I should just leave. This is dumb. Dumb and so stalkery. Not in a sexy stalker way either. More like a weird, creepy serial killer stalker way, which tracks. So I need to take off, before—

“Hey, my name is Jenna and I’ll be your server this afternoon. Can I get you something to drink?”

I sit back, pretending like I wasn’t just edging my way to the end of the booth, and glance up at Jenna. She’s even more stunning than the hostess, her face lit with a genuine, broad smile and her thick auburn hair pulled back in a perfect ponytail.

Why am I doing this to myself?

“Alcohol…” I say.

Jenna beams, sensing my anxiety. It’s something that’s always worked in my favor. A woman like Jenna, who unfolds the cocktail menu and suggests a few of her favorite drinks, would never suspect I’d be capable of murdering anyone.

All she sees is a nervous data scientist, weirded out by the beautiful, friendly, outgoing woman who’s just ordered me a frozen cucumber margarita which she insists is her favorite. It’s true, I am nervous and weirded out, not only by the drink option I apparently just ordered, but by this whole scenario of being an intruder in a space that feels too sacred to bend to my obsessions.

Maybe I need to big myself up. Positive thoughts, remember my strengths and all that shit. Because just as much as I might appear quiet and spooked on the outside, I am also a serial killer who enjoys vivisection and a bit of cartography.

And I also enjoy an annual murder competition.

And I might be increasingly attracted to another serial killer and now I’m not so sure if maybe Lark was right last year, that I’m losing my shit.

I try to latch on to the rational thoughts that are still swimming in the anxiety soup of my head like drowning flies. Rowan might not even be here today. Okay that’s a lie, I hacked into the restaurant schedule and he’d marked himself down for lunch service. So what if he’s here? Rowan is in the kitchen. If I got up to leave right now, he wouldn’t even know I was ever here. 

I shuffle from the edge of the cushion to the middle of the booth where I’m sheltered by the high and curving backrest. It takes a minute to focus enough to actually read the menu, even though it’s short and well-structured, but by the time Jenna returns with my bright green drink, I’m ready to order.

And then stew in silence.

And drink in silence.

And eat in more silence.

I take out my burner phone and contemplate texting Rowan, but I end up putting it away when the pressure only makes me more antsy. I opt for a pen and my notebook instead, and flip to a new sheet of paper.

I pour my focus into translating the image in my mind into ink. The whole universe can collapse into a single page. Distractions ease, and my thoughts follow the lines of black ink, ideas and conversations existing in strokes of darkness rendered by my hand. Even when Jenna brings the charred Brussels sprouts and coconut curry soup, I barely notice, oblivious to the world around me.

At least, I am until the door opens and a boisterous group of seven enters the restaurant. I look up to lock eyes with a man I’ve never seen, but one whose features are unmistakably familiar.

Dark hair. Full lips slanted in a smirk. Tattoos that climb the side of his neck from beneath his collar. His arm is draped over the shoulders of a tiny brunette woman, the rings on his tattooed knuckles glinting beneath her perfect waves. He’s tall and powerfully built. Even with his leather jacket and thick sweater I can tell he’s basically a wall of muscle. And with those dark, predatory eyes that sharpen like a blade set to cut me, I know he’s trouble.

Big fucking trouble by the name of Lachlan Kane.

I break my gaze away as Jenna returns to my table with my dessert, a fig phyllo Napoleon. “I’m so sorry, but can I get a box for this and the bill please? Something’s come up and I have to get going.”

Jenna’s smile doesn’t falter. “Of course, it’s no problem. I’ll be right back.”

“Thanks.”

When my gaze returns to Lachlan, his attention is on a long table in the center of the room where his friends are finding their places, some already seated, others chatting as they take off their coats. But the second I pull my jacket closer across the seat to slide it on, his eyes snap back to mine, amusement coloring their dark hues with the kind of light that sets me on edge.

I drop my focus to my sketch and force myself not to look up as I shrug my jacket over my shoulders and fasten the buttons with a slight tremor in my fingers. Jenna arrives with the boxed dessert and I give her more than enough cash to cover the bill before she heads toward Lachlan’s table to gather drink orders. When I hear an Irish accent among the voices, I seize the opportunity to bolt, but not before tearing the drawing of a raven free from the notebook. Some part of me just wants to leave a little piece of myself behind, to exist in a place that means something to Rowan, if only for a moment. Maybe Jenna will throw it away. Or maybe she’ll pin it up somewhere in the kitchen. Maybe it will remain here long after I’ve found a hole to crawl inside to die.

As soon as the sheet is torn free, I’m out of the booth.

I make it halfway to the door with hurried steps before a single word stops me dead.

“Blackbird.”

The voice carries across the restaurant and I’m pretty sure everyone is now staring at me.

I whisper a curse, taking a deep breath that fills to the bottom of my lungs in a futile attempt to rid my cheeks of a crimson flame. When I make a slow pivot on my heel, my eyes track to Lachlan first, whose smirk is nothing short of diabolical.

And then my gaze collides with Rowan’s.

The sleeves of his chef coat are rolled to his elbows, a few flecks of orange dotting the otherwise pristine white fabric. The stains are the same color as my soup, and for some reason that makes the blush smolder even hotter in my cheeks. His black, baggy pants are impossibly sexy and adorable at the same time. But it’s his expression that grips my throat in a vise. It’s full of shock and confusion and excitement and something hot, something that burns me up from the inside. The combination shortcircuits my brain until all that comes out of my mouth is a single, squeaked word. “Hey.”

Rowan almost smiles.

…Almost.

“Meg,” he barks, shifting his attention to the front door as he gestures toward me. “What the fuck?”

Meg the Hostess freezes in place, the color draining from her face as though her blood has been sucked out with a straw. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Chef. I meant to come tell you but got sidetracked.”

Rowan’s glare shifts to the exact booth where I was just sitting and then to Jenna who closes in on it with a spray bottle and a rag. The sheet of paper I left behind sits like a damning piece of evidence on the table, stark and obvious against the glossy black surface.

“Do not touch that fucking table,” Rowan snaps.

Jenna’s eyes widen as they shift between us, her lips folding between her teeth to clamp down around a smile as she turns on her heel and heads for the bar. Rowan watches her for a moment, his frown deepening when she tosses a grin over her shoulder.

His gaze lands on that fucking drawing.

And then it fixes on me.

“Sloane…” he says, taking a few cautious steps closer as though trying not to provoke a wild animal. “What are you doing here?”

Dying an agonizingly slow death of mortification, clearly. “Umm… eating?”

Rowan’s navy eyes glimmer, a fleeting spark igniting in their depths. “In Boston, Blackbird. What are you doing in Boston?”

“I…I’m here for work. Meeting. A work meeting. Not like, here in the restaurant, obviously. In town. City. Boston city.” Dear God, make me stop. I am burning hot, my wool jacket trapping my body heat and amplifying it until I’m positive my blood has turned to lava. Sweat itches between my shoulder blades and I try not to fidget, opting to back up a step toward the door rather than shedding my jacket to scratch my skin off.