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“You’re a professional, Fumi,” he sighs. “You work in a high-end law firm. Exactly how hard was it for you to realize that dressing the part was important?”
“I didn’t say no to the blue so that I could wear a clown suit,” I spit back. “I’m more comfortable in this, and it’s more my color. Plus, you’re not?—”
“The boss of you?” Gabriel finishes.
I lift a brow. “We’re not at the office, Mr. Black.”
“No, we’re at that other job where I’m paying you five million fucking dollars to do what I say.”
“That’s not what you’re paying—” I gasp as he surges into me, pinning me against a side table.
“Details. Matter,” he growls. “In the future, when I or my campaign manager asks you to do something…” He leans close, his lips near my ear. “Just fucking do it.”
Time to face the music.
At first, I almost panic when we step out onto the front steps of Tweed Courthouse and the barrage of camera flashes, thrust microphones, and screamed questions. I actually freeze for a second, my body going rigid and my face paling before we move toward the podium.
Then suddenly I feel a reassuring warmth as Gabriel takes my hand in his. I swallow, turning to find myself latching onto those greenish-hazel eyes. I take a deep breath as he nods. Then we turn, and the two of us walk the last few steps to the podium.
The perfect couple.
No one would guess that barely two weeks ago, this man bruised my skin. Marked me. Made me scream for more before he fucked my mouth while I was bound on my knees.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you all for being here.”
I take half a step back—as previously decreed by Meredith, much to my chagrin—as Gabriel approaches the microphone at the podium. My eyes slide from the crowd of reporters to him, and watch transfixed as he transforms before my eyes.
“I’m sure many of you have heard this by now, but I’m pleased and excited to formally announce my impending marriage to this lovely woman with whom I’ve been lucky enough to spend the last ten months.”
I swallow thickly, forcing a smile to my face as Gabriel turns, beaming as he gestures toward me with a grand flourish.
I’ve seen him undergo this transformation before, in court. But it’s the fact that he’s doing it in real life that makes it sink in just how well he’s perfected this ability to slide on a new “him”, as easily as putting on a mask.
A perfect, smiling, effortlessly charismatic golden mask befitting the “golden god” public persona of the great Gabriel Black, attorney at law.
“Ms. Yamaguchi and I had planned to wait to tell you all this until after the wedding.” Gabriel smiles broadly, and I watch every single one of the reporters present shove each other aside to eat out of the palm of his hand. “But my lovely fiancée has convinced me otherwise.”
Jesus Christ. He’s way too good at this. And what turns me from “impressed” to “terrified” at how good he is, is the fact that I know who he really is.
I was there.
It’s not that this is the real Gabriel, and what I saw in the private room at Club Venom was a persona.
It’s the opposite.
“So, without any further ado, I want to take this moment…”
I gasp as he takes my hand, pulling me tight against him at the podium before sliding an arm around my waist.
“To announce my candidacy for the Governor’s office of the great state of New York.”
There’s no going back now…
14
GABRIEL
“You’re not going to work today.”
