The impact knocked the wind out of her. Kenan hit her with the force of a linebacker, his momentum carrying them both into the marble wall next to the door. Imogene's head snapped back, stars exploding in her vision.
His hands were on her shoulders instantly. His grip was bruising, his fingers digging into her trapezius muscles like iron claws. He wasn't trying to strangle her, not yet, but he was holding her in place with a strength that felt unnatural.
"Make it stop," he groaned, leaning his weight onto her.
Imogene gasped for air. The silver knife slipped from her sleeve. It hit the carpet with a dull thud, useless. She couldn't reach it. She couldn't move.
"Mr. Cervantes," she choked out. "You're hurting me."
He didn't hear her. He was shaking, a violent tremor running through his massive frame. Imogene turned her face away as his head dropped to her shoulder. She expected the smell of bourbon, the sour reek of a bender.
Instead, she smelled peppermint and copper.
Blood. And something sterile.
Her fear spiked, then plateaued into a cold, hard clarity. This was the switch. The "Saint" taking over. She stopped struggling against his weight and started analyzing the data.
His skin was burning hot through his shirt. Fever. High grade. The tremors were rhythmic, clonic. His pupils were dilated not from drugs, but from sympathetic nervous system overload.
He wasn't attacking her. He was crashing.
"Neuro-storm," she whispered. The rumors about his experimental chips were true.
Kenan groaned again, his head thrashing against her shoulder. He pulled back, his eyes wild. He looked at her neck, his teeth bared. It was a primal reaction, the brain stem taking over the cortex. Fight or flight. He was choosing fight.
He opened his mouth, moving toward her throat.
Imogene didn't think. She freed her right arm from between their bodies. She swung her hand and slapped him across the face.
The sound was sharp, like a pistol crack in the quiet room.
Kenan's head snapped to the side. He froze. The shock interrupted the feedback loop in his brain for a fraction of a second.
"Breathe!" Imogene commanded. Her voice wasn't the waitress's anymore. It was the surgeon's. "Look at me!"
Kenan blinked. He looked at her. For the first time, the red haze in his eyes seemed to clear slightly. He saw the glasses, the fear, but also the steel behind them.
Imogene didn't wait. She jammed her thumb and forefinger into the pressure points at the base of his skull, right behind the ears. She pressed hard, finding the occipital nerves.
"Focus on the pain," she ordered. "Ground yourself."
Kenan let out a shuddering breath. The overwhelming noise in his head-the static, the screaming data-began to recede, replaced by the sharp, physical sensation of her fingers. It was an anchor.
His grip on her shoulders loosened. His knees buckled.
Imogene caught him, or tried to. He was too heavy. They slid down the wall together, landing in a heap on the expensive carpet. Kenan ended up on his knees, his forehead resting against her stomach. He was panting, but the aggression was gone.
"Who..." he mumbled.
"Shh." Imogene moved her hands to his temples, beginning a rhythmic massage. She knew the anatomy of the cranial nerves better than she knew the streets of New York. "Don't talk. Just process."
The room was freezing, but Kenan was radiating heat like a furnace. Imogene shivered, her thin uniform offering no protection against the chill or the man.
Kenan's hands, which had been hurting her moments ago, now sought purchase. He wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in the coarse fabric of her apron. He held on as if letting go would mean falling off the edge of the earth.
It was intimate. It was terrifyingly intimate.
Imogene looked down at the top of his dark head. She should push him away. She should find a way to override the door. But his heart was hammering against her ribs, syncing with hers.
"Stop the noise," he whispered again, his voice slurring into sleep.
Imogene began to hum. It was a tune she used to hear in the orphanages in Eastern Europe, a lullaby with no words. The vibration of her chest seemed to soothe him.
Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. The tension slowly drained from Kenan's body. His breathing deepened. The weight against her became dead weight.
He was out.
Imogene carefully peeled his arms from her waist. Her hands were shaking now that the adrenaline was fading. She grabbed his arm and pulled. He was solid muscle. It took everything she had to drag him three feet to the low leather sofa. She hoisted his upper body onto the cushions.
She collapsed on the floor next to him, hugging her knees. Her shoulder throbbed where he had grabbed her. Her cheek stung where his stubble had scraped her.
She looked at the man who ruled the tech world. He looked like a boy now, vulnerable and broken.
She reached out and checked his pulse one last time. Steady.
"You owe me a tip," she whispered to the unconscious billionaire.
