Chapter 2 - Six Words
The restaurant doors swung open.
The violin stopped in the middle of a note.
The moment David saw the man in the charcoal suit, all the color drained from his face.
And Preston—the man who had been laughing only seconds earlier—dropped his wineglass when he realized exactly who had just walked in.
The glass struck the marble floor and shattered beside Preston’s shoe.
No one moved.
Gabriel Kane stood just inside the doorway with rain darkening the shoulders of his charcoal coat.
He did not look at Preston.
He did not look at David.
He looked only at me.
His eyes traveled from my wet hair to the brown stains soaking through my white shirt, then to the melting ice cube trapped against the edge of my apron.
Something changed in his face.
It was almost nothing.
A slight tightening beside his mouth.
A slow breath through his nose.
But I knew my husband.
I had seen men twice Gabriel’s size back away from that expression.
Two men in dark coats stood several paces behind him, but Gabriel lifted one hand without looking back.
They stopped.
Then he walked toward me.
His shoes made soft, measured sounds against the marble.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Preston pushed himself halfway out of his chair.
“Mr. Kane, I can explain—”
Gabriel passed him without turning his head.
He stopped in front of me.
Close enough that I could smell rain and cedar on his coat.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
His hand rose toward my face, paused an inch from my cheek, and waited.
That was Gabriel.
To everyone else in Chicago, he was a man who never asked permission.
With me, he always did.
I leaned slightly into his palm.
His thumb wiped a drop of soda from beneath my eye.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
His jaw flexed.
“Anna.”
“I’m not hurt.”
Only then did he take off his coat and place it around my shoulders.
Behind him, Preston’s breathing had become loud enough for me to hear.
Gabriel turned.
Preston sat down again without meaning to.
Bryce stared at the tablecloth.
Cole had gone completely still.
Tyler’s fingers were already moving beneath the table, probably texting someone powerful enough to rescue him.
Gabriel’s voice was quiet.
That made it worse.
“I’m here for my wife.”
The banker in the corner lowered his glass.
The state senator near the window stopped whispering to his companion.
David gripped the host stand so tightly his knuckles whitened.
Preston blinked.
“Your… wife?”
I watched the realization travel across his face.
The ring.
My last name on the employee paperwork.
The fact that almost no one in Gabriel’s world knew what I looked like because we had married quietly eighteen months earlier.
Preston looked at me as if I had somehow deceived him simply by refusing to announce that my husband was powerful.
“You never said—”
I cut him off.
“You never asked whether I was married.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No.” I pulled Gabriel’s coat tighter around my shoulders. “You assumed there was nobody important enough behind me to make you afraid.”
Preston opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Preston had finally learned who my husband was. He still had no idea why that was the least dangerous thing he had just discovered.
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