Dripping Sin

Serena's Plan

The toasts started innocently enough.

James went first, standing with his glass raised and his smile easy, welcoming me to the team with words that were perfectly pleasant and perfectly meaningless. Everyone drank. I drank.

Then the woman across from me, a redhead named Claire who had not spoken directly to me once during dinner, stood up and raised her glass with a bright smile.

"To Mia," she said. "May she settle in quickly and find her footing."

Everyone drank. I drank.

I noticed that my glass was refilled almost immediately after. I didn't think much of it. The waiter was attentive, the wine was good, and I had eaten enough to feel comfortable.

Then another one of Serena's people stood. A tall man called Robert who sat three seats down and had been quietly watching me all evening with the particular attention of someone taking notes.

"To new beginnings," he said simply.

Everyone drank.

My glass was refilled again.

I was starting to notice a pattern but the wine was warm and the room was pleasant and Paula was beside me and I felt, for the first time since sitting down, almost relaxed.

That was my mistake.

Serena let two more of her people go, each one standing, each one offering something that sounded like a welcome and was shaped like a trap, and each time my glass found its way back to full before I had finished processing the last toast.

By the sixth one I felt the edges of things softening.

By the seventh I was laughing a little too easily at something James said.

By the eighth I became aware that my smile was taking longer to arrive and longer to leave and that the room had developed a very slight and unhelpful tilt.

Paula touched my arm under the table. "Stop drinking," she said under her breath.

Too late.

Serena stood last.

She raised her glass with the satisfied air of a woman watching a plan arrive exactly on schedule.

"To Mia," she said warmly, her eyes finding mine across the table. "Welcome to Carver Group. We hope you last."

She held my gaze on that last word just long enough for me to know it wasn't an accident.

Everyone drank.

I put my glass down.

---

Twenty minutes later I needed the restroom and standing up confirmed everything I had been trying to deny for the last half hour. The floor was not entirely cooperative and I kept my hand on the back of chairs as I moved through the restaurant toward the back corridor where the bathrooms were.

The hallway was quiet and narrow and mercifully still compared to the dining room.

I pressed my hand to the wall and took a slow breath and told myself I just needed water and a moment and I would be fine. I would go back to that table and sit straight and finish the evening with my dignity at least partially intact.

I pushed off the wall to move forward.

And then something happened so fast I didn't have a full second to respond.

An arm came around me from the side, firm and sure, and I was lifted off my feet before I could process what was happening and I opened my mouth to scream.

His mouth covered mine.

A kiss that was warm and immediate and cut the sound off before it became one. My hands came up against a chest and I felt the fabric of a suit jacket and then I caught his scent and every muscle in my body recognized it before my brain did.

He lifted his mouth just enough to speak.

"It's me," he said quietly against my lips.

Luca.

I exhaled everything I had been holding.

He didn't put me down. He adjusted his hold, one arm under my knees, and moved through a door at the end of the corridor that opened to the back of the building, a narrow exit that led to a side street where a black car was already waiting with the engine running.

He put me in the back seat. Climbed in after me. The car moved before the door was fully closed.

"How did you know," I said. My voice came out slower than I intended.

"Paula texted me after the fourth toast," he said.

I turned to look at him. "Paula has your number?"

"Paula has worked nine years in my building," he said simply. "I trust her."

I leaned my head back against the seat and looked at the city moving past the window and processed the fact that Luca Carver had been monitoring my dinner from wherever he had gone and had a contact inside that table feeding him information.

I should have been annoyed.

I was too warm and too unsteady to be annoyed properly.

"Where are you taking me," I said.

"Somewhere you can sleep it off."

"I need to go home."

"You need to rest," he said. "In that order."

"Luca."

"Mia." He said my name the way he always did, level and final, like the conversation had already reached its conclusion and he was just waiting for me to catch up.

I looked at him in the dark of the car. His jaw was set and he was looking forward and he had the composed expression he wore when he had made a decision and was done discussing it.

"Serena did that on purpose," I said.

"I know."

"She was recording the dinner."

Something shifted in his jaw. Brief and controlled. "I know that too."

"And?"

"And I'll deal with Serena," he said quietly. The way he said it made the words feel heavier than they were, like they had a consequence attached to them that Serena wasn't going to enjoy.

The car stopped.

Another hotel. Different from the last one, taller, quieter, the kind of building that didn't put its name anywhere obvious because the people who needed to know it already did.

He came around and opened my door and I stepped out and the night air helped slightly but my legs were still making independent decisions and he noticed and put his hand at my back and steered me through the entrance without a word.

The lobby was empty except for a single receptionist who handed Luca a key card without being asked.

He had already booked a room.

I looked at him sideways as we moved toward the elevator.

"You were very sure you were going to end up bringing me here tonight," I said.

He looked down at me and the corner of his mouth moved.

"I was sure Serena was going to try something," he said. "I just made arrangements either way."

The elevator opened.

We stepped in.

And as the doors closed and it was just the two of us in that small space again I felt the familiar pull of him beside me, steady and warm, and thought that for a man who was cold in his office and possessive in private and ten steps ahead in every situation, Luca Carver was becoming the most dangerous kind of constant in my life.

The kind I was starting to count on.