Exposed (Ethan Frost 3)

I make a beeline for the stairs, figuring I’ll head upstairs to one of the guest rooms for a few minutes until I can get my shit together. Until I can be the person Chloe and all the rest of these people are used to seeing. Until I can forget all the reasons I hate—

Someone grabs on to my elbow from behind and I almost freak out. My heart starts pounding and every instinct I have screams at me to flee. But I don’t run, don’t yank my arm away even as my skin crawls. To do either is to show weakness and I am not weak. Not now, not ever again.

So, instead, I paste a seductive smile on my face, making sure my eyes are heavy-lidded and sexy when I turn my head to face down whoever has detained me. But one look at the gray-haired man holding my arm has the smile sliding off my face, has the fear inside me ramping up one hundredfold. One thousandfold.

“Tori,” he says, a cordial grin on his unlined, too-handsome face. “I’ve been looking for you since I got here. Where have you been hiding?”

In plain sight. It’s where I always hide. But if I’d known he was going to be here—if I’d known he was actually looking for me—I would have done a better job of camouflaging myself. Might have traded the turquoise dress, and the turquoise hair, in for basic black.

But it’s too late now. There’s now

here to run, nowhere to hide. Nothing to do but brazen it out and pretend my heart isn’t close to leaping out of my chest.

So that’s exactly what I do.

Giving myself one second—and one long, shaky breath—to pull myself together, I cock my hip and narrow my eyes. I even manage to work up a shallow little sneer as I look him over from top to toe. “Well, hello, Daddy dearest,” I tell him after several long, weighted seconds pass. “Fancy meeting you here.”