Page 19 of Stolen Hearts

“Callie,” I hiss. “Drop this. Now.”

Her mouth purses, and her eyes do that supernatural thing where they almost glow from behind the dark lashes and against the tanned skin of her face.

“Fine. Whatever. I’m done. Goodnight, dickface.”

I roll my eyes at her bratty attitude and she turns on her heel. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Back to the hotel.Bye.”

The hotel where Gavan got us all suites is right next door to the Musée d’Orsay. But Callie’s clearly been drinking, she’s clearly emotional, and I’m clearly way too much of a fucking hero for my own good.

“Fine. I’ll walk you.”

“No need.” She turns quickly, giving me a sneer. “My new friends already offered. Night!”

And with that, she waltzes back over to the bar, back to the two predator douchebags waiting for her. My blood pressure spikes at the way the two slimeballs eye her up and down and grin at her like a couple of wolves.

She does one more of her overly flirtatious laughs, hooks her arms through theirs so that she’s between them, and starts to head out.

But not before she turns to me with this unreadable look in her eyes as they lock on mine. Then, they’re walking out of the gala and into the Paris night.

It’s clearly an attempt to rile me up, get me jealous, or whatever. It’s yet another one of her stunts like she always pulls. The smart thing to do here is to ignore it. Let her go. Let her sashay out with those two dipshits and then sulk when her little plan doesn’t work.

Because fuck that. I’m not playing these kinds of games—not with any woman, but especially not with Calliope Drakos.

For all the reasons.

Nope. Not playing.

I walk over to the bar and grab a whiskey. I manage one sip before I’m swearing to myself, slamming the glass down, and turning to march out the door after her.

5

CALLIE

“Well,guys, it’s been fun, but it’s time for me to say good night.”

Pierre and Guy—my two new charming-in-that-creepy-way friends—glance at each other with crestfallen expressions as soon as we walk into the lobby of the Plaza Royale Hotel.

“As-tu peur de devenir une citrouille?”

Right. As if Guy doesn’t actually speak English. He obviouslydoes, because he clearly understood everything I said while we were chatting at the bar tonight. Which means he’s purposefully pretending not to in order to…who even knows what. To be a creep, probably, because I’m gettingmajorcreep vibes from the pair of them.

Which is fine, because I actually have no interest in having a conversation for even another minute with either of them. Like, ever.

Pierre laughs in that schmarmy “I’m undressing you with my eyes while pretending to laugh” way. Gross.

“He was asking if you’re worried about turning into a pumpkin,mon petite.”

“Yeah. More like a statistic, but same thing.” I smile a plastic, polite but fake smile. “Thank you for walking me back to the hotel, and it was lovely chatting tonight.”

Even though the only reason we moved past “what’s your name” in the first place is…

I cringe.

Is that I’m pathetic and was trying to make Castle jealous. Which literally sounds evenmorepathetic and cringe every time I replay the plan in my head.

Also, it didn’t even work. And now I’m tired, a bit drunker than I want to be, and nothing sounds better than just going upstairs and crawling into my hotel bed.

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