Page 15 of Sniper's Pride

Mariah considered licking the plate when she was done, but she restrained herself. Barely.

She pushed the plate away and allowed herself to look at Griffin again.

He hadn’t gotten any less cold. Or astonishingly good-looking.

“Did I pass your test?” she asked quietly.

“There’s no test.”

“Are you sure? I’m getting the distinct impression you’re deciding whether or not to help me.”

“It’s not my decision. We vote.”

“Based on your recommendation?”

He sat there, and it occurred to her that he didn’t fidget. He didn’t rap his fingers on the table, or jiggle his knee. He didn’t rub his hands on his face, or adjust his position inhis chair, or any of the things people normally did. If she shut her eyes, would she even know he was there?

That made her shiver, too.

“Here’s the thing,” Griffin said after another long, tense moment in which Mariah was sure she failed a hundred other tests. “You don’t strike me as a damsel in distress.”

That made her laugh. “What’s a damsel in distress supposed to look like?”

Griffin leaned back then, stretching one absurdly well-formed arm over the back of the chair next to him. He shook his head, forcing Mariah to stop contemplating the difference between the bicep of a man who perhaps visited a gym occasionally and... this.

“You’re not scared. You don’t even look frazzled. You had to run from your home, get on a plane, and fly across the country to meet a bunch of strangers you think are going to help you out of what should be a terrifying situation, and you look as cool and easy as if you’re out for a quiet stroll.”

Her heart picked up its pace, and she wondered if he could tell. If he could see her pulse betraying her.

“I actually went to a lot of trouble to make it look like I was going to Greece. On a plane, not a quiet stroll.”

“I’m trying to tell you that you don’t look like someone who’s being chased.”

“Is that a compliment?” She laughed again, because the notion that this man might compliment her struck her as truly hilarious. Or, possibly, she was finally losing it. “Maybe I managed to get them off my trail.”

“Or it means that no one’s chasing you to begin with.”

“Right.” She wasn’t laughing any longer, and she was overly aware of all the ways she actually did fidget. Shemade herself drop her hands to her lap and keep them there. “That would make sense in the scenario where I almost kill myself twice because that somehow sticks it to my husband who wants me dead.”

“Why does he want you dead? A lot of people say things like that. Everybody wants to kill everybody else in rush hour traffic. Actually killing another person is a different animal. Taking steps to make that happen is crossing a line, and it’s not an insignificant line.”

“He wants me dead because I’m an embarrassment.” Mariah’s voice didn’t even shake. She supposed that was more evidence for him. Maybe a good damsel in distress would weep. Fall on the ground. Wail and rip at her clothes. “It was one thing to be dirt-poor white trash. I think David got off on that part, honestly. He got to play at making something out of me. But I was supposed to give him children. That’s the whole point of marrying a girl like me.”

She’d gotten so good at saying it like that. Like it didn’t matter that she couldn’t get pregnant. Like it was a joke.

But it was gratifying that Griffin didn’t laugh.

“Why didn’t you give him children if that was what he wanted and you wanted to stay married to him?”

Mariah smiled and was surprised it didn’t draw blood. “Well, sugar. I did try.”

“Do you call everybodysugar?”

He sounded almost as sharp as her smile felt. And that look in his dark brown eyes was worse.

“How many princesses do you know?” she retorted.

She wasn’t sure what she expected, but it wasn’t Griffin shooting to his feet. It took Mariah a second to realize why it was so strange and alarming, other than the factthat he was suddenly towering over her. It was because he didn’t make any noise. He pushed back from the table and rose, but there was no scrape of his chair against the floor. There was no sound at all.

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