Page 59 of Sweet Venom

“Grab your cat,” he said, his voice flat, like it was a perfectly normal request. “And your computer. Let’s go.”

I blinked, completely caught off guard. Again. “What? No. I’m not?—”

He didn’t let me finish. “You’re coming with me,” he said, his voice like steel. “We’re going somewhere.”

Um, no.

I crossed my arms instinctively, still trying hard to hide how much he was throwing me off. “You can’t just order me to go with you. Where? What’s going on?”

“We’re going to chase romance,” he replied, as if that answered everything. As if that one cryptic sentence should make sense.

To chase romance?What?

I stood there, caught between slamming the door in his face or walking into whatever insane idea he had. The rational partof me screamed to close the door, tell him to get lost, and go on with my day as if this moment never happened. But there was also the other part of me—the hopeless, foolish part—that was always drawn to him. I wanted to hate that part. But I couldn’t and I couldn’t stop it.

“For the book?” I asked, trying to justify the absolute loss of common sense it would take to willingly go anywhere with him.

He didn’t even nod. Just flickered an invisible piece of lint off his designer black sleeveless shirt like this is all beneath him. See?Infuriating.I’m out here trying to be reasonable and he’s giving runway-level indifference.

I sighed and turned to grab my bag, but he stopped me with one short sentence.

“You don’t need that.”

My bag? With my ID, wallet, pepper spray, emergency snacks? He’s insane if he thinks I’m leaving behind anything that might help the FBI identify my body.

I raised an eyebrow. “What do youmeanI don’t need anything?”

“It’s not that hard to comprehend. You don’t need anything. Let’s go.”

And against my better judgment—a part of me was… excited. My mind was screaming,don’t do it,shut the doorin his face. But there’s always been something about him, this traitorous magnetic pull, that made it impossible to walk away.

With a sigh that’s probably more dramatic than necessary, I scooped up Prince—who gave me a look that screamed go off to die alone and leave me out of this— along with my phone and my laptop. “Fine. Let’s go. But if this is some twisted game of yours?—”

He cut me off. “It’s not. Now, move.”

“Sayplease,” I countered, arms crossed.

“No.”

“Then I won’t.”

There’s a flicker in his expression—his right eye might actually be twitching. For a moment, we just stare each other down. Then, through clenched teeth, he growled, “Fuckingmove, please.”

I smiled wickedly, feeling like I’ve won something—though I had no idea what.

“So sweet, the heartless prince,” I murmured.

He grunted, offering nothing more.

For a fleeting moment, victory tastes sweet on my tongue. But it didn’t last.

Because the truth was, the only real winner here… was him.

The very next second, I left my safe haven behind and stepped into the unknown—with him.

Something in my gut warned me there’s no going back.

And for some strange, twisted, possibly masochistic reason…

---