M: “Tell me something.”

The text was waiting for me when I opened my eyes the next morning. It blinked with a seductive little pull that sent my heart wild in my chest. My palms slickened, leaving anxious streaks across the screen as I wrote back.

Me: “Like what?”

M: “Anything.”

I hated when people asked me that. It was an unfair question filled with so many awkward answers. As someone who was me, I could tell him with absolute honesty that there was nothing interesting about me. Nothing that would be remotely interesting to divulge to a perfect stranger.

What could I possibly tell him?

“My name is Gabrielle,” I replied, hesitating for a split second before hitting send.

I wasn’t sure if I was breaking some kind of unspoken rule by telling him my name. A fantasy was no fun when one of the players got all personal. But he’d said anything, and my name was the only thing about myself that I did know.

M: “What else?”

I sighed. “You’re not playing fair,” I muttered out loud to my empty room. “How about you tell me something about you now,” I said while I punched it into my phone and hit send.

M: “I hate Brussel sprouts. I think all the Brussel sprout trees should be burned to the ground.”

I laughed.

Me: “Brussel sprouts don’t grow on trees.”

M: “Have you ever been to a Brussel sprout farm? My nanny took me to one once and for miles, that’s all you can see — little, green trees.”

Me: “Your nanny took you to a Brussel sprout farm? Was she punishing you?”

M: “Might have been. Certainly felt that way. I think she was trying to make the disgusting things fun.”

I laughed harder.

M: “All right, your turn.”

I groaned. My nose wrinkled.

Me: “Ask me something. I’m not good at randomly divulging information.”

M: “Randomly divulging information. Interesting way of putting it. Makes you sound like a spy. Are you a spy, Gabrielle?”

I arched an eyebrow he couldn’t see.

Me: “Is that your question?”

M: “Crap. Yes, fine. I’ll give you that one.”

Me: “If I were a spy, I wouldn’t be a very good one if I told you, would I?”

Biting my lip, I crawled free of my bed and padded into the bathroom. My eyes remained glued to the screen the whole way, refusing to even blink in case I missed his response.

He still hadn’t responded when I set the device down on the chipped toilet lid and turned the faucet on. I hurriedly washed my face and brushed my teeth.

I was untangling the knots from my hair when he finally answered.

M: “Clever. I can tell I’m going to have to be careful around you. Your turn, lady spy.”

Hair forgotten, I set my brush aside and scooped the phone up. I took it with me into the kitchen. One hand typed while the other blindly lowered a bowl from the cupboard and located a spoon.

Me: “Tell me your name.”

M: “That isn’t a question.”

I bunched up my nose.

Me: “I’m being spontaneous and lady spy-ish. Fine. Will you tell me your name, please? Better?”

I poured myself cereal, keeping one eye on the time as I shoveled it down. My first class that morning was Sociology, but I had Physics straight after, the one course I was falling woefully behind in and I couldn’t afford to be late. But I needed M’s answer.

M: “Cain.”

The spoonful of Corn Flakes paused inches from my mouth. I stared at the black and white text on my screen.

Cain.

It didn’t have a M anywhere in it. But I’d already suspected M was either a made up letter, or a middle name. Unless Cain was the middle name, or last name. Cain could have been his brother’s name for all I knew. Anything he told me could have had a million other answers.

But I wasn’t in a position to ask and get a truthful answer. It wasn’t as if I could make him swear it in blood over text.

Me: “What does the M stand for?”

Cain: “You had your turn, lady spy. I get the next question. When can I see you again?”

I hesitated as I had the previous night.

Me: “Can I ask a question? It pertains to your question.”

Cain: “Only if I can ask two questions after.”

I took that as my cue to continue.

Me: “Why do you want to see me again?”

I waited five minutes for his answer. When it didn’t come, I left my phone on the counter and went to get dressed. I brushed my teeth again, pausing in between scrubs to check my messages before hurrying back to the bathroom. By the time I dressed and checked my bag for my books, I’d stopped checking. I wasn’t sure if he’d simply grown busy, or he was trying to formulate a proper answer, but I had classes.

The university campus greeted me with a dreary view of dark windows and red bricks. Trees stripped of their leaves waved half-heartedly in the razor sharp winds of approaching winter. They shivered nearly as much as the students scrambling to get inside.

I joined the melee up the polished steps to the high, arched doors with ten minutes to spare.

WALKING OUT OF THE university two and a half hours later, I was no closer to understanding Newton’s laws of rotational motions, or Professor Vijayan’s heavy accent. But I did leave, confident that I was going to fail epically, which really wasn’t an option. The only way David allowed me to continue attending university was if and only if I maintained my 4.0 average with full marks up until graduation.

Maybe I could find a tutor. There were fifty other kids in my class. One of them had to know what they were doing.

Feet encased in invisible concrete, I dragged myself down to the cafeteria. The succulent scent of fried meat and greasy fries greeted me before I even made the final turn down the hall. It surrounded me, prodding at the hunger headache I’d been studiously ignoring for most of the morning, a reminder that it was lunch and I had an hour to decide what I was going to do before my next class.

Eat, came to mind, especially when the cafeteria was a chamber of buttery-gold glowing radiantly just in the distance. A voice reminded me I had money in my secret account. I could buy anything I wanted in that buffet line, all I had to do was walk over and pick up a tray.

But even that very idea filled me with dread. I just knew the moment I stepped foot in that room, someone who knew David would walk by and I would be at the end of David’s scrutiny.

Paranoia was a powerful motivator.

Fear was even worse.

As far as David was concerned, I was minus two hundred dollars in the account he monitored closely. If I was caught doing anything suspicious like ordering a fifteen dollar burger at the school cafeteria and someone told him, that would incite him to dig, and I couldn’t have him digging.

Regularity was key.

I just needed to keep my head down, graduate, and get as far away from that city and that family as my little stash would get me.

Nailed to my resolve, I pried open my purse for the granola bar I usually kept inside. It would do the trick until I got home. My hand scraped the bottom, rearranging loose change and all the other crap I kept stuffed inside. But no granola.

I must have eaten it, I realized with grudging resignation. I couldn’t remember when exactly, but it was gone.

Miserable and hungry, I trudged the rest of the way to the student bulletin board pinned just outside the cafeteria doors. The colorful flyers fluttered like trapped butterflies to the cork. Each one advertised something, wanted something, found something, lost something. It was a mess of confusion and discord. Amongst all the bold fonts and blurry pictures, I found cards to everything from cheap, used furniture to legal assistance.

But nothing about tutoring.

Not one.

I couldn’t even fathom it.

However, there was a free to good home poster that caught my eye. It wasn’t so much the hot pink paper that hurt my eyes, or the barely illegible scribble of someone’s blue pen making the announcement, but the black and white photo of a box housing six furry, tiny jelly beans.

Kittens.

Brand new. Six weeks old, if I read the words properly.

I couldn’t afford a pet. I could barely afford myself. Getting a pet was just cruel. But the word kitten kept jumping out at me, and nothing about it elicited the cute and fuzzies.

It made my cheeks hot.

It made my entire body prickle with a sharp ripple of arousal.

It filled my head with that word purred in deep, husky growl directly into my ear as agile fingers teased the hot bundle of nerves between my thighs. The same bundle now twanging for a repeating performance. It panged for attention, swelling against the crotch of my jeans.

I closed my eyes, blocking my view of the poster, but filling my senses with the roar of blood between my ears. I was so hot I physically hurt.

Could someone die from being too turned on ... by a kitten poster? It would be just my luck.

“Kitten.”

The low, rasping murmur in my ear nearly sent me to the floor. My knees gave a violent shudder that snapped my eyes open and my hands flying out for something to grab. They closed uselessly into air, and I was still going down.

“Whoa!”

Fingers bunched in my coat and dragged me up, saving me from becoming the next viral video on YouTube. An arm came around my middle, an anchor hauling me into a chest that smelled of tangled limbs, hot kisses, and greedy hands. A familiar scent that had been haunting my dreams for several nights, making me come awake so close to climax I could have cried.

My head lifted, already full of so many possibilities while simultaneously refuting them all.

“Kieran?”

His beautiful face swam into my line of sight, disrupting the scenario in my head of M and our single night together. My whole world tilted on its axis, torn between fantasy and reality. It scrambled for an explanation, a viable excuse why Kieran would utter that word, while insisting he hadn’t. That I’d imagined. He couldn’t possibly.

“Kieran.” His name breathed from my lips a second time, a choked squeak of disbelief and confusion. “What...?”

“Are you okay?” he cut in.

I could only stare at him, long enough for his brows to draw in over the liquid gold of his eyes. Heavy lashes slanted down as he took me in, possibly searching for injuries.

“Gabby?” Warm, gentle fingers cupped my chin, such a brutal contrast to the way David had grabbed me the night before that I gasped. “Are you hurt?”

He ignored the shake of my head by tipping my face.

I’d checked the night before and that morning for bruising. There’d been a few splotches where David’s fingers had bit into skin, but I’d had years to learn the tricks of hiding the marks. I was an expert with a sponge and a bottle of foundation. 

I was confident Kieran wouldn’t see anything.

But his gaze lingered a little too long on my jaw.

His fingers flexed a little too tight.

His mouth was just a little too rigid.

For a panicked second, I was sure he could see something, that I’d missed a spot or the makeup had begun to fade.

I started to pull away.

His gaze lifted. My attempts at escape faltered the moment they pinned me in place. There was nothing in them to suggest he knew anything, but there was something underneath that whiskey gold that made my chest tighten.

“Do you need to sit down?”

I rocked my head slowly from side to side. “What did you say?”

Concern narrowed his eyes. “Do you need—?”

“No, before that, when you first arrived,” I tried to explain and failed miserably.

His chin lifted a notch in understanding. “Kittens.”

My breath became a hard wedge lodging itself in my chest. I almost couldn’t formulate words around it.

“Why? Why would you—?”

He nodded towards something over my shoulder. “The flyer.”

Of course.

I felt so stupid for even entertaining the idea ... Kieran wasn’t Cain. It wasn’t possible. My imagination had completely run away with me. I wanted to laugh, because that was what people who realized they’d made a mistake did; they laughed at their own insanity.

But I couldn’t get it out.

I couldn’t stop looking up at him and wondering.

There were so many things, so many similarities, so many ... feelings.

Too many.

Too many to ignore.

“Kieran?”

“Yeah?”

He would tell me, I told the persistent little voice badgering inside my head.

He wouldn’t ... why would he?

Why would he go through the trouble?

Why ... just so many whys.

It made no sense.

“What?” he pressed when I couldn’t get the words to lunge off the tip of my tongue.

“Have ... have you ever been to an auction?”

It could have been my imagination when he went inexplicably still against me, when his heart gave an unexpected kick against mine through the bulk of our clothes. It had to have been, because the moment I thought I noticed it, it was gone and he was tilting his head to one side.

“I’ve been to plenty. What kind of auction?”

There it was.

The double edged blade.

I could tell him.

I could reveal it all and wait for his face to change, to twist into disgust.

I could wait for him to pull away, to shove whole countries between us with a single step back.

I could watch him turn away from me, or worse, laugh and call me pathetic, sick ... a whore.

The agony of those images wrenched daggers into my chest. I felt each one pierce through fabric, fat, and muscle to nick my heart with fine precision.

A million tiny papercuts until I wanted to scream.

Yet it wasn’t nearly as traumatic as the thought of him saying yes.

To confessing.

To admitting he was Cain.

My Cain.

The mortification, the absolute horror would kill me.

I could feel it just standing there.

I could feel myself tearing apart at the seams, dissolving into tears of humiliation.

I couldn’t stand it.

I couldn’t handle the knowledge that Kieran had seen me like that, had seen me sell myself because there was nothing else left for me. I couldn’t bear ever looking him in the eyes without wanting to die of shame. Oh, and the agony of knowing he’d paid for me ... oh God, I couldn’t.

I couldn’t.

“Nothing,” I whispered, the coward winning. “What are you doing here?”

The concentration behind his scrutiny never wavered, not in the full second that passed before he answered. It claimed all my attention the way only he ever could, with a profound intensity that made all my nerve endings painfully alert.

“I came to see you,” he murmured at last. “I brought your car.”

I blinked. “You brought my car?”

“Well, no.” He offered me a half grin that dribbled through me like warm honey. “My mechanic did, but...” He reached into his pocket and unearthed my keys. “I brought the keys.”

I reached for them and only then realized he was still holding me. I was still cradled in perfect alignment with his chest, surrounded by the warmth of his arms. I was nestled against him with the unabashed welcome of a woman embracing her lover.

I tore myself free and forced my traitorous legs to support my useless weight as I righted myself without his support. My gaze swung over the passing crowd, searching for even a hint that someone was watching.

All it would take to destroy me was one recording cellphone angled just right.

“I’m sorry.” I forked my fingers back through my hair, ripping out strands in my own annoyance. “I didn’t mean to...”

He held my keys between us. The metal teeth glinted in the warm light from the cafeteria. They looked so harmless, so familiar, yet I felt like he was handing me a deadly viper.

“Thank you.”

He inclined his head as I accepted.

I shoved them hastily into my purse as if he’d just handed me an eight ball of coke. I had to resist the urge to steal another peek at our surroundings. The last thing I needed was for campus security to get called for suspicious behavior.

I faced the man watching me.

“There’s an ATM just around the corner. If you want to follow me, I can—”

“No.”

My mouth opened and closed a couple of times while my brain tried to process his response.

“I have checks if you—”

“No,” he repeated, this time with a small shake of his head.

Bemused, I frowned up at him. “I don’t understand. How do you want to get paid then?”

“I don’t.”

It was such a ridiculous statement I laughed.

“What do you mean you don’t want—?”

“I don’t want the money, Gabby,” he stated coolly.

“But ... why?”

To my absolute amazement, he smiled, a big, beautiful pull of his entire face blooming into a radiant glow. His eyes lit up, reminding me of light glittering off the surface of a polished amber. He had a dimple I knew nothing about. Years of sharing a dinner table with him once a week and it caught me in the sternum like a fist, knocking the air from my lungs.

“Because I want something else.”

That declaration shouldn’t have shaken me nearly as much as it did, yet those five words rippled at the pit of my stomach.

“What?”

Even I couldn’t hear my quiet murmur over the pounding of feet and raised voices, but I wasn’t brave enough to repeat myself.

“Have lunch with me. Right now.”

Would the wonders never cease?

“You want me to buy you lunch?”

He shook his head. “No, I want you to have lunch with me.” He glanced over my shoulder. “There looks good.”

I looked back, already knowing what I would find, but unable to stop myself. Most of the cafeteria was now a mess of crowded bodies and a line I didn’t have the time to stand in.

“I only have...” I checked my watch, “less than thirty minutes before my next class.”

Kieran seemed to realize my dilemma, because he nodded thoughtfully. “All right.”

If I thought that put an end to that, I was sorely mistaken. Kieran took my hand and led me away from the board.

Four steps out, he stopped and rounded on me.

“Did you want that cat woman’s number?”

I blinked. “Cat woman?”

He nodded to the board. “The kittens.”

I laughed. “No, I’m not very pet friendly right now. I was looking for a tutor.”

He considered that a moment. “Any luck?”

We started walking again, making our way with easy strides through the corridors towards the doors leading to the visitor’s parking area.

“None,” I admitted with a sigh. “I might have to actually talk to someone in my class.”

“I never pegged you for anti-social,” he remarked with an ease that was absent of mockery, just simple fact.

“Have you met me?” I teased, ducking beneath his arm when he opened the door.

“I have.” He stepped onto the sidewalk with me, letting the door swing closed behind us. “Which is why I don’t get it.”

I couldn’t be sure if he was toying with me or not. He seemed so sincere and yet I couldn’t fathom where such unwavering knowledge was coming from.

I seldom talked at dinner.

I never brought people with me.

I never got phone calls or texts.

Did he think that I was hiding all my friends in my closet?

“I don’t have ... friends,” I told him carefully.

“We can talk about that over lunch.”

He never gave me the chance to ask why it was a topic that needed talking about, but he’d settled a hand on the small of my back and was guiding me across the lot to his Porsche. The black beast sat with an almost arrogant grin amongst all the lesser models. Its glossy paint gleamed beneath the overcast sky, reminding me of a wild stallion.

“I thought you brought my car,” I said as we reached the passenger side door.

“Jacob brought your car.” He yanked the door open for me. “I brought mine.”

I hesitated getting in, not out of uncertainty, but curiosity. My eyes swept over the sea of metal, searching for the one I recognized and finding it absent.

“He took it to your apartment,” he told me.

My searching stopped on his face with wary confusion.

“You’ve gone through a lot of trouble today, Mr. Kincaid.”

He nodded solemnly. “I have, which is why you shouldn’t keep me from lunch. I’m starving.”

Fighting the twitch threatening to turn my lips up, I shook my head at him. “If you were any other man, I would question your motives.”

The sun glinted over the pools of his eyes, making them flash hypnotically. “You still should, Ms. Thornton. I would never claim to be a gentleman.”

Bottom lip caught between my teeth, I slipped into the seat and let him seal me in. My bookbag and purse were stuffed into the space at my feet and I pulled the belt over my lap. I was getting comfortable when he climbed in behind the wheel.

“Do you have a place in mind?” I asked.

“Nope.” He put the car into drive. “But I’m sure we’ll find something.”

The university campus took up about eight city blocks, most of that was traffic central. The rest was a maze of coffee shops and diners. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been nearly as hard as it was to find somewhere to eat. We could have thrown a rock and hit at least a dozen restaurants. But Kieran seemed to be searching for something. He passed several burger joints, sandwich shops, and pizza parlors without sparing them a glance.

“In the mood for something particular?” I guessed.

He shook his head. “Not particularly. Why? Are you?”

“Not really,” I confessed. “I’ll eat just about anything.”

Kieran chuckled. “A girl after my own heart.”

I fought not to let his comment seep beneath my skin and warm my blood. An almost impossible task, but allowing it, I knew, would be worse. He was already in way too deep. Much deeper than I ever should have let him in. But I was hopelessly weak where he was concerned. Granted, I was always weak. The only difference was that the weakness he caused didn’t fill me with dread and despair. It didn’t make me feel weak.

Those dangerous thoughts were shoved aside and buried. I couldn’t afford to let them linger. Nothing good could ever come of it.

“Why did you leave early last night?” I blurted, needing the distraction. “You usually stay for dessert.”

He made a turn down Oxford road before answering, “If I stayed any longer, I would have wound up with anal rash from all of David’s ass kissing.”

My head snapped in his direction with a ferocity that nearly caused me whiplash. The implication was horrifying. I should have been stunned. But something inside me burst and I was laughing like I had never laughed in my life. It crashed out of me in waves, the momentum of ripples on a lake after a rock had been dropped in. They just kept rolling out until I couldn’t breathe, until tears were streaming down my cheeks and I was clutching my sides. It was sheer force that I managed to work my voice.

“I can’t believe you just said that!” I cried, wheezing. “That’s so horrible. I shouldn’t be laughing.”

Kieran chuckled. “I’m glad you did.” He drummed long fingers on the wheel. “Could you imagine how awkward this drive would have gotten if you hadn’t?”

I laughed again, not as hard, but it stabbed at my tender stomach. “Ow...”

“Besides,” he went on seamlessly, “you left. I had no other reason to stay.”

I caught the flick of his gaze slanting my way from the corner of his eye, and my heart kicked my ribs. The impact jolted the breath I tried to suck in, making it catch in my chest.

“Kieran...”

“Here we are.”

He pulled alongside a curb just in front of a Greek restaurant. Any other time, I would have told him we passed at least eight of those, but he was already out of his seat and rounding the hood.

I quickly untangled myself from my belt just as he reached my door.

Inside smelled of roasting lamb and lemons and herbs. The succulent aroma made my mouth water and my stomach whimper. It was the remaining shreds of my dignity that restrained me from lunging on a stranger’s plate.

Kieran led us to a corner booth. We hung our coats on the pegs along the back wall. I inconspicuously checked my watch when he wasn’t looking, wincing slightly at how little time I had remaining.

“I might not be able to stay for long,” I said even as I slid into the warm leather. “But I’ll make it up to you—”

“Tonight.”

I faltered. “Excuse me?”

He claimed the seat across from me and folded his hands on the table. “You can make it up to me tonight. Dinner.”

I knew what he was doing.

I may not have had the experience, or the knowledge, but I wasn’t an idiot.

“Kieran, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but that’s not a good idea.”

“Because you don’t eat dinner?”

Not always.

Only when I had food to eat.

But he didn’t need to know that.

“You know why,” I stressed, wishing he’d stop ripping the ground out from under me.

“Enlighten me.”

I didn’t get the chance to when a woman carrying steaming trays of food arrived at our table. Heaping plates of freshly baked breads, meat, rice, and sauces were laid in front of us.

The smell ... God, the smell was enough to make me rabid with hunger.

“Drinks, Mr. Kincaid?” the woman asked in a thick accent.

“A soda for me, please, Voula. Gabby?”

It took me a moment to wrap my head around what was happening, and speak without drooling.

“Same,” I murmured.

The woman smiled kindly and hurried away as quickly as she’d appeared.

“I took a guess,” Kieran said once we were alone again. “Rice and lamb are most people’s favorite. Unless you want something else?” he hedged when I could only stare at him, unable to formulate words.

“When did you...?”

I looked over the spread, a spread that would have taken at least forty-five minutes of wait time. This wasn’t the dine and dash sort of place. Everything about it was relaxed. The kind of place perfect for a date, which I assured myself this wasn’t.

“I may have made the order before I came to find you,” he said with a sheepish little wince that would have been endearing if my stomach hadn’t been in knots.

“You must come here a lot,” I murmured.

“A bit,” he agreed, eyeing me.

The urge to ask if all those other times included other women bubbled up inside me, but there was no easy way to allow that to spill across the table without coming off sounding jealous. It wasn’t my business who he brought where. He could go on as many dates as he wanted with every woman in the city and it wasn’t my place to judge.

But it didn’t mean I liked it.

“She knew your name.”

“Voula?” He glanced briefly in the direction the waitress had taken. “I’ve known her for a few years now.”

I tore at a piece of bread, no longer hungry, but needing a distraction to avoid his eyes.

“Does she always bring you lamb and rice?”

“Not always. Sometimes she brings me beef.”

Now he was just mocking me.

“I own the place.”

The volunteered information had my head jerking up. I caught the glimmer of barely concealed amusement in his eyes.

“What?”

“I own the place,” he repeated, making a circular motion with one finger. “I bought it from Voula a few years back. She asked if she could stay on and I said yes.”

“You own...” I didn’t know what to say to that.

“I own a few businesses around here,” he said, not with arrogance like David would have, but simply stating a fact. “If you like, we can make this a weekly ritual and I can show you them all.”

There it was again.

His offer.

An offer I wanted to grab with both hands and run.

An offer I could never accept.

“I want to, but you know what a bad idea that would be.”

“Do I?” He leaned back in his seat. “I don’t think I know any such thing.”

“Kieran.”

He pointed at the dish in front of me. “Eat, or you’ll be late for class.”

Class.

Crap.

I checked my watch.

I barely had enough time to finish half the plate, which depressed me beyond reason, because it looked so good.

“Whatever you don’t finish, Voula will pack up,” he assured me, as if reading my mind.

She wound up packing a good portion of it, including his untouched plate and several pieces of bread. I thanked her profusely while digging into my purse for my bank card.

Kieran snatched it out of my fingers before Voula could even reach for it.

“Hey!”

He shot me a dry glower as he pushed to his feet. My card disappeared into the pocket of his trousers.

“Her money’s fake,” he told Voula seriously. “Don’t ever accept it. It’s no good here.”

“That wasn’t money!” I shot out of my seat. “It was a card, and don’t tell people I have fake money!”

God, the last thing I needed was to get arrested for counterfeiting.

“Quiet, love,” Kieran murmured. “Grab your coat.”

He left me standing there and led a grinning Voula towards the register.

I grabbed my coat and my takeout boxes, and my purse and somehow managed to make my way over to him just as he finished paying.

“Why did you do that?” I demanded as he led me outside to the car. “I could have paid.”

“Well, you can pay for drinks tonight.”

“Kieran.”

“I don’t like when you say my name in that tone,” he decided. “It makes me feel like I’m five and being scolded.”

The image broke the tight grip I’d had on my annoyance. I laughed despite myself.

“You’re really impossible.”

“Irresistible, you say?” He smirked. “How irresistible?”

“I said impossible.”

He shrugged. “Same thing.” He yanked open my door. “Come on, love. Let’s get you back.”

It wasn’t until I was on my way home later that evening that I remembered he still had my bank card and I had absolutely no way of contacting him.

Never in all the years I’d known him had I ever needed his phone number, nor was I about to call David for it.

Part of me wondered if this was part of his plan to see me for dinner that evening. While the idea excited me far more than I should ever allowed, I knew I needed to start putting my foot down before things got really out of hand.

But every time I tried, he managed to sidetrack me. I had no idea what he was doing, only that if he didn’t stop, he was going to get me killed.

Or worse.