KAIREN
God, I'd been playing with fire all night, and now the flames were licking right up my spine. Every little act of rebellion... the extra champagne flute I accepted with a smirk, the way I let my laughter ring a bit too loud at that financier's lame joke, wandering just outside Viktor's invisible perimeter like a brat testing boundaries... had been deliberate.
Calculated. I'd seen the way his jaw tightened, the subtle flex of his fists at his sides, the way his eyes tracked me like a predator whose prey was dancing just out of reach.
And that former colleague of his? With her sharp smile and knowing glances? That had lit the fuse. Jealousy, hot and ugly, had twisted in my gut, and I'd decided to make him feel it too. Let him simmer. Let him snap.
And now, here we were, in this shadowed alcove behind a velvet curtain, the muffled hum of the gala's orchestra and chatter bleeding through like a distant storm.
