27

The sharp order ricocheted off her skull. Damn Scott McCall. She hated that he’d infiltrated her head, and she couldn’t evict him. It’d been one week since that meeting—no, ambush. One week since she was supposed to give him her decision about his preposterous ultimatum.

Smothering a sigh, she excused herself from their small group on the pretense of checking with the catering staff, and headed across the room. She’d taken only a dozen steps before she saw something that made tingles jangle up her bare arms and culminated at the nape of her neck.

She sucked in a breath and immediately turned to the source of the unsettling feeling.

Scott McCall.

She balled her fist, forcing her feet to maintain a steady, unhurried pace forward. Even as her heart pounded a relentless rhythm against her sternum. Why the hell was he here? She wondered.

“How did you get in here?” she gritted out.

Conscious of any gazes that might be leveled on them, she kept her polite, social mask in place, when in tru