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“They’re taking you to your office.” Therin nodded toward Peter and Gary. “Clean it out. You’re fired.”
“Hmph.” Vaughn’s lip curled into a snarl and he regarded Therin with nasty intent. “All we tried to do to get you to break, to play ball, and the only thing it took was us threatening your latest piece of ass.”
“Come on, Vaughn.” Gary tugged the sleeve of his suit jacket.
Vaughn jerked away. “And she’s a prime piece, don’t get me wrong, Ther.”
“Get him out of here,” Therin growled.
“Does she play a tune for you once you’ve screwed her brains out?”
Therin leapt across the table. He snagged the front of Vaughn’s shirt in one hand and used the other to slam his fist into his jaw. Gary and Peter’s combined efforts broke Therin’s vise grip minutes later.
Despite a busted lip, Vaughn struggled to break away from Gary and Peter as they pulled him out of the conference room.
“You’re just a small fish, Therin! These folks play to win! They won’t stop until EYES is done, finished, over! I’m the least of your problems!”
“Get him out!” Therin’s fist hit the table, threatening to splinter it.
Outside her home, Kianti shook the snow from her black ski boots. She’d been standing in the same spot for almost seven minutes and had only just realized that her feet were numb despite the fur insulation.
Of course, thoughts of Therin were to blame. It had become increasingly difficult to keep her mind off him since the guys had returned to California. She knew it was unhealthy and that she had to get over it—over him. A few more days of moping and then it was back to the land of the living, she swore to herself.
A crunch in the otherwise-silent early evening caught her ear. She whirled around to find Therin making his way toward her.
“They threatened me with you,” he said when there were only a few feet separating them. “They threatened me with you, Key.” His voice was hushed that time as he lifted his hands in a show of defenselessness.
“Hmph.” She rolled her eyes and studied him with disdain. “You should’ve asked the guys not to be so honest when they told me what you said. I already know the truth.”
Therin smiled. “The truth, right…” He took a small step closer. “About how I thought I could handle it, but I couldn’t. How the sex was incredible but I couldn’t take knowing you could die on me.”
She gasped.
“I knew I couldn’t get you to leave me any other way. If I’d told you someone had gotten into the condo while we slept that morning and left a threat on your life, I’d have never gotten you to go, would I?”
“So instead you…arranged for my friends—my…my family to hurt me that way?”
“It was stupid, but I was afraid. It’s true,” he confirmed when she watched him in disbelief. Again, he stepped closer. “Knowing you’re alive and hating me is way more acceptable than having you dead. You may not approve of my methods, Kia. Hell…I don’t approve of them, but they were all I had.”
Kianti pressed a hand to her throat to hold back a sob. “Couldn’t you have trusted me to—to let you handle—”
“No. No, baby, I couldn’t.”
But for the limbs snapping and the brush creaking beneath the weight of the snow, there was silence.
“My parents died in a car accident. I never thought it was an accident.” He walked past her to look out over the property. “It happened about two years after I got the ambassador’s post. Just after I connected with EYES.”
Kianti hugged herself and observed the rigid set of his broad shoulders as he talked.
“I brought a lot of big names on board with me when I came to the organization. It was the first real exposure the group got on a…cultural stage.” He shrugged. “They’d been around for years, but in the shadows.” He kicked at a stone with the tip of a black hiking boot.
“When I brought in my friends, it was suddenly cool to support education. The notice brought in tons of money. A lot of people didn’t like that. I had no idea how much, not even when the threats started. Then my parents…” He began to rub his hand rapidly back and forth across his forehead as though that would drive out the memories. He turned back to Kianti.
“I didn’t take threats seriously back then. I’ll never make that mistake again. Never again with someone I love.”
She blinked. “Someone you…what?”
“I love you.” He laughed but the gesture carried no amusement. “I love you, Kianti, and I should have told you that a very long time ago. Instead, I played this stupid game and wound up having you hate me.”
