My heart drops straight to my stomach.
My pulse starts hammering, and the wider his grin grows, the more my stomach twists. He’s messing with me, right? This has to be one of his little games, just to aggravate me like always.
“Are you messing with me?” I ask, my voice a little shaky.
He folds his hands across the table, looking impossibly smug. “And why would I be?” His grin stretches even wider. “There were only seventeen women on the list. You’re not one of them.”
A cold shiver runs over me, and it isn’t just because of what he’s saying. I can tell, with that sinking certainty in my chest, that he’s telling the truth. My name isn’t on that list.
I want to fight it. I want to tell myself it’s some mistake, that the list got leaked wrong, that it’s a joke or a rumor someone started f
