Million Dollar Devil

24.

I return to the table with my drink in hand and a carefully neutral expression. No one notices and if they do, they're too polite or too strategic to mention it.

I slide into my seat like I haven't just stepped out of a different reality. Like my skin isn't still tingling from whatever passed between me and Leo at the bar. I lift my glass and take a small, measured sip, the gin cutting through the fuzziness in my chest.

The conversation resumes around me in full, tedious force, market chatter and tax havens. It's all half-laughs over political connections and private islands. It's the kind of dialogue that folds in on itself. Men who already know what they're going to say, waiting only for their turn to speak. I sit there, quietly sipping and slipping into a daze, watching their mouths move like I've fallen behind glass. 

Leo doesn't look at me again. Doesn't speak to me. Doesn't so much as shift in my direction.

He picks up the thread of conversation like nothing happened, like we didn't just stand across from each other with the air between us buzzing and electric, like he didn't lean in so close I forgot how to breathe.  He makes it look effortless. And I hate that.

But I feel him. Even without his attention on me, especially without it,  feel the weight of him like gravity. Every subtle shift in his posture. Every time he runs his thumb along the rim of his glass. Every moment he doesn't glance my way. It hums under my skin.

I try to tune it out. I nod where I'm supposed to. Smile when someone makes a joke that isn't funny. Say something agreeable when the attention turns my way. 

The night winds down slowly, like a dying fire. One by one, the men excuse themselves. Handshakes exchanged, ties loosened and smiles still sharp.

Leo stands. Smooth. Silent. Controlled to the point of stillness. He glances toward me like it's nothing.

"Come on. I'll walk you up."

It's not a suggestion. Not an offer. Just something he's decided, like so many other things.

 I rise a little too quickly. My chair makes the softest sound as I push it back, and my heel wobbles slightly beneath me. Not enough to fall. Just enough to remind me I've had more to drink than I meant to.

I fall into step beside him as we move through the lobby, our reflection sliding along the marble floors. His hands stay tucked in his pockets. Mine wrap around my clutch like I'm trying to hold something together.

We say nothing in the elevator. 

I lean back against the mirrored wall and hum. The cool glass bites into my skin, chasing away the heat slowly rising in my cheeks. I'm not drunk...not exactly. Just blurred around the edges. Softer. Braver. Maybe a little stupid.

He doesn't look at me. Not even once. I can't help but roll my eyes.

The elevator dings.

We step out into the hush of the private floor.  The lights are dim and the hallway stretches in front of us like a tightrope that I'm barely brave enough to walk. I study my feet as they move one in front of another, my stride obviously unbalanced. I wouldn't pass a sobriety test if my life depended on it.

He notices. Of course he does. But he says nothing.

We reach my door and I dig through my clutch, fingers fumbling carelessly. I search for the keycard buried beneath lipstick and gum wrappers. I find it eventually. Holding it up like the winning lotto ticket.

"Victory," I laugh, as if I've earned anything at all. He doesn't smile. Of course he doesn't.

I press the card against the sensor, I hear the lock clicks open but I don't move.

I stand in the doorway, still clutching the key, my shoulder leaning into the frame. I feel warm and flushed. Leo stops a few feet back. Like he knows better. Like he's drawing a line neither of us has the guts to say out loud.

"You should go inside," he says lowly.

"I will."

I don't. 

The air feels heavier now. Warmer. Like the walls are holding their breath.

"You didn't have to walk me up," I murmur, trying to coax a response, prolong a conversation that I'm not ready to end. 

"I know."

"But you did." I respond too quickly, my words every so slightly slurred.

He looks at me then. Direct and steady. But there's tension in it, in the way he stays still, like stillness is the only thing holding him together.

"You're drunk," he says.

"I'm not."

"You are."

I smile, slow and small. "Does it bother you?"

He doesn't answer right away. Just steps forward. No contact. No invitation. Just heat.

"I don't do this," he says, voice like glass.

"Do what?" I whisper.

"This game."

My breath catches. I tilt my head, just slightly. "Feels like you're playing."

Still, no answer.

I lift my hand slowly. Not touching. Hovering just above the lapel of his jacket, close enough to feel the static.

"You going to tell me this is a bad idea?"

"You already know it is."

"But you're still here."

Silence.

He looks at me like I'm something he's trying not to want. His fists stay in his pockets. His breathing's even. But there's something in his eyes that says he's nowhere near calm.

I take half a step closer. 

I could pull him in.

I could.

And for one sharp, breathless second, I think I will.

His eyes drop to my mouth.

Then he leans in.

And I freeze.

He doesn't kiss me. His mouth stops beside my cheek, a fraction too close.

"You don't want what happens next," his voice low, barely audible, "Go to sleep."

My hand falls.

He steps back, turns and walks away.

I stand in the doorway, not breathing.