Chapter 98 ADRIAN AND ZARA: CHICAGO
Chapter 98 ADRIAN AND ZARA: CHICAGO
Adrian's POV
Dominic needed someone in Chicago to handle the final piece of Kade's network documentation, a paper trail that required in-person confirmation from a financial contact who wouldn't communicate digitally, and he sent me because I was the one who knew the contact.
Zara came because she had two sources in Chicago who had been feeding her information for months and meeting them in person was safer than any other method right now.
We took separate seats on the flight because neither of us had discussed sitting together and we both independently chose not to bring it up, which told me everything about where we both were.
The meetings went well. My contact confirmed the financial trail and Zara's sources gave her the last two pieces she needed for her documentation on Kade's network and by seven in the evening we were both done and went to the airport to catch the last flight back to New York.
We missed it by four minutes.
We stood at the gate and watched the door close and Zara looked at the board and then at me and said, "next flight is six tomorrow morning."
"Yes," I said.
"One night," she said.
"Yes," I said.
We looked at each other and neither of us said the obvious thing and we went to find a hotel.
There was a conference in the city and availability was extremely limited and the hotel the cab took us to had one room left, a standard double, and the woman at the desk said it apologetically and Zara said we'd take it before I could say anything and I said nothing.
The room was ordinary and clean with one bed and a window overlooking the street and we put our bags down and stood on opposite sides of the room and I said, "I'll take the floor."
"Don't be ridiculous," Zara said, and took off her jacket and sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off her shoes and said, "it's a double, we're both adults, we'll survive."
I said nothing and took off my jacket and sat in the chair by the window and looked at my phone and checked messages and there was nothing that couldn't wait until morning.
Zara went to shower first and I sat in the chair and heard the water running and thought about the lobby in New York, her fingers at my collar, my hand over hers, and thought about the fact that we were in a hotel room in Chicago and I was sitting in a chair being extremely professional.
She came out in the hotel robe with her hair wet and pushed back from her face and went to her bag and pulled out what she needed for the morning and set it on the nightstand and then turned and looked at me.
"You're still in the chair," she said.
"I'm fine in the chair," I said.
"Adrian," she said, and her voice was very even, "I'm not going to bite you. Come to bed."
I looked at her and she looked back at me and then I got up and got ready and came back and got into the bed on the far side and she was already lying down with the lamp still on and her notebook open reviewing something.
I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling and the room was quiet except for the sound of pages turning and the street outside.
After a while she closed the notebook and put it down and turned the lamp off and the room went dark.
Neither of us spoke.
Then she said quietly, "can I ask you something."
"You can ask," I said.
"The collar thing in New York," she said. "You covered my hand. You didn't have to do that."
"No," I said.
"Why did you," she said.
I turned my head to look at her in the dark and she was already looking at me and I said, "because I wanted to."
She was quiet for a moment and then she moved across the bed and I didn't move away and she put her hand flat on my chest and looked at me and said, "I've been trying to be professional about this."
"I know," I said. "So have I."
"It's not working very well," she said.
"No," I said.
She leaned in and kissed me and I kissed her back and her hand stayed flat on my chest and mine came up to her face and it was slow and careful and nothing like the urgent lobby almost-moment, this was deliberate, both of us choosing it fully.
She pulled back after a moment and rested her forehead against mine and I could feel her breathing and she said, "I don't want to complicate your life."
"You already have," I said, and she made a small sound that wasn't quite a laugh and I pulled her closer and she settled against my side and we lay there and the room was quiet.
I pressed my mouth to her hair and she put her hand back on my chest and I covered it with mine and her fingers curled around mine and neither of us said anything else for a long time.
Her breathing eventually evened out and I lay there awake for a while longer thinking about Ava in Maya's room and Dominic not sleeping and the bond and everything that was still unresolved and also thinking about the weight of Zara's hand under mine and how long it had been since anything felt this uncalculated.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand and I reached for it carefully so I didn't wake her and read the message from Dominic.
Kade called. He knows you're in Chicago. He knows about Zara. Says she's no longer useful to him.
I sat up immediately and Zara felt the movement and opened her eyes and said, "what's wrong," and I showed her the screen and watched her face go from sleepy to completely alert in under two seconds.
"How long do we have," she said.
"He said an hour when he told me in New York," I said, "and that was twenty minutes ago."
She was already getting up and reaching for her clothes and I was already calling Dominic back and the uncomplicated thing we'd had for approximately forty minutes was over and the rest of it was back and we both moved fast because that was what the situation required.