Blast the man. Why did he say things like that with a tone like that? Why did he stand so utterly at ease? And why did he insist on looking as though he’d been carved from both trouble and temptation? She ought to be infuriated. Honestly. This waspractically kidnapping! But a part of her was slightly curious as to this property he wished to show her. Was she overreacting?
Perhaps it was a new rental?
Dream on, Violet! Why would he care about you and rentals?
Well, there was only one way to find out, she supposed. Mount the brute’s beast with the brute himself.
*
Right belonged toany man strong enough to claim it for himself. Drake had never had any qualms with this. He believed this truth utterly and bone-deep. Power prevailed. Strength was the only law worth heeding. A law he’d learned young, kneeling beside the cooling corpse of his mother.
Strength had carved him. Ruthlessness had kept him alive. Dominance was the only damn reason he still stood. His mother, on the other hand, had been weak, so she hadn’t survived this world. And she’d been born on the privileged side of the coin. Daughter of a marquess. Had she not met the man who had sired him, she might have led a different life. One most women could only dream of. But she didn’t, so the point was moot.
Privilege hadn’t saved her.
Fine blood meant nothing when it spilled the same as anyone else’s. And privilege only stood so long as stronger men allowed it. Better to cultivate strength and learn how to rip it from others.
He took no pride from watching Miss Sharpe struggle with all her choice. She wanted to curse him to Hades, he could tell, yet her lips refrained while her eyes blazed with all she wished to say. Her eyes, he decided, were the truest part of her. Every thought crossed them before her composure couldintervene. Which was why his worries hadn’t been laid to rest. She compensated with words when she could, using wit to redirect the eye, but the eyes themselves never lied. And while he would consider himself an excellent judge of character, he found himself at a loss with this one. There seemed to be an indescribable force drawing his attention to her. Was this how Maxen had felt about his new wife at the start?
Drake almost shuddered.
And yet here he was.
Seeking her out.
Intent on “abducting” her away. Well, not in the strictest sense of the word, of course. Only long enough to make his warning understood. Yet why did it feel like he was getting damnably close to the same obsession that plagued his brother—an obsession that ended up in marriage? Naturally, Drake had convinced himself he was doing this for practical reasons. If Miss Sharpe was moving against them in some way, she ought to know exactly who she was dealing with.
But you didn’t come here from practicality. You came because you couldn’t stop yourself from coming.
Ah, yes, the devil within had a nasty way with words.
He didn’t appreciate the inner taunt.
Didn’t trust it.
Didn’t trust her, either.
“Fine,” she muttered, eyes sharpening on him. “I shall join you on one condition.”
“Do tell, Miss Sharpe.”
Her chin tipped upward, stubborn jaw setting. “You promise you shall not harm me in any way.”
Intriguing that she would choose a promise for a condition. “And you take me for a man of my word?”
“If nothing else, I am renting from your family. You should protect your tenants.”
Drake let out a laugh at that. “Protect our tenants, you say.” Well, one could say that was the truth.
“Is that not the case?” she challenged.
“You haven’t rented before us, have you?”
“You haven’t had a tenant like me, have you?”
Her face was tragically incapable of hiding her rising impatience. Her words, however, made his fingers twitch.
No, I have not.
