Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(20)

Which was a ridiculously dramatic thought, one she shook out of her head immediately. He was a friend from work, not her lifelong confidante. He didn’t owe her bloody confessionals across the security desk. He didn’t owe her anything.

Still . . . “Did you know,” Dani said out loud, apparently unable to help herself, “that he runs some sort of charity?”

“Does he?”

“Eve showed me his account last night. It’s supposedly his account, anyway. He uses rugby to teach boys to embrace their emotions. The website was all, something-something-something, toxic masculinity. You know.”

“Hmmm,” Sorcha said slyly. “Interesting. And speak of the devil.”

Dani knew exactly who she’d see even before she turned her head.

Huddled just inside the entrance to Echo’s underground car park stood an unmistakable, imposing figure in a security uniform. Zaf was eating what looked like a sub from the union restaurant, his hair spilling over his eyes like black ocean. But it was obviously him. No one else had those thighs, which were thick and muscular and looked in danger of splitting his uniform trousers, or that torso, which seemed, beneath his navy-blue jacket, like the kind of solid core an Olympic shot-putter or possibly the Hulk might possess. And no one else, Dani might as well admit, made the constant thoughts and ideas whirring in her mind stutter, momentarily, to a stop.

Being as effortlessly sexy as Zafir Ansari should really be illegal, or at least regulated. He must represent some sort of danger to the public.

“I should probably go and talk to him,” Dani said absently, because it was true. They had things to discuss, such as their sudden viral fame and why the fuck he was acting so strangely. Again, not that she cared.

“Talk to him? About your feelings? In the rain? How romantic.”

“No one mentioned feelings,” Dani muttered. “I’ll meet you in the library.”

Sorcha batted her lashes. “Unless you get lost in Zaf’s eyes on the way there.”

“Oh, gag.” Dani wrapped her cardigan around herself—why hadn’t she brought a jacket this morning?—and left the umbrella’s protection behind.

Everything was muted and cool in the concrete entryway of the car park, the sound of rain fading a little and the air growing sharp. The closer she got to Zaf, the more she noticed the shadows beneath his eyes and the tense line of his jaw. He’d looked like that yesterday, too, slightly haunted as he avoided her gaze and grumped at poor, innocent undergrads. It occurred to Dani all at once that, if he never mentioned his background, maybe he didn’t want people to know. But now it seemed as if everyone knew.

She was busy frowning at the pang that thought caused in her chest when Zaf finally noticed her. He pulled out one of his earbuds and said with a defeated air, “Danika.”

“Sorry. Did I ruin your plan to avoid me?”

He screwed up his face and scrubbed at his beard, and the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Which was both ridiculous and impossible, and yet, that’s how it felt. Then he sighed, “Yeah, actually. But I wasn’t enjoying it much, anyway, so I’m glad you’re here.”

Everyone and everything exhaled.

“Of course you’re glad,” she said. “The real question is why you’d avoid me in the first place.”

“And the short answer,” he replied, “is that I was, er, thinking about some things.”

“That sounds like heavy-duty thinking.”

“Well, we don’t all have as much practice as you.” Before she could formulate a response to that, he changed the subject, a little furrow forming between his eyebrows. “Why aren’t you wearing a coat?”

Oh, not this again. “It was sunny this morning,” Dani said for the second time in ten minutes, sounding defensive even to her own ears.

Zaf shook his head, unzipping his jacket and shifting his sandwich from hand to hand as he slid out of the sleeves. “You need someone to keep an eye on you.”

“Keep saying that and I might decide you’re a misogynist.”

“Is that what you think?” He wrapped his jacket around her shoulders, then squeezed her upper arm. His eyes met hers, not with a challenge, but with quiet, open care—as if he was actually waiting for a response.

“Well, no. I was joking.”

“Oh. Good.” He smiled slightly, and they stood like that for long moments, close and connected in the shadows. Dani thought she felt a gentle tug within her chest, as if there was a ribbon tied around her breastbone, connected to the curve of Zaf’s solemn mouth.

Then he let go, and stepped back, and took a bite of his sandwich, and the moment dissolved. Which was fortunate, as she had no idea what the bloody hell had just happened and would prefer to forget about it completely.

To that end, she cleared her throat and gave her borrowed jacket an assessing stare. “Hmm. Not bad. And it’s almost black.”

“Yep. One hundred percent nylon, too. Nothing but luxury.”

She laughed, but the sound was slightly breathless. His fault: she could see more of him now he’d stripped off for her. The way his shirt stretched tight over his chest, the corded muscle on his exposed forearms—it was all deliriously visible. The hair on his arms was dense and black and silky. He had ridiculously thick wrists. His hands were big and long-fingered and he was currently using them to unplug his earbuds from his phone.