Yet when my eyes fell upon her, I couldn’t help but feel myself soften. Not completely—I was still enraged at what she had done—but I couldn’t deny my attraction to her, the way she’d drawn me in, even after everything. And all I wanted to do, in that moment, was protect her from the world—her father, my father, even me, right now, in this state.
I breathed deep. “So,” I said through clenched teeth. “He sent you. To stop me.”
Ingrid gave a tremulous little nod.
I gestured around the room. “Fine. Done. Can’t do much more damage here now anyway.”
Ingrid assessed the damage. Softly, she said, “Your father’s cleaners will have a hell of a job.”
In spite of myself, I laughed. Ingrid smiled too, the smallest upward quirk of the corners of her lips—lips glistening with a faint sheen of gloss—lips that I couldn’t tear my eyes from, wanted to smother with my own—
I shook my head. Fuck. Even now she was pushing farther into my mind, embedding those hooks deeper and deeper when I knew she shouldn’t.
I turned away, picked up a chair that had somehow kept all of its legs, and planted it. Dropping into it heavily, I nodded my head to the door. “You can go now. Tell Noah that the bane of his existence has settled down. For now.”
She didn’t move.
I was going to have to tell her again. I opened my mouth to do it, maybe even raise my voice and tell her to get out of this room and outof my life and out of my fucking mind—but her face was pale, her wide-eyed gaze fixed low.
“You’re bleeding.”
I followed her eyes.
So I was. The knuckles of my right hand, heavy with bruises both fading from last week’s boxing match and today’s destruction, were gashed. A flap of skin lifted away and in the tear blood pooled. A small stream ran down the back of my hand. Some had smeared on my shirt. More was dripping onto the floor. It looked worse than it probably was… not so bad it would need stitches, but I’d certainly need to keep it bandaged for a while
“Looks like Noah will need to hire out for a carpet cleaner too. Poor insufferable bastard.”
“Let me help with that,” said Ingrid.
“No, it’s fine—”
But she had already moved. Snagging the first aid kit I’d ripped from the wall, she opened it up and withdrew a roll of bandages. Settling onto her knees beside me, she reached for my arm—and I let her take it, damn it.
The thrill of her touch was electric.
Her fingers worked. I watched her, engrossed, as she first wiped most of the blood away with a length of bandage she discarded, then took care along the edge of the gash. It needed to be cleaned, so she disappeared for a while and came back with a bowl of warm water. She guided my hand in, fingers gently working along the damage to remove any debris. Then she dried my hand—the bleeding was down to a shallow ooze now—and used a couple of butterfly strips from the first aid kit to hold the flap of skin in place. Finally, she wound the bandage around, pinning it tight.
All the while, she muttered to herself softly in Spanish.
And all the while, I watched her, fixated, entranced by her beautiful, doll-like freckled face, and those shining plump lips I was so desperately hungry to capture with my own.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t.
But damn it, I wanted to.
Finally, she was finished. She looked up at me, smiled. “You’re all set now.”
I nodded. All my anger was gone. I felt a strange, almost quiet calm with her now.
Despite that, I looked away. “You can go now. Noah hired you as my handler. Consider me handled.”
“Tristian, I… I’m not here as your handler. I know you think that, but… I’m really not. My father told me there was an internship available for me. I didn’t know until the party that it was going to be this… you.”
I met her eyes again.
Could I believe that? After everything my father had done over the years to try to control me, could I really believe Ingrid had no idea until that moment when I joined her side?
The suspicious part of me would never entertain the thought.
