KING OF EMPIRE

CHAPTER TEN

Sorry for the late update

Isabella

A few screams from the dining room shredded the restaurant’s hushed
elegance into tatters. I gasped—not at the cries or the sudden death of light,
but at the weight of a solid, muscled male body caging me against the wall.
One minute, I was teasing Kai as payback for his toy question in the car;
the next, I was pressed flush against him, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, my
lungs inundated with the heady scent of wood and citrus.
Our proximity carried me back to last week, when we’d found ourselves
in a similar position in the piano room. Only this time, it was no accident.
The world went hazy at the edges as we stood there, frozen, Kai’s body
forming a protective shield over mine. No words, just the rapid rise and fall
of our breaths and the adrenaline leaking into the air like battery acid. It ate
away at the fog until my senses sharpened enough to distinguish shapes in
the darkness.
I tipped my chin up, my heart giving another unsteady thump when I saw
Kai staring back at me. It was too dark to make out the individual contours
of his face, but that didn’t matter. I’d already committed them to memory—
the elegant slash of his cheekbones, the sculpted ruthlessness of his mouth,
the heat simmering beneath the cool veil of dark, inscrutable eyes.
The lights had gone out—nothing nefarious, but shocking enough to
trigger a flight-or-fight response—and his first instinct had been to shield
me.
My heart squeezed. I fisted a handful of tailored cotton and swallowed
past the dry husk of my throat. Despite the power outage, electricity sizzled
around us, one spark away from catching fire.
Kai shifted, his arm curling around me like he could sense the tension
creeping into my frozen muscles. At first glance, he might appear soft, all
quiet politeness and scholarly charm, but he had the body of a fighter. Hard
and lean, corded with muscles draped in the most elegant of fabrics. A wolf
disguised in sheep’s clothing.
And yet, my inner alarms remained silent, my body pliant. For all the
theoretical danger he posed, I’d never felt safer.
A buzz and the darkness vanished as suddenly as it’d materialized. Light
seared my eyes; when I blinked away the disorientation, my dreamy,
cocooned haze evaporated alongside it.
Kai and I stared at each other for an extra beat before we pulled back
with the haste of people who’d accidentally touched a hot stove.
Oxygen rushed into my lungs, amplifying the thunder in my ears.
“We should head back—”
“They’re probably wondering where—”
Our voices tripped over each other in a cacophony of noise. Flags of
color glazed Kai’s cheekbones, and his jaw tightened before he inclined his
head toward the end of the hall.
Neither of us spoke during our walk back to the dining room, but the air
weighed heavy with unspoken words. The side of my body facing him
tingled with awareness. I hated how he could do that—make me feel so
much when I’d vowed not to feel anything again toward men like him.
Rich, good-looking, and far too dangerous for my mental and emotional
health.
“There you are,” Vivian said when we returned to our table. “Wasn’t that
wild? I’m glad the restaurant was able to fix the outage so quickly.”
In reality, the power outage had lasted less than five minutes, but time
stretched so languorously when Kai and I were alone that I was genuinely
surprised the restaurant seemed so normal. The earlier screams had
subsided as quickly as they’d erupted, and other than a few rattled-looking
diners, everyone was carrying on as if the blackout never happened.
“Do you know what caused it?” I smoothed my napkin over my lap and
avoided looking at Kai, afraid even the tiniest glance would expose the
tumultuous emotions whirling inside me.The stab of jealousy at seeing him with Clarissa earlier, the
breathlessness when we’d touched, the sensation of sinking into a deep,
warm bath I never wanted to get out of when he held me. I shouldn’t be
feeling any of those things, but I’d never been great at sticking to shoulds.
It was damn hard to keep someone out of my mind when life insisted on
pushing us into each other’s path whenever possible.
“I’m guessing it was an electrical issue, but they have a backup
generator.” Dante shook his head. “Of all the fucking nights for something
like that to happen, it had to be tonight.”
“It didn’t disrupt our meal too much,” Vivian said, always the voice of
reason. “I’m glad it wasn’t anything serious. The restaurant offered
everyone a complimentary reservation that…”
I tuned her out. I was too busy making sure no part of my body touched
Kai’s above or below the table. Judging by the stiff set of his shoulders, he
was doing the same.
Nerves rattled in my stomach. Dammit.
I reached for my wine and took a big gulp, ignoring Vivian’s glance of
surprise. I wasn’t a big wine person, but I had at least one more hour in
Kai’s company.
I needed all the help I could get.