might’ve lied, but we were beyond that. “There’s no other reason. That was it.”

Vuk’s throat moved with a hard swallow.

“Wentworth vanished,” I added softly. “Do you happen to know anything about that?”

No.The glitter of satisfaction in Vuk’s eyes told me otherwise.But I imagine justice found him.

A shiver dripped down my spine.

His involvement in the photographer’s disappearance should make me uneasy. Wentworth operated on pure ego, and whatever Vuk did had to have been extreme to make the photographer go underground. But I’d gone unheard for so long, and I’d been fighting alone for so many years, that Vuk’s decision to take matters into his own hands made me feel protected more than anything else.

“Do you think he’s alive?” I asked cautiously. That was the one line I didn’t want to cross.

Vuk shrugged.If he’s smart and takes care of himself.

“I see.” I licked my lips. His eyes dropped to my mouth again, and the earlier heat came roaring back to life.

My breath shortened, and any thoughts about Wentworth, work, or the world outside this room dissolved beneath the weight of Vuk’s gaze.

Whatever he saw in my face made his darken.You’re getting married this month.

“I know.”

The quiet admission erased any plausible deniability I might’ve had. I couldn’t use alcohol as an excuse tonight. I knew exactly what I was doing.

It would be different if I still thought Vuk hated me or was tolerating me for Jordan’s sake, but the events of the past few weeks proved he wanted me too—no matter how much he tried to hide it.

And yet, here we were. Trapped on opposite sides of an ocean, separated by our loyalty to a man who’d done nothing wrong. I’d made a promise to Jordan, but the scope of that promise didn’t encompassthis.

Genuine feelings. Heady possibilities. The tease of a world that’d long been out of reach.

---