Page 19 of Bulletproof

I was going to say something when Dane returned his charcoal eyes to me. “How are you?”

“I’m good. You?”

“Why are you dangerous?” he asked, ignoring my question, coming directly to the point, as was his trademark.

“What?” I really didn’t want Dane to know.

“Why,” he repeated, enunciating the word, “are you dangerous?”

“Jory was at Joshua Peretti’s last night before he died.”

I turned to look at Michelle, who’d blurted out all that.

Her face remained neutral for several seconds before a look of terror slid over it.

“Thanks.”

She mouthed the words, Oh shit.

“Pardon me?” Dane cleared his throat, crossing his arms, staring down at me from his towering height.

At six-five, the man looked down on practically everyone, but that wasn’t the reason people stopped to stare at him on the street. It was the way he walked, like he owned the world and you were just visiting, breathing his air. Confidence rolled off him, like he had everything figured out. And it turned out, he did. Nothing rattled Dane Harcourt, except his wife … and me.

“Jory?”

“Wait.” I smiled up at him as he squinted down at me. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“No?”

“Okay, lis⁠—”

He grabbed my arm and yanked me sideways, pulling me into the alcove between the door and the restroom. Looking around, I saw the envious looks cast my way—and not only by women. Hard not to want to be the one Dane Harcourt was manhandling.

It was the jet-black hair and granite eyes with chips of silver in them, the chiseled profile, and the deep, resonant sound of his voice that did it. His height, the broad shoulders and chest, the way his clothes fit like everything was custom-made—just the bearing of the man being a classic-movie-star god took your breath away. My brother belonged in magazines, not at a drafting table.

“Joshua Peretti has—had,” he corrected himself, “mob connections. Everyone knew that. It was the reason I refused to design for him. What were you doing there?”

I explained about being at a job and then agreeing to be Jeffrey Franklin’s wingman and how I had saved Eddie out on the patio. I talked really fast because with the way Dane was looking at me, I only had minutes to live.

“You can’t go on dates,” he told me the second I was done.

Where had he gotten from my explanation that I was on a date?

“No, I … it was business first and then fun and⁠—”

“Jory, you can’t be some guy’s wingman once you’re married. It’s considered⁠—”

“Why not? I’m not the one going on a date.”

His eyes pinned me there like an insect under a microscope.

“Listen to me. You do not⁠—”

I cut him off, “Who’s Adrian Miller? Eddie said his brother and Joshua Peretti and Adrian Miller were all in business together.”

I watched the muscles in his jaw clench.

“Adrian Miller is a thug. His construction company doesn’t just clean up building debris; he cleans up all kinds of things.”