Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) by Shannon McKenna

golden.”
    And by saying so, she was admitting to flash-memorizing every minute detail of him this morning. But whatever.
    “I wore light-screening contact lenses this morning. Like I said—”
    “Yeah, the head injury. I remember. It’s just that they’re—never mind.”
    “They’re what?” he prompted.
    “Amazing,” she said. “That gold. How they catch the light. It looks right. It’s . . . it’s beautiful.” She was mortified for blurting that out. So inappropriate.
    He looked startled. “Thank you,” he said. “Now it’s your turn.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I took off my glasses. You take off yours. And that thing in your mouth and the wig. I want to see you.”
    There was nothing to be gained by being coy. She fished her zippered bag out of her duffle and did what he asked. Except for the wig.
    Maybe that was why he didn’t seem satisfied. “Who are you?” he asked. “What’s your name?”
    “You don’t need my name,” she replied. “I’m Shamira, the dancer. Do you want your dance? Because that’s all I came here to do.”
    His eyebrow went up. “Let’s have it, then.”
    She was taken aback at his swift change of tone. “I’ll need a place to change.”
    Noah pointed to a door. “There’s the bathroom.”
    She couldn’t back out and she couldn’t escape. And most likely she couldn’t crawl out a small bathroom window and climb down a rope made of her fabulous fake hair from the twenty-fourth floor. But it would have been nice to have the option.
    “I have the music file on my phone. Could I just connect it to your—”
    “Of course. Cue it up and hand it over. I have a cord.”
    Nowhere to hide. She handed him the phone and stood there.
    “Wait,” she said. “Just hold on. This is too weird.”
    Those piercing eyes transfixed her. “Why? It’s a simple economic exchange.”
    She shook her head. “Really not. It’s incredibly complicated.”
    He passed his hand over his face. “Oh, God. Here we go again.”
    “What?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
    “Simple things.” His tone was long-suffering. “They become complicated with no warning, and I never get the memo in time.”
    She swallowed her nervous laughter.“Are you sure you want to drop three thousand for a four-minute dance? I’ve never studied dancing of any kind seriously, by the way. I just took classes in college because Pilates and aerobics bored me.”
    “What college was that?”
    “Um . . .”
    “No one majors in belly dancing.”
    “Oh—that’s a joke.” She snapped her fingers. “ I don’t want to answer questions about myself.”
    “Understood. And I appreciate your honesty,” he replied. “But to answer your question, I enjoyed your performance today. I wanted an encore.”
    Well and good, but Caro continued. “For that kind of money, you could hire a professional dancer and live musicians playing authentic instruments. Maybe even get a hookah going. Puff puff.”
    “No thanks.”
    “OK then. Guess I’ll just have to do my best.”
    “That’s exactly what I wanted. Really not complicated at all.”
    She shook her head. “It’s just weird.”
    “Why?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re completely safe here.”
    True as far as it went but she still almost laughed at him. As if anywhere could ever feel safe again. Not after months of cowering in constant fear, terrified that she’d be chopped into chunks at any minute. She was sick of it.
    And why cross-question a guy whose only crime was offering her a wad of cash for a few minutes of her time? Maybe because you’re so goddamn lonesome, you just desperately need to talk to someone. How pathetic was that?
    She had the uncanny feeling that Gallagher had somehow overheard her mental monologue. He looked at her like he had. “You didn’t have to do this,” he said.
    She offered the most obvious thing she could think of. “I needed the money.”
    “You can go at any time.”
    “I’m not about to bail,” she