Chapter 3

The second she rounded the corner toward the bathroom, Alicia dropped the act. She lunged, scooped the black silk shirt off the foyer floor, and shoved her arms into the sleeves.

Her fingers flew down the front. The wide hem hung at mid-thigh.

On the bed, Jeremie heard the rustle of silk. His gaze sharpened. "What are you doing?"

She didn't answer. She spun to the nightstand and swept up his phone and the keycard in one motion. The phone was his only private line out. The keycard was her only way out.

Her left hand dipped into the lining of the gown puddled on the floor and found the split pocket. Her fingers closed on something cold that still held her body heat—a one-dollar coin, change from a hot dog cart outside the gala last night. It was every cent she had left.

Jeremie threw off the duvet and came off the bed—tall, naked, radiating something lethal.

"Put those down." He came toward the foyer like a big cat off a ledge, in no hurry at all. "You're not walking out that door."

Alicia's mouth curved. She flicked her wrist and tossed the coin into the air.

It rang off the marble at his bare feet and spun itself flat.

"Service last night was decent. Your build barely passed." Her voice was flat, the way you'd review a bad takeout order. "Keep the change."

Jeremie looked down at the coin glinting against the dark stone. His jaw bunched until the muscle stood out. He moved a hundred billion dollars of other people's money for a living. No one had ever insulted him like this and lived to brag about it.

"You've got a death wish, woman." He lunged, hand going for her throat.

She was already moving—sidestepped the hand, slapped the keycard against the sensor. Both locks clicked back. She slipped through the gap, then reached back into the narrowing crack and ripped the power card out of the wall slot.

The door swung shut behind her. The lock threw itself home, and every light in the suite went out.

Inside, Jeremie slapped the wall switch. Nothing. The dark closed over him. He drove his fist into the armored door and felt the whole wall take it.

In the hallway she ripped the black trench coat off the suite's exterior valet hook—his, hung there on his way in—and dragged it on. Then she ran, barefoot, down the carpet toward the fire stairs. He wouldn't chase her thirty floors in a bathrobe; without his phone he'd have to hunt for a landline first. That was thirty seconds she was buying.

In the black bedroom, Jeremie felt his way to the bedside landline and punched the direct line.

"Colin. Seal the building. Now."

"Give me a reason for the floor managers, Mr. Stafford." Colin Sullivan—his chief of staff—didn't waste a syllable.

"A stray cat stole my clothes and my phone." Jeremie bit the words off one at a time. "Nothing leaves this hotel. Not a fly."

"Understood. I'll seal the exits on a security protocol and handle building operations myself."

He killed the line, crouched, and picked the coin off the marble. His knuckles went white around it. "Whoever you are—I'll take New York apart to find you."

Twenty floors down, Alicia pushed through the fire door onto twelve and slipped into a housekeeping linen closet. She scraped her hair back into a high ponytail, watching her own amber eyes in the small wall mirror. They were perfectly calm.

Working fast in the narrow space, she turned the trench coat inside out so the gray plaid lining faced the world—it hung unevenly, seams reversed, looking like a cheap knockoff instead of bespoke luxury. She snagged a hotel maintenance cap off a shelf, tucked every strand of hair under the brim, and pushed her bare feet into a pair of spare slippers from the cart.

When the freight elevator chimed in the service hall, she walked in with her chin down, already blending into the morning shift.