She pulled from his touch. “The chamber gala is tomorrow night.”

“What about it?” he asked, dread making sweat pool under his arms.

“I’m going to do it. I’m going to get him on tape.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“It isn’t a bad plan, Mack.”

Liv, Noah, Hop, Derek, Malcolm, and the Russian sat at the island in Mack’s kitchen the next morning. Noah winced as he said the words, as if anticipating Mack’s response.

“It’s a horrible plan! She can’t face him alone.”

“I won’t be alone,” Liv protested. “You guys can listen in—”

“No.”

“And Derek will be in the room with me. Royce won’t connect us.”

Mack clenched his hands into fists. “No. There has to be another way to get a confession.”

“How?” Liv countered.

“I don’t know,” Mack growled.

Noah coughed quietly. “I can get her wired up—”

Mack’s had nearly blew off. “Wired up? Do you hear yourself right now?”

Liv tried to calm him down. “We’re talking about Royce here. It’s not like he’s a kidnapper or a murderer.”

“You never know what people are capable of when pushed, Liv.” He shoved his hands through his hair. “This is a bad idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” Liv fired back.

Mack threw up his hands. “Yes, how about anything that doesn’t involve you directly confronting Royce? What if he finds out you’re recording him?”

“He won’t,” Noah said.

“How do you know?”

Noah’s face went blank, but, like, in a stop asking questions way. “Because I know how to do it.”

Mack paced for several minutes.

“You have to trust me,” Liv said.

“I do trust you. It’s Royce I don’t trust.”

“Then trust that I can handle him. I worked for him for a year. I know what he’s like, how to talk to him.”

Mack stopped pacing. “I should be going with you.”

“No. It’d be way too suspicious.”

Mack felt the sour sting of desperation in the back of his throat. “There are too many things that could go wrong.”

“I’ll be in a public place. What could he possibly do?”

“He could drug your food,” Mack said, suddenly scowling.

She laughed. “I won’t eat.”

“He could stab you under table with syringe full of radiation poison that kills you slowly, said the Russian.”

Everyone stared at the Russian. He made a what gesture with his hands. “Happens all the time in Russia.”

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Mack said. “We send two guys ahead of you—”

“No. I have to go alone.”

“Two guys he doesn’t know and can’t connect to you,” Mack said. “They can grab a table before you get there and keep an eye on things. If anything bad goes down, they can save you.”

“Save me?”

Across the room, Hop dragged his hands down his face and muttered something that sounded like, here we go.

“It’s just a word, Liv.”

“I can take care of myself, Mack.”

“We should come up with a signal, just in case,” Derek said.

“Knock over the salt shaker,” Malcolm offered.

The guys all started to nod enthusiastically.

“Was that in one of your books?” Liv asked.

They nodded again.

Mack’s scowl deepened.

“Everything is going to be fine,” Liv said. “Royce won’t do anything in public that could end up on Instagram.”

“But what about after? What if he follows you out?”

The Russian cracked his knuckles. “Then I will break his balls.”

The shower was running in Liv’s apartment when Mack arrived just before five that afternoon. Noah would pick them all up at six. Except for Liv. She would drive herself. Mack had spent a good half hour protesting that part of the plan, but he’d lost.

They hadn’t had a single moment alone to talk since last night, and he had things he needed to say before she left. Because something about tonight felt ominous, and he couldn’t let her walk out without him making sure she understood a few things. There would be time later for him to tell her the full truth, and he would. But right now, he just needed to—

The shower shut off. Mack cleared his throat. “I’m here,” he called out.

“Okay. I’ll be out in a second.”

She emerged in nothing but a towel. See Mack drool. “Liv,” he croaked.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

She gave him an amused look and walked past him into her tiny kitchen. “I need coffee,” she said.

Mack watched her go through the motions of filling the coffeepot. Urgency drove his feet to where she stood. He slipped an arm around her waist and tugged her firmly against him until she was molded against his chest. “Do you feel that?”

“Uh, is this where I’m supposed to say, is that a baseball bat in your pants, or . . . ?”

He ignored her sarcasm. “I’m talking about my heart, Liv.”

He felt her breath catch before she exhaled quickly. “It’s racing,” she whispered.

He lowered his forehead to rest against the back of her head. “It’s been like this since the minute you kissed me in that bar, and I can’t get it to stop.”

“Do—do you want it to stop?”

“Only if yours doesn’t race too.”

Liv slid her hands to cover his against her stomach. He reacted immediately, lifting his fingers to lace with hers and then curling them together into a tight, tangled fist. Liv rubbed her thumb against his, and he rubbed back. All the while his forehead remained pressed to her head, his breathing warm and fast against her hair, his other hand splayed across her stomach, branding her with his touch.

“Liv,” he whispered, the questioning lilt making him sound young and vulnerable. “Am I the only one feeling like this?”

Liv flattened his palm over her pounding heart, his fingers brushing the tender swell of her breast above her wet towel. “I lied to you,” she whispered.

Mack froze. “About what?”

“All that stuff about me giving you time to process and not wanting to break your heart?”

He smiled softly. “I remember.”

“I was talking about me.”

Mack nuzzled her hair, his heart in his throat. “I know.”

“I was protecting myself, because . . . I was afraid of getting too close to you.”

“Why?” His voice barely sounded human beneath the layer of emotions clogging his throat.

“I don’t know how to do this. How to trust.”

Trust. There was that word again. That fucking word.

“My father . . .” She paused to swallow. “He used to lie to us all the time. Say he’d call and then not do it. Promise we could spend a week with him during summer break and then have excuses why we couldn’t. I don’t know how to believe in people.”

Believe in me, he silently pleaded. Mack tightened his hold on her, his body trembling with the need to tell her the truth. He could do it. Right now. All he had to do was open his mouth and say the words, tell her the truth about him and that she was the only woman in the world he trusted to know the truth, the only woman he could imagine telling the truth to, and then maybe . . .

Maybe what? She’d understand? Kiss him and make it better?

Or would she walk away in disgust?

Sweat pooled under his arms. With a long exhale, Mack dropped his face to her bare shoulder. She leaned her head back against him and held him as if she sensed that he needed . . . something.

Then she turned her face and kissed him. Sweetly. Softly. “I have to get ready,” she said.

And then she slipped from his grasp.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Can you hear me?”

Liv spoke quietly as she stepped off the elevator on the top floor of the Parkway Hotel. Her heels sank into the carpet, and she paused just long enough to steady herself before following the sounds of the gala in the ballroom at the end of the hallway.

“Gotcha, Liv,” came Noah’s response. “Check in again when you get in the room.”

Her stomach clenched with every step. What if she failed? What if Royce refused to talk to her, or what if he did talk to her but revealed nothing? What if he spilled his guts but it was too loud in the ballroom for Noah to pick it up on tape?

“Liv.” It was Mack this time, and just the sound of his voice calmed her racing heart. “You don’t have to respond, but I just wanted you to know I’m here.”

I’m here. Such simple words, but they carried so much meaning. How could someone be so good at saying so much in so few words? How had she misjudged him so completely?

Am I the only one feeling like this?

No, she’d wanted to say. No, you’re not alone. I’m feeling it too.

She regretted not saying it. She regretted not letting him come with her. She regretted her fear, her insecurities. She regretted that she couldn’t be as open with her emotions as other people, that her past made her doubt and distrust. She regretted that she hadn’t turned in his arms and told him her heart raced for him too and she never wanted it to stop.

A man in a tuxedo stood by the doorway to the ballroom and greeted her. “Good evening. May I check your ticket, please?”

Liv opened her clutch purse and withdrew the invitation Derek had given her. Satisfied that she wasn’t a party crasher, the man smiled and opened the door for her. Liv was hit with the sudden swell of sound—laughter, conversation, clinking glasses, and music from the live oldies band. Twinkling chandeliers cast the room in a soft yellow glow, just low enough to perfectly catch the light of diamond earrings and a hundred sequined dresses. If rich people knew anything, it was how to take advantage of their surroundings.