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‘Pick up your lip,’ I snap, my hands finding my hair and delving into the strands. ‘I don’t understand. If you’re worried about me telling people about the sculpture, then you shouldn’t be.’
‘I’m not worried about that.’
‘Then why?’
‘Just . . .’ He growls and stomps on his knees towards me. ‘Just because.’
‘That’s not a good enough reason.’
‘How about because you amaze me?’ he retorts, short but soft. ‘How about because when I look at you, for the first time in my fucking life I can see beyond what’s obsessed me for too many years? How about because when you smile, I melt? Or when you laugh, my heart bucks? Or when we touch, I feel like I’m overheating? How about because I feel like you were made purely to be mine? Because you’re fearless. Bold. Full of spirit that I envy. Or because you love me more than I hoped anyone could? And you accept me. Everything about me. That you’re loyal. Brave. Fucking beautiful. How about because you challenge me and I fucking love that? Or because when I watched you sleeping in my bed last night, the thought of you not being there crushed me. Is that enough, because I could go on, princess?’
I gulp. They’re some damn good reasons.
‘But it’s too soon,’ I say, utterly bamboozled.
‘No, princess.’ He shakes his head slowly. ‘It’s way too fucking late, actually.’
I breathe in, my damn heart thumping. Look at him, there on his knees, his face so bloody hopeful. My saint. My sinner. The corrupt love of my life. Why am I questioning this?
What do I get in return?
You get every wicked, corrupt, vulnerable piece of me.
And isn’t that the biggest prize? I love every deceitful, shady part of him. It’s only slightly fucking with my head. For the most part, I’m plain relieved that I’m here, tangled in his web of secrets.
‘Begging isn’t beyond me, you know,’ he says, regaining some rigidity in his arms and extending the ring towards me.
‘Then beg.’ My order is automatic.
And so is his smile. He rests his delicious arse on his heels and relaxes his arms by his side, studying me. ‘I don’t need to beg,’ he says, never taking his eyes from mine. ‘My corrupt wicked little witch wants this as much as I do.’
I pout, and Becker raises his eyebrows. Then he looks down at the ring and something changes in his persona. Sadness fills the air, and it confuses me. ‘While you were out with Lucy last night,’ he says quietly. ‘I went to see Gramps in his suite.’ He looks up at me, and I see the tears at the backs of his eyes. I step back. ‘I told him how I felt about you. What you mean to me. How you make me feel.’ He holds up the ring. ‘I asked him for this. It was my grandmother’s. Gramps found this emerald on one of his expeditions and had it made into this beautiful piece. When my grandmother died, Gramps gave it to my dad. He gave it to my mother.’ His voice wobbles, and my lip does, too. ‘The most important women in my life have worn this ring. So now it’s yours.’
I swallow, trying to wrap my mind around this. But why am I wasting time doing that? ‘Yes,’ I choke, and he nods, extending his arm to me. I take it and let him pull me to his lap, silently accepting that I’m going in the deepest there is. I’m signing up for life.
To share his secrets and his crimes. What’s happened to me? I’ve lied to the police, and I did it without question. At that moment, I made my decision once and for all. I’ve made my bed. It’s time to lie in it. Literally.
He reaches for my hand and slips the gorgeous ring onto my finger before taking me to the floor, smothering me in his body, and rests his lips on mine. Wet kisses are dotted over every square inch of my skin and I smile like a loon, feeling so fucking happy in the clutches of my corrupt man.
‘I wondered why you had your power boxer shorts on,’ I say.
‘Today was a big day.’ He lifts his face from mine and stares down at me. ‘I just wrapped up on the biggest deal I’m ever likely to negotiate.’ He grins as he stands, lifting me from the floor and taking me back to the Louis XIV chair. He settles and positions me on his lap so I’m straddling his thighs and spreads his big palms around my waist, pulling me forward until our mouths are a hair’s breadth away from each other’s.
‘I love you,’ he whispers, angling his head and catching my lips, tickling my tongue gently with his as he slips his hands onto my bum, pulling me in further still. ‘And I fucking love this arse.’ He speaks into my mouth as he lifts me, his cock falling to my opening. I whimper, finding his shoulders and holding on. ‘And I love the look of that ring on your finger,’ he says, easing me down slowly.
