Echelon

Chapter Eight

"Well, well, well. Look who wandered in."

Andrew's voice rolled through the suite, low and teasing, velvet dragged over steel. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, his frame lit in flashes of red and indigo from the club below. His grin curved slow, deliberate, the kind of grin that always meant trouble.

"Carrie Tuazon. Editor-in-chief of Echelon. Manila's sharpest pen. And if memory serves... a well-known prude." His eyes swept over her, deliberate. "Though right now... you don't look like one."

Carrie's spine stiffened, heat crawling over her skin. Of all the rooms, of all the suites, of course it had to be his. "Don't flatter yourself. I didn't come here for you. I took a wrong turn, that's all."

He chuckled, low and mocking. "A mistake. That's rich. Most women would call this the luckiest wrong turn of their lives."

"I'm not most women. I have standards."

"Standards?" His laugh was intimate, edged. "You're half-drunk, trespassing, standing in my suite. Doesn't exactly scream standards to me."

Her jaw clenched. "What it screams is that I'm tired. I was looking for a washroom, not another notch on your belt."

"Notch on my belt." He repeated the phrase, rolling it on his tongue as though tasting it. "That's generous. You're giving me accessories I don't even use."

She bristled, cheeks burning hotter. "You enjoy humiliating women. It's the only power you know. You're still the same spoiled polo boy who treats everything, hearts, games, people, as trophies."

His smile sharpened, no softness in it at all. "Careful. You sound personal."

Her breath caught. It was personal. How could it not be? Andrew Lorenzo had been the one name she had banished from her life, the one ghost she refused to let in. She hadn't followed him, hadn't asked, hadn't wanted to know. She built walls to keep him out. And yet here he was, standing inches away, very much alive, very much undoing her carefully constructed distance.

The silence thickened, the bass from below pulsing through the walls, their history pressing in like heat.

Andrew pushed off the wall, unfolding his arms as he stepped forward. His eyes locked on hers, steady, dark, unreadable.

Carrie instinctively stepped back.

One step. Another.

Her heels clicked against the polished floor, breath caught in her chest. He followed without rush, every movement deliberate, as if he had all the time in the world.

"You know what I think?" His voice was lower now, rougher. "You didn't stumble in here. You wanted to see me. You wanted to see if I've changed."

"That's not true."

"Then say it like you mean it."

Her back hit the velvet couch. The contact jolted her, and his grin spread, slow and wicked.

"Cornered," he murmured. "Never thought I'd see the great Carrie Tuazon like this."

Her pulse hammered, anger sparking against something she didn't want to name. She wanted to lash out, to remind him that she had survived him, that her life was bigger than the ghost he had been. But her body betrayed her, the flush on her cheeks, the sharp pull of memory in her chest, the way the air between them seemed to charge, hot and dangerous.

Andrew leaned close, his breath brushing her ear, carrying smoke and sandalwood. "Tell me to stop," he whispered. "Or admit you don't want me to."

Her lips parted, the denial ready. But nothing came out.

Because in that raw, reckless second, with the city roaring below them and his presence overwhelming her senses, she couldn't tell which answer would be the lie.

And Andrew knew it.

His smile turned slow and hungry, a man daring himself to touch the one thing he had promised never to reach for again. The space between them crackled, thick with history, with danger, with a promise that nothing would stay the same after this.