Innocence (Tales of Olympus #1)(9)

Of course his eyelashes were freakin’ perfect.

“Cora?”

“Yeah. Yes. Yep.” She bobbed her head like a fool and got hit with another smile. They say Cupid shot arrows, but this felt more like a punch, a battering ram, smashing her right in the gut, pushing her insides out and replacing them with a golden glow.

Was this because she’d been completely deprived of male company her whole life and so now she was boy crazy, the first time she got to be this near a man?

No, it couldn’t be that. She hadn’t felt anything but disgust when Paul tried hitting on her.

She was pretty sure this was all Marcus.

He didn’t move back. He stared down at her, the smile slowly falling away, replaced by an intensity that pinned her in place like a butterfly to a board.

When the elevator pinged its arrival, she all but jumped out of her skin.

The corner of Marcus’s mouth tipped up and he let go of her arm. “After you.”

Feeling like an idiot, she stepped onto the elevator. She thought he’d leave her there but he stepped on with her. The space shrank and the air heated. Cora held her arms stiff beside her body. She was an awkward mannequin next to the tall, broad shouldered god filling the small box.

The hairs on her arms rose where his suit coat brushed against her. The rich fabric felt like the suit coat he’d draped over her last night. She’d never been so aware of anyone in her whole life.

She thought that surely it would pass but nope, the entire ride down, the electric awareness hummed under her skin. She about jumped off the elevator once they got to the lobby.

“Thank you again,” she said. “You have no idea how much I appreciate what you did for me. I mean,” she shook her head as a shudder worked down her spine, “I can’t imagine what would have happened if it hadn’t been for—”

She sucked in a deep breath and cut off her word barrage. She looked Marcus in the eyes, tried as hard as possible to ignore the way his intense gaze made her stomach go absolutely liquid, and said, “Just, thank you.”

“All right, Cora,” he murmured. A flush came over her—she was freakin’ light headed at the sound of her name on his lips. “You ever need anything, you reach out to me, yeah? I’ll take care of you.”

Gods, he was so nice. She reached out and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

His nostrils flared at the touch and she immediately let go and spun on her heel, her own eyes wide. Oh gods, why had she touched him? What was she thinking?

Glancing around, she saw all eyes in the lobby were on her and Marcus. And here she was, making a fool of herself. She squeezed her eyes shut briefly, horrified at how silly and na?ve Marcus probably found her.

But she shook it off. Oh well. It was done. For one shining night, okay, two shining nights, she’d been a brief blip on Marcus Ubeli’s passing radar, and that had been enough.

She bit back the impulse to thank Marcus again and instead, kept her back to him and walked across the lobby. It felt like the longest walk of her life. She could feel every eye in the place on her. But was he still watching her?

Duh, no, stupid. He probably turned around and went right back up to the penthouse. She’d likely never see him again.

The huge bald-headed bouncer, Sharo, was waiting for her as she pushed through the revolving doors.

Cora stopped up short at seeing him. Wow. She hadn’t realized quite how… large he was. All his proportions were normal, he just came in extra, extra-large. He must be six foot five and could have had a career as a linebacker. He wore a suit that had to have been specifically tailored for his frame and he had a small earpiece in his ear.

He nodded at her and walked around to the back of the sleek, black expensive looking car. “Miss Vestian.”

“Thank you.”

She slid onto the cool leather bench seat and Sharo closed the door behind her. She clutched her old dress in her lap nervously.

“Seatbelt,” Sharo said from the front seat.

“Oh, right.” She finally relinquished her clothing to the seat beside her and pulled the seatbelt across her chest, clicking it into place.

“Address?”

She gave him the address and he plugged it into a screen on the dashboard. They pulled out of the hotel’s drive and the lights of the city slid over the car. Cora stared out the window like she always did when she was in a car or on the bus.

Six weeks here and the city still awed her. She’d read books about cities and buildings so tall they scraped the sky but reading about them and seeing them for herself were two entirely different things.

Cora had grown up surrounded by corn and sorghum crops. Rows and rows as far as the eye could see. And that was all. The idea of a place so packed with people they had to build upwards and stack them on top of each other to fit was something Cora hadn’t really even been able to comprehend before coming here.

The ride was silent. Sharo didn’t say anything and Cora was glad because she was too intimidated to talk to the big man. If he didn’t talk, that meant she didn’t have to, either.

And soon enough, she began to recognize the landmarks of the Donahue’s neighborhood.

She sat up straighter and looked at the clock on the dashboard screen. Nine twenty. Okay, at least Timmy would be asleep. Her heart squeezed in her chest. She’d miss the little boy. He wouldn’t understand why she’d suddenly disappeared. It wasn’t fair to him. But there was no way she could stay. Not after what Paul had done.