Page 21 of Keep Him Like Secrets

“I have to lock up,” I said, reaching in my pocket for the keys.

“As you wish,” he said, going ahead of me but holding the door until I was outside.

I liked to think that I didn’t care for manners. That I genuinely just wanted to be treated like one of the guys. But I could admit just to myself that I kind of liked how he held doors, insisted I go first, and waited to sit until I was seated. It was nice. Respectful in a different way than I was used to.

“This is going to need security of some kind. No woman is going to want to walk through here at night. Even if she has her own detail.”

“I’m hopeful that I can talk the building owners to putting up a gate. It would be in their best interest not to have a dark alley where anyone could hide out and do all kinds of things anyway.”

We moved out of the alley, both of us looking up and down the street.

“What’s this area like at night?” he asked.

Now we were talking my language. Because if there was anything I knew, it was my neighborhood.

“Honestly, it’s a mix. You’ve got an indie coffee shop there. And a bookstore a few doors down. That draws a quieter crowd. But that building over there,” I said, nodding my chin toward it, “that’s where a local street crew operates out of. They deal mostly party drugs, though,” I said. I knew. Because I got a cut of all their sales. Which was why I was quick to turn my back on it. The last thing I needed was for someone to recognize me, come over, ask about my sudden hair and clothing changes, and announce they would be late with their payment or something equally as damning.

“Party drugs that people heading to a club might be interested in buying.”

That was… interesting.

I’d expected him to pull the typical “Drugs are bad” thing.

My confusion must have been on my face, because Soren shrugged. “You can’t be in the nightclub business without knowing that drugs are used and shared liberally outside and eveninsidethe venues. I figure so long as no one is getting drugged without their knowledge and consent, it’s not my place to tell grown adults what to do with their bodies.”

“You’re… not what I expected,” I said before I could stop myself.

“You either, Miss Amato.”

“Saff.”

“Saffron.”

There it was again, that little shiver.

“It’s actually—legally—Saff.”

“And in mixed company, it can continue to be,” he said, leaning down closer so when he spoke again, his breath was warm on my cheek. “But between the two of us, it’s Saffron.”

Before I could even wrap my head around the instantaneous surge of desire through my system at his words, his nearness, his… Everything, he turned away, pulling open the door of a waiting black sedan.

I didn’t—couldn’t—drive.

But I knew enough about cars to know that his one likely cost five years’ worth of my rent. And I didn’t have a cheap apartment.

I didn’t usually find dick-measuring symbols—nice cars, fancy jewelry, megayachts, which hot girl you could pull—attractive.

Somehow though, Soren’s kind of understated, quiet wealth was a lot hotter than it had any right to be.

“What’s this?” I asked when Soren came back with a white box, holding it out to me.

“A partnership present,” he said. “If we are going forward with the deal, that is.”

“We are. But you didn’t have to get me a present.”

But I really, really liked presents.

No one knew that. It was a closely guarded secret because I knew it would come with follow-up questions about why. And I wasn’t about to tell my coworkers that I’d never gotten presents from my mom as a kid. And I definitely hadn’t gotten them in my foster homes. Or when I was living on the streets.

---