Once I was outside, I finally heaved a sigh of relief.

Turns out acting was harder than expected. Especially when Nicholas was involved. There was just something about him...

I could still feel his presence lingering only inches from my face. For some reason, it made me want to flush.

That jerk.

I went to my brand new bad boy, the Ferrari, almost immediately. What I really need is to take this hottie out for a spin. I loved automobiles, and this was such an alpha. I had yet to rejoice about my little snag...

"AH!" I yelled when I fixed the rear view mirror and saw someone sitting in the back of the car. Instinctively, I reached for the spray, before realizing it was Nicholas.

He looked confused at my reaction. "I actually scared you?"

"I just saw you moments ago!" No way he could have come down so fast, even before me.

"Elevators are slow." He told me snarkily, sitting back and chewing on his gum.

I was incredulous. Could that mean...

I stared out of my window. No way. His ward was on the thirtieth floor, right smack in the middle of the building. And there was definitely inadequate places to find sufficient footing to scale it. Unless he was motherfreaking Spider-man...

"I'm pulling your leg." He chuckled, and leaned forward. I moved back a little as he tumbled across the seat neatly, ending up in the passenger's seat beside me in the blink of an eye. "Although I do have some tricks up my sleeve."

I had to gawk a little. This boy really knew a thing or two about parkour, and maybe even fighting. Either way, he looked very toned and athletic. Not only was it a godsend, surely he had worked for such a stature.

"What are you doing here?" I didn't even need to act in order to express my annoyance.

"Escaping that suffocating hospital. Drive now, before they realize I'm gone."

I hit the pedal, rolling my eyes as I did so. "Drive where?"

"Doesn't matter. Anywhere but here."

And suddenly, he started unbuttoning the hospital gown one at a time. What the hell?

He wore a smug grin, all while changing into a plain white shirt. I tried to act as if what I saw didn't actually make my face flush. That asshole. It was torturous, and he knew it.

"I thought you didn't want to go out and see any more faces."

He leaned back. "That would be good. It would be ideal if we could escape to a farm on the countryside and just live there." He mused.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pull the handle to recline the seat quite forcefully. I quietly noticed that he was very forceful with his motions, although he could be stealthy when he wanted to, like when he snuck into my backseat.

I swatted him. "Be careful! This car is new—"

Shit.

I shouldn't have said that. Zara would have no reason to care about the condition of the car, since she could buy another with the wave of a hand. Plus, it would be awfully suspicious if I just said that everything given was new, like the car and the penthouse. It would look too much like I was moving into a life that wasn't mine to begin with.

His eyes widened, albeit rather unsuspecting of the deeper meaning of what I had said. "It's new?" He did a 360 degree inspection of the interior. "Sweet ride."

To accentuate his point, he hit the dashboard. I blew a stray strand of hair across my face with irritation. I don't get how anyone would ever want to date this boy...

I made a right and Nick glanced out of the window. "Hyland Avenue? This is a fancy district where people like us would stay at. Don't tell me..." He whipped his head around with enthusiasm. "You're seriously going to bring me to your house?"

I felt like smashing my head against the wheel. "I was already planning to go to my house before you climbed in, you dumbass."

"Huh. You never curse."

Right. I forgot about that — apparently Zara had a distaste for swear words. Unless it was said in French, that was a whole different story.

That part of the acting job was particularly hard to achieve — no cursing at all? "Circumstances compelled me to pick it up, ami. I use it very occasionally."

Nick laughed. "Welcome to the world. bébé. In all seriousness though, are we going to your place? I think we need to have a talk before we do."

What does he mean? I huffed. Do all guys think going to someone's place equates... that?

"Jeez, not everything is a booty call." I muttered under my breath.

"What did you say?"

"I said, let's go to Starbucks in that case."

He shook his head. "You live too near to Hestia, and I clearly want to run away. Plus, I don't concur with the cappuccinos over there. Let's go to Bouler Beach instead. I know an ingenious stash of tents there."

"You should just go home, Nick." I highly doubted the silver-spoon boy could last a day in anything less than microfiber mattresses sitting on jeweled beds.

"I can't." His voice dropped to a sadder one.

"Why not?"

"Because the attacker's still at large, and he knows where I live."

Hearing something like that was kind of scary. To think that his prosopagnosia was really just the aftermath of a very scary attack on Hestia.

It must have been worse that he can't recognize faces. He could be staring into the eyes of a person intending to kill him, thinking that it was just his mother...

"Surely you have plenty of guards on standby?"

"Any of them could betray me. It's risky business."

"They attacked the building to steal secret files, not to kill you, Nick." I reasoned. I had read that much on the Internet, apparently the intent was to uncover some of their top secret research and unveil it first for profit.

"You really think that that was their real intent when they attacked the building? If that's the case, then you've clearly forgotten whatever happened in Paris." He turned to me. A look flashed by, and for a second, I thought my cover was blown.

It seemed that this problem was huge. And if it was, maybe what Zara would have done was to let Nick stay with her. But I couldn't just risk getting my cover blown. And apart from that, I wouldn't survive having him stay with me, would I? He was a brooding stranger, a suspicious one in fact. And just like my Ferrari, he was a bad boy.

"Wow, I can't believe we actually got serious for once." Nick said, changing the subject. "Never mind, forget that I asked. How about we just catch up over dinner? My treat."

"Oh really? It doesn't look like you brought your wallet." I pointed out. He didn't look like he brought anything along except his empty brain and inflated ego.

"Restaurants know me. They'll add it to the tab, obviously." He frowned. "Wow. I must be really insignificant to you to think that I need to pay out of my own wallet."

I gulped. I hated how annoyingly snobbish he was. I wanted to smack that look off his face —

"Well, I vanished for a reason." I responded, pretending that he was indeed insignificant to me. That was a low blow, but I didn't really care.

But then what I said suddenly made sense. Saying it out loud, I realized that Zara must have run from him for a reason.

A reason that I didn't know.