Chapter 71: Frenemies
OLIVER KING
I should have known Vanessa wouldn’t let this go.
One second, I was safely tucked against the wall, nursing my whiskey and pretending not to stare at Leo Annison like some lovesick idiot. The next, Vanessa’s fingers were digging into my wrist, dragging me forward.
"Vanessa—" I hissed, but she cut me off with a glare sharp enough to flay skin.
"Shut up and walk," she muttered, her grip unrelenting.
I could have pulled away. I should have. But the closer we got to Leo, the harder it was to remember why that was a good idea. He stood near the grand piano, surrounded by people fawning over him. He was magnetic—tall, handsome, stubborn. Whew. My heart was doing flips just getting within three feet of the man.
Vanessa stopped just short of him, flashed a smile so sweet it was terrifying, and then—traitor that she was—dropped my arm and walked away.
I stood there, frozen, like a deer in the crosshairs of a very attractive, very dangerous hunter.
Leo turned. His eyes—dark, sharp, the kind that saw too much—landed on me.
Fuck.
"Oliver King," he said, voice smooth as the whiskey I was no longer holding. (I’d set it down somewhere. When? Why? My brain had short-circuited.) "I was wondering how long you’d keep lurking in the shadows."