"Sit down, Atara."
"No." Stubborn girl.
I stand up slowly. I’m wearing a black button-down, the sleeves rolled up, and I can feel the tension in my shoulders as I walk around the desk. I stop a few feet from her. The scent of her hits me, and my dick thumps against my zipper.
"We need to discuss the parameters of your stay," I say, looking down at her. "You’ve been here two days. You’ve paced the floor, you’ve bothered my staff, and you’re treating this like a temporary inconvenience. It’s not. You’re here until I say otherwise."
"I want to call my mother," she says, her jaw setting in that stubborn line I’m becoming obsessed with. "And Tania. They’re going to call the police, Lorcan. They’re going to realize I’m missing."
"They won't," I say.
She blinks, her brow furrowing. "What do you mean they won't?"
"I’ve already had Echo send messages from your cloud account," I say calmly. "Using your writing style. We pulled enough data from your old phone to mimic your tone. The message says you’re devastated about Mark, you’ve decided to take an extended holiday at a wellness retreat in Europe, and you’re turning your phone off to 'find your center.'"
Atara stares at me. Her face goes from flushed pink to a shocking, bloodless white.
"You... you didn't."
"It was necessary," I say, looking up at her. "Your mother replied thirty minutes later, telling you to 'find your bliss' and that she loved you. Your friend Tania sent a string of emojis and told you to drink a margarita for her. The narrative is set. No one is looking for you."
"You sociopath!" she shrieks, her voice cracking. She lunges toward the desk, her hands slamming against the wood. She’s leaning over now, and the neckline of her nightdress dips, giving me a straight, unobstructed view of her full, heavy breasts hanging loose. "You cut me off! You literally erased my existence! I have a life! You don't get to write my texts for me!"
"I get to keep you alive," I say sternly. "Silas has people parked outside your mother's house in Queens. He has people watching your friend Tania's socials, waiting for you to slip and like a photo from the wrong account. If you send one ping from a real phone or surface on a single flight manifest, they don't just find you. They find the fastest thing to take from you—and right now that's a two-bedroom in Queens and a girl who told you to drink a margarita for her."
I watch it land. Not the part about her own head in a box; she barely flinched at that, which tells me more about her than I'm comfortable knowing. It's the names that do it. Mother. Tania. The fury drains out of her face like someone pulled a plug, and what's left underneath is rawer—the look of a woman realizing the people she'd run toward are the exact people her running would get killed.
For one full breath, she isn't fighting me. She's somewhere else, doing arithmetic I can watch happen behind her eyes, and landing where I already am.
"You're saying it's not just me," she says, very quietly.
"It was never just you. That's the whole point. So don't fucking negotiate," I snap, moving closer.
The movement is a mistake. Her scent engulfs me hard. I tower over her, my shadow swallowing her completely.
"You will stay in the East Wing," I say, holding her gaze with everything I have. "You will eat the food my staff prepares. You will not try to access the house network. You will behave, Atara. If you don't, I will lock you in a room without a view of the mountains. Do you understand?"
She looks at me, her lower lip trembling with a mix of fury and fear, but she bites it hard. She sets her jaw, her chin tilting up in that stubborn, beautiful way that makes my chest tighten.
"I hate you," she says, her voice a jagged whisper. "I hate every single thing about you."
"Get out," I say.
She turns and storms out of the room, the tiny nightdress swirling around her thighs, exposing the pale skin of her backside for a fraction of a second. I swear to God, I almost losemy mind right there. I have to lean against my desk, my hand trembling as I run it over my face.
She’s going to be the death of me.
She lasts exactly forty-five minutes before she violates every single rule I just laid out.
I’m in the War Room with Kieran, reviewing the security logistics for the Senator’s meeting, when the intercom buzzes.
"Boss," Miller’s voice comes through, sounding slightly strained. "We have a situation on the second floor."
"What is it?"
"The guest. She’s... well, she’s in the restricted corridor of the West Wing. I told her she couldn't be here, and she told me my mother was a lizard and that she was looking for a library because 'your house has a serious lack of intellectual stimulation.'"
I close my eyes. I can feel a headache forming behind my temples. "Where is she now?"
