“You’re not my client. Your family is. You’re merely the tradeoff for one of my most lucrative contracts.”

“Ouch. Treat a girl to a luxury spa and get verbally attacked in return. Decorum doesn’t exist anymore.”

Sloane rolled her eyes. “I’m sure there are plenty of women here who’d be happy to stroke your ego. Our server at breakfast, for example. I was afraid she’d fly away from how fast she was batting her eyes at you.”

A smile stole across my face, erasing the surprise sting from her trade-off comment. “I didn’t realize you paid that much attention to who flirted with me.”

“I’m your publicist. It’s my job to pay attention to everything about you.”

My smile melted into something slower, more languid. “Everything, huh?”

I’d meant it as a joke, but when her gaze touched mine, oxygen thinned in a way that had nothing to do with the heat.

Sloane was beautiful. Fact.

I’d been physically attracted to her since the moment we met.

Also fact.

But it’d been a low-simmering attraction, the type I could brush off by focusing on something else. Recently, however, it’d ramped up to the point where there was nothing else.

I didn’t know the reason for the change, but I knew that right now, as we sat in the sauna I’d stupidly insisted on going into, I looked at her and couldn’t breathe.

Sloane swallowed. Beads of sweat trickled down her throat and disappeared into the shadow of her towel.

She didn’t respond to my innuendo, and the silence hummed beneath my skin like tiny bolts of electricity.

If I stood, it would take five steps to reach her.

If I lifted my hand, it would take two seconds to touch her. If—

“You never answered my question yesterday.” My abrupt statement severed the spell, but my pulse continued to pound and my hands instinctively curled around the edge of my seat.

Fuck, this wasn’t what I’d had in mind when I’d dragged Sloane to Spain with me. I enjoyed flirting with her, but there was a difference between flirting and…whatever the hell happened in the past two minutes.

She blinked, seemingly thrown off by the sudden change in atmosphere. “About what?”

“Your bracelet.” She wore the same friendship bracelet from last night. Sloane was a Cartier girl; friendship bracelets weren’t exactly her vibe. “You left the gala without it and showed up at Neon with it. If it’s a gift from your mystery lover, you might have to upgrade. Find someone who can buy you real jewelry.”

“It’s the thought that counts, not the carats.”

“The only people who say that are people who can’t afford carats.” But even the stupidest guy wouldn’t gift someone like Sloane a piece of kid’s jewelry. Unless… “Who did you really go see?” I asked softly.

Sloane’s face darkened.

I didn’t get a reply, nor had I expected one, but I could guess. There was only one topic that made her shut down: her family. Everyone knew about the Kensingtons’ estrangement. They were New York society staples, and barrels of ink had been spilled over the rift between investment tycoon George Kensington III and his eldest daughter. The cause of said rift had been a topic of speculation for years.

Had she visited her family after the gala? If so, who’d gifted her that bracelet and why? Obviously, it had to be someone she cared about or she wouldn’t wear it, but from what I understood, her separation from her family had been ugly. She hadn’t talked to another Kensington in years.

Sloane’s eyes stayed on mine, her emotions inscrutable beneath their wintry blue depths. It was as if she were physically restraining herself from looking away lest I mistook the move for weakness.

Little did she know, there was nothing she could do that I’d mistake for weakness. She was one of the strongest people I knew, and only a fool would think otherwise.

The minutes ticked by. The longer the silence stretched, the more I wanted to dig beneath her stoic façade until I reached the real her—the one with flaws and insecurities like everyone else, not the perfect CEO she projected to the world.

Come on, Luna. Give me something.

A shadow crossed her face, and just when I thought she’d provide some sort of answer, the heater shut off, indicating our time in the sauna was up.

I blinked, ending our unwitting stare down.

Sloane’s expression hardened again before she stood and walked to the exit.

“Okay, good talk,” I said, following her. My voice sounded abnormally loud after the silence. “I learned a lot about you. Thanks.”

“You’re the one who said this trip is supposed to be relaxing.” She twisted the door handle. “Being interrogated isn’t relaxing.”

“Interrogated is a strong word,” I muttered. But fair enough. Honestly, I didn’t know why I cared so much about a stupid bracelet. So what if it had to do with her family? My own family dynamics were shitty enough without me worrying about someone else’s.

“You can open the door anytime now,” I said when Sloane didn’t move. “I don’t want to miss a second of my massage.”

She turned, and my stomach dropped at her tight expression. “I can’t,” she said. “The door is jammed. We’re stuck.”

CHAPTER 6

Sloane

On my list of worst ways to die, overheating half naked in a sauna with Xavier Castillo ranked somewhere between medieval torture and getting eaten alive by piranhas, which was why it was not going to happen.

I tried the handle again. Still jammed. Dammit.

“If we had our phones, we could call the front desk, but we don’t,” I muttered. That was why I brought my phone everywhere. I didn’t care about screen addiction; at least it could save my life if and when the occasion arose.

“Sloane.”

“There’s nothing heavy enough to break the door unless I push you through it.” Tempting.

He sighed. “Sloane, there’s—”

“We could hope someone finds us when the next appointment shows up, but who knows when that’ll be? The spa is fully booked, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Sloane!” Xavier grabbed my shoulders and turned me around. “There’s an emergency button for these situations.”

I followed his gaze to the wall. Sure enough, the button was right there, mounted on a piece of wood. How the hell had I missed that?

Embarrassment scorched my cheeks.