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“Something like that, but we’ll call it rules of practice. And if rules of practice say no one touches you, then…?” Percival leaves the question hanging for me to answer.
“No one touches me.” There’s tantamount relief and curiosity as the study door opens abruptly, and one of the men from the other night stands in the open doorway, looking between the two of us.
“So you see, as long as you follow the rules too, you are quite safe and well taken care of.” Percival gestures for him to come in. “This is our legal counsel, Julian Seymour.”
The man is taller than Percival, with dark hair that makes the blue of his eyes appear icy even in the warm flicker of the fire. The top two buttons of his black shirt are open, and his deep green tie is wrapped around one of his hands. There’s an inconvenienced look about him, as though maybe his plans to wind down have been scarpered.
“Are you ready to sign, Miss Cameron?” he asks me abruptly, his eyes pulling together with a boring stare that tells me it’s not just his gaze that is cold. When I don’t reply, he glances at Percival with a wide, expectant expression. “Have you taken her through it?”
“We’ve gone through it.”
“Well then.” He stands impossibly taller. “Are you signing or leaving?”
Whoa, the curtness of his question causes me to take a step back into Percival. He’s older, maybe old enough to be his dad. Stupidly, that creates a false sense of safety in our closeness. At the same time, between the two of them, I feel like the child that they think I am. I’m so out of place that my comfort zone is a universe away. I’ve been suckered into a black hole, and I have no clue where I’ve landed.
“Miss Cameron.” He grinds out my name with an authoritarian edge that makes my heart leap out of my chest.
The urge to run is overwhelming. But as I eye all my potential escapes, it becomes clear I don’t have any. I’m sandwiched between these two men—one that has been seemingly nice and the other, a stranger that’s got every anxiety I had over accepting this job screaming at me.
Why did I come back? I ask myself.
My vision is going hazy as my blood pounds colder and colder in my veins. Faintness tugs at my extremities. The instinct to fight or flight is kicking in, and I’m about to push the stranger away when another figure appears.
“Give her some fucking space, Julian.” As blurred as he is, his voice is the most familiar thing in this room. And I cling on to it, using it as a grip out of my panic. “I told you to make sure she signed, not to scare her away.”
“She shouldn’t be here,” Julian spits over his shoulder.
The Duke blows out a bored breath, coming closer until he’s side by side with Julian. “It’s not your decision.”
He’s taller than I remember. His eyes are darker than I recall. A dark, coffee liquorice—so intense when you’re his sole focus and so moreish that when he diverts his attention away, you crave it desperately.
Without his jacket on, his shoulders look broader in his crisp white shirt. The strapping of his dark red braces that match his tie emphasises their thickness. He has a natural strength and power that’s breathtaking and terrifying in equal parts. The longer I take him in, the more he reminds me of a sculpted god holding court in a museum or gallery. I reckon, like Atlas, this man could bear the weight of heaven on his shoulders for eternities without crumbling.
“Sign the contract, Eve,” he instructs, plucking the papers in my hand and putting them on the side table beside the couch.
“Go on, sign your soul to the devil, little girl,” Julian mutters with a low scoff when I move towards the table.
The slow spin of the Duke’s body is corded with tension as he faces him. “Shut your fucking mouth, and do your goddamn job. I’m not in the mood for your sulking.” Turning back to me, he gives me a top-to-toe once-over before telling me, “Nobody will touch you.”
The dark rake of his stare over my body is as palpable as a physical touch. I feel it burn over me, causing my bones to tremble when he takes a half step closer so that we’re only a breath apart.
“Do it, Eve.”
I nod, keeping my eyes on his as I grip the pen in my hand tighter and lean over the table.
“Sign.”
My hand shakes as I follow his command with my heart hammering in my throat and my breath cloying in my lungs while he moves to stand behind me. I feel him watching me, every whisper of the pen on the paper making my insides vibrate.
“Good girl.”
Good girl. The words echo through me like a sudden heat wave. The lines of his jaw sharpen as I stand straight and turn back to him. I’m completely, utterly mesmerised. I’ve never seen or known a more beautiful man. Not on a magazine, certainly not in person.
Holy fucking crap.
They say the devil was heaven’s most beautiful angel, and looking at him, it really is gospel. The Duke still has his eyes trained on me when he plucks the pen from my hand and throws it down on the table. Every move is so purposeful and graceful, even with its brusqueness, that it makes me very aware of myself, causing me to stand taller. I pull my shoulders back until it feels as if my dress might pop around my bust, the crisscross back straps cutting into my flesh.
“Eve?”
