Page 53 of Almost Midnight

“What?” she asked coldly.“Whoconfessed?”

Nick ignored that, too.

“Wynter left for work?” he asked, taking another sip of the espresso drink.

Lara went back to looking annoyed once she’d focused on his mug.

“Yes,” she said shortly. “Have you seen your downstairs apartments yet?” The question was more than a little pointed, and not exactly subtle, either. “I would have thought you’d want to be down there. Resting. Sleeping. Not up here. Not with me.”

“I don’t sleep,” Nick reminded her. “And yes, I did look at the apartments. Very nice.” He shrugged, eyes and voice flat. “But Wynter, obviously, was not in either of them. I didn’t see the kid around, either, and I just remembered it’s a staff day at Kellerman. No classes. So Tai wouldn’t have taken the train up with Wynter today. Would she?”

He gave the Archangel C.E.O. another flat-eyed stare.

“Presumably, you’ve got her and Mal around here somewhere,” he went on conversationally. “And I’d like to start the job we agreed on yesterday, as a condition of my continued cooperation and sunny disposition.”

St. Maarten snorted a faint scoff under her breath.

Nick knew the scoff wasn’t humor at his remark. Rather, it was scorn at what he was implying. From her perspective, Nick didn’t have the leverage to press for “conditions.”

He worked for her, or he went to an H.R.A. prison.

He worked for her, or he lost access to Wynter.

And the kid. And Malek.

Nick knew that, of course.

He also knew it wasn’t a bluff.

Still, there was something there, something Nick’s vampire senses picked up, despite her predictable response. Thatthing,whatever it was, told him he’d managed to throw Lara St. Maarten off-balance. He wasn’t acting the way she expected him to act. He wasn’t doing what she expected him to do, given his newfound dependence on her.

His lack of predictability unnerved her.

In the end, she lowered her cup of tea to its saucer.

“Today?” she asked, as if to clarify.

“Yes,” he said flatly.

She tapped a manicured fingernail against the hand-painted, porcelain cup.

He wondered if she was debating whether to fight with him, or to play nice.

After a few more seconds, she seemed to make up her mind.

“All right,” she said, her voice as calm and unemotional as his. “I don’t have Tai or Malek on anything particularly urgent right now, so perhaps you’re right. Perhaps we should do this now, before I have to pull one or both of them for something more time-sensitive.”

Her eyes swiveled to look at his, measuring him.

“You’re sure you’re up to this?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you’re acting fucking bizarre,” she answered at once.

It was so strange to hear the Archangel leader swear, he let out a snorting laugh.

Shaking his head, he gave her what might have been a real smile.

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