Chapter 2 - The Man Who Felt Fire
“Are they burning you?” Lena asked.
Dante’s eyes lifted to hers. “That is what I am trying to understand.”
The rain battered the windows so hard that the Mississippi disappeared behind a silver curtain. Lena remained on her knees, one hand braced against the rug. She had expected fury, perhaps a security guard escorting her downstairs. She had not expected the most feared man in New Orleans to look frightened of a towel.
“Tell me what you feel,” she said.
“Heat.” He swallowed. “Not pressure. Not a memory. Heat.”
She carefully peeled back one corner. The towel was warm, not scalding. Dante inhaled sharply when her fingertips brushed the fabric above his knee. Lena withdrew at once.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No.” He spoke the word as though he had forgotten its meaning. “Do it again.”
“I’m not a nurse.”
“I know exactly who you are.”
That startled her more than the request. She had been invisible in this building until he started remembering her name.
“Then you know I could lose my job.”
Dante turned toward the dark doorway. “Marco.”
A broad-shouldered guard appeared almost immediately. He looked from Lena to the towels and reached for the radio at his shoulder.
“Get Dr. Soren,” Dante ordered. “And nobody else comes in.”
Marco hesitated. “Miss Bellini is on her way upstairs.”
“Then she can wait.”
Lena’s pulse jumped. Celeste Bellini, Dante’s fiancée, was the kind of woman who could have a housekeeper fired with one lifted eyebrow. Her family owned banks, hotels, and enough politicians to make their wedding an event that would reshape the city. She wore diamonds at breakfast and never used Lena’s name.
The door opened before Marco could stop her.
Celeste swept inside wearing a cream silk robe and a glittering engagement ring. Her gaze went directly to Lena kneeling beside Dante’s chair.
“What,” she asked quietly, “is this?”
“An accident,” Lena said, starting to rise.
Celeste’s face tightened. “Touch him again and you’ll never work in this city.”
“Enough,” Dante said.
Celeste stared. “She has her hands all over you.”
“She dropped towels.”
“And now she’s performing some little show for your attention.”
Dante placed a hand over the towel on his thigh. “I felt the heat.”
The room went still.
For one heartbeat, Celeste looked not surprised but alarmed. Her eyes flicked to the medical cart, then to a small amber vial beside the lamp. Lena saw it. So did Dante.
“Impossible,” Celeste said too quickly. “Dr. Soren explained your condition.”
“I know what he explained.” Dante’s voice grew colder. “I also know what I felt.”
Celeste stepped closer. “Darling, storms can trigger phantom sensations. You’re exhausted. You need your medication.”
She reached for the vial.
“Leave it,” Dante said.
Her hand stopped in midair.
Lena stood, suddenly aware of her damp uniform, her aching knee, the two armed men in the corridor. She had wandered into something far more dangerous than a workplace mistake.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“No.” Dante’s answer came instantly. “Stay.”
Celeste laughed once, without warmth. “You cannot be serious.”
“Lena stays.”
The use of her name changed the air. Celeste turned toward her with a smile that did not reach her eyes.
“You have no idea what kind of trouble you’re inviting.”
Lena had spent her life apologizing for taking up space. This time she looked straight back. “I didn’t invite anything. I brought towels.”
Marco made a noise that might have been a suppressed laugh. Dante’s mouth almost curved.
Then the doctor arrived.
Dr. Soren was a thin, polished man with silver glasses and an expensive watch. He listened to Dante’s description, tested his leg with a blunt instrument, and declared the sensation an involuntary neurological event.
“Nothing to get excited about,” he said. “I recommend the usual injection.”
Dante watched him. “Which drug?”
“The one you’ve received for years.”
“That was not my question.”
Soren’s smile faltered. He named a complicated compound, then reached for the amber vial. Lena noticed that the label had been turned toward the wall.
“Before you give him anything,” she said, “shouldn’t you check the label?”
The doctor looked offended. Celeste looked furious.
Dante held out his hand. “Give me the vial.”
Soren did not move.
“Now.”
When Marco passed it over, Dante turned the glass slowly. The printed label was new. Under it, a second label showed through the adhesive, its edges yellowed with age.
“Marco,” Dante said, “take a photograph. Both sides.”
Celeste stepped forward. “This is absurd.”
“Then you have nothing to fear.”
The doctor insisted that removing medication without supervision would be reckless. Dante agreed to no injection until an independent specialist reviewed the treatment. He ordered Soren escorted out, but not detained; he wanted the doctor to believe the evening had ended in confusion.
Celeste remained in the doorway. “You’re trusting a maid over your physician and your future wife?”
“I am trusting a sensation I have not felt in seven years.”
Her eyes glittered. “You will regret humiliating me.”
When she left, Lena finally exhaled.
“Are you afraid?” Dante asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Fear keeps people observant.”
“That sounds like something a man with armed guards would say.”
He glanced toward the door. “Armed guards did not notice the cable that tripped you.”
Lena followed his gaze. The black cable ran from behind the medical cart to a socket near the bed. Its position looked almost deliberate.
“Was that there before?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Look at me, Lena. You are not responsible for what happened tonight.”
She blinked. Nobody had said anything like that to her in years.
“I need to go home,” she said. “My father’s treatment starts early.”
Dante’s expression softened. “Then Marco will take you.”
“I can catch the bus.”
“Not in this storm.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but a faint movement beneath the towel silenced them both.
Dante’s left foot had shifted.
It was barely an inch.
But it had moved.
May you like
For seven years, the city had called Dante Vale a broken king. Tonight, with a maid watching and a storm raging over the river, the king had moved his foot.
And somewhere in the hotel, someone had already decided that Lena Maro knew too much.
