She leaned a hand against the wall to feign losing her balance. “I don’t want you to take advantage of me.”

“And I don’t want you to take advantage of me.” He placed her hand in his and slid two fingers down her wrist to check her pulse. “Your heart, it’s racing.”

“It must be what you gave me.”

“Did you betray me, Sasha?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you tell someone about the condo? That I was using it?”

“Who would I tell about that?”

“And see, that’s not a direct answer. That doesn’t engender my trust in what you have to say.”

She pulled away from him. “I want to leave.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment. As you can see, your driver is gone. There’s no car outside.”

Where is backup? Where is Greer?

Blake approached her, and she swiftly drew her weapon. “Easy there, cowboy.”

“Aren’t you full of surprises.”

“I want to leave.”

“You can keep your gun out if it makes you feel safe.”

“Actually, it does.”

“Let me show you around the grounds.”

“What? Why?”

“I want you to know what’s going to happen here.”

Why is he doing this? A stall? To set you up for an ambush?

“Don’t try anything.” She was still playing the role of an escort. “You don’t drug a girl and then just pretend that everything is fine. Something’s wrong with you.”

“Please.” He gestured toward the door.

Well, stalling would work to her advantage rather than his.

“After you,” she said, keeping the Ruger carefully pointed at his head.

++++

To Tessa, so many of the questions people were asking Timothy Sabian seemed sophomoric and lame: “What’s a typical day like for you?” “Did you always want to be a writer?” “Where do you get your ideas from?”

It was tiresome.

She wanted to ask him the opposite of that last one, actually: how he kept ideas at bay—which would probably be a lot more legit of a problem for an artist. The issue almost certainly wasn’t one of coming up with ideas as much as knowing which ones to disregard. Wherever ideas come from, as a writer, sifting through them must be a lot tougher than coming up with them in the first place.

Finally, after the Q and A was over, people lined up to get their books signed, and Tessa accidentally-on-purpose found her way to the back of the line.

Although Timothy looked a bit ill-at-ease doing so, he took time to speak with each of the people as he signed the books they handed him. As a result, the line moved slowly, but it was a good kind of slow because it showed he cared about the fans who’d come to see him.