Kissed Blind (Hot Pursuit #2)(78)

“So that’s your fault for waiting. He who hesitates—” I didn’t finish the phrase. “Now you have all this pent up frustration and you took it out on me.”

He laughed. “Like I said before, you need to take a harder look in the mirror. You brought this on yourself, princess.” He paused and stepped back, turning to face the windows. “You have no right, not one, to be mad about what I did.”

“The hell I don’t.”

“You don’t!” He spun and got in my face again. “You wanted me to kiss you again and you’re upset someone else messed that up for you.”

I laughed and leaned in. “You’re so conceited and self-centered.”

“And you’re immature and incapable of admitting when you’re wrong.”

“You know what?” His eyes burned with a heat I’d never seen before.

“What?” I barked, challenging him.

He backed me up against the wall again, but this time painfully slow, and placed his hands on either side of my head. My breath left my body in hot bursts, and I held onto the wall for support.

His nostrils flared. “I’m so mad at you.”

“I’m so mad at you.”

His eyes trailed over my face and stopped on my lips. Neither of us said anything in those few silent moments, and the tightness in my chest built tenfold. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Either he was going to storm out of my room, or we were going to end up in a tangled heap on my bed.





Twenty-Six





Nothing happened. Vance had shown enough restraint and stormed out of the room. I wasn’t going to waste any more time thinking about him and what could have been. Vance and I were going to escort the legendary Oliver and Camille Pierce to an award’s ceremony the next day, and I needed rest if I was going to be at the top of my game. Gabe was gone, and Vance was probably never going to talk to me again. At this point, my job was all I had. I was going to finish this assignment perfectly. I set my alarm for five and fell between the sheets frustrated and hot.

My mind raced, but somehow I fell asleep. I awoke to the sound of my alarm beeping next to my head and dressed for the gym.

Downstairs, I entered the fitness center and found Vance already sitting on a weight bench doing chest presses. We saw each other but said nothing. I hopped on the elliptical machine and ignored him. After forty-five minutes, and a drenching sweat, I found myself alone in the room. I hadn’t heard Vance leave. I still hated him.

In my room, I showered and got into my outfit. The blue iridescent flowers on my jacket had gotten smashed a little in transit but still looked fabulous, even over my gun holster. I zipped into my pants, slipped on my black heels, and headed down for breakfast. I felt like a million bucks. I’d grabbed my schedule for reading material while I ate. A car was supposed to pick us up in an hour.

I was seated at a table by myself and ordered the French toast, a chocolate croissant, and a café mocha. No Cheetos were hanging around, so I decided to put myself in a sugar coma. I reviewed the scheduled line by line and page by page. I repeated the process until I had it memorized. I squared up my bill and walked out front to meet the car.

Vance was already there waiting. I walked up to him and extended my olive branch. “Good morning,” I said, slipping the itinerary into my bag.

“Morning,” he grunted.

If tension had a physical entity, it existed around us.

“Look,” I shouted over the humming exhaust from the tour bus firing up next to us. “We need to put our differences aside for the day.”

He glanced at me first out of the corner of his eye and then turned his head. “I won’t have a problem with that, will you?”

I was glad to see Vance had brought Mr. Passive Aggressive with him, but I wasn’t going to take the bait. “Nope, I was just looking over the schedule at breakfast and have it down. Do you have any last minute things you want to discuss?”

“I think we already covered it. I’ll take the lead on the red carpet and you bring up the ass end—I’m sorry, I mean tail end. The rest we’ll figure out as we walk through the event.”

Great. It was going to be a banner day. I could feel it in my fingers and toes.

A black Mercedes pulled up to the curb, and I recognized the driver from the day prior.

“Miss Cain and Mr. DeLuca,” the tall, slender driver said, rounding the car. “I’ll be taking you to the Pierce residence.” He pulled open the back door. “Shall we?”

“After you, princess,” Vance said, and by the tone in his voice, he wasn’t calling me a princess in his head.

I slid across the seat and soon we were off and driving through the busy streets of Los Angeles. I wasn’t going to pay him any mind. He was as stubborn as I was, if not more. Neither of us would apologize. This was probably going to be the one and only time in my life I’d get to be in the middle of Tinsel Town, and I wasn’t going to miss it because of a sour attitude.

Even though it was early, the streets were already lined with people. We pulled onto a freeway and headed into the hills. I suspected we were going to see some fantastic houses and I couldn’t wait. I’d dream of what life was like on the inside of them. They had to be better than mine.

We pulled up to a gated community and were cleared to enter. We drove into a suburb of wide streets and mansion after mansion. Each house was more fantastic than the next. Some were protected behind giant walls, but I tried to peek at them anyway, and others were smack dab in the center of the most manicured lawns imaginable. Bushes, trees, lights, landscaping—the houses were worthy of awe.