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“Don’t try to talk me out of it, Della,” he said flatly, his shoulders squared and his eyes locked on those doors, every fiber of his body waiting for them to open. “I’m going, and that’s final. He has no right to...”
Never before had I heard him speak in such a way. It wasn’t exactly cold, but there wasn’t an ounce of leniency in his voice, not a hint of the playfulness I’d come to expect.
“Try to talk you out of what?” I asked carefully, unsettled by the unpredictable new side of him. “Do you even know what you’re gonna do in there? Have you even tried to think it through?”
A flicker of doubt clouded his bright eyes, but that was quickly replaced with a fiery determination, one I knew I didn’t have a prayer of tempering on a single elevator ride. “I’m going to remind the board and my brother,” he finally said, his voice tightening dangerously around that word, “that our father’s body is still warm. Before they start dividing up the kingdom, they would do well to show some damn respect for the man who gave it to them in the first place, the man who built this damn Cross castle from the fucking ground up.”
I agreed with him completely; in fact, I couldn’t have agreed more. As the number above the doors flashed closer and closer to the top, I slipped my hand into his and gave him a little squeeze to show my support. “What can I do to help?”
He looked down at me in surprise, obviously expecting more resistance. “This. You’re doing it already, just being here for me,” he said, his face softening with the ghost of a smile.
The two of us shared a fleeting look, but as soon as the doors whooshed open with a ding that felt like the bell of a boxing match about to start, the hunt was on.
James stepped briskly onto the floor, his eyes burning with a predatory kind of fire as they locked on to the conference room. Inside, the silhouettes of a dozen men sat still, all facing a single shadow pacing the floor in front of them. James’s face went rigid at the sight of Rob, and his fingers curled up into tight fists. He took on a demeanor chillingly reminiscent of the way he looked the last time he and his brother faced off on the sixty-fifth floor.
“Hey,” I murmured under my breath, “you’re not going to go all Rambo in there and tear the place up, are you? The last thing you need today is an assault charge.”
A hint of a smile flickered across his face, but his eyes dilated, until they were almost as black and haunting as a shark’s. “You know, for a yank, you sure worry a helluva lot, love. Has anyone ever told you that?” he asked as the blue returned to his irises. Then, with an air of complete and utter confidence, he smoothed back his hair. “Fear not, milady. I promise to be nothing but a gentleman the entire time.”
Then he crossed the rook, took one step forward, and kicked down the door.
Chapter 4
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO say who appeared to be more surprised. My money was on Robert and not the board members, but then again, Robert had
to be half-convinced that his brother would storm all the way across London just to kick his ass, and he wasn’t entirely wrong in that assumption.
“James!” Robert froze where he stood, angled so the massive table stood like a wall of safety between them. “I’m sorry. I-I mean... What are you doing here?”
Before James could answer, half a dozen older men pushed to their feet, lowering their eyes to the table in respect and holding their hats in their hands.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, James,” said the one standing nearest the door. He placed a heavy hand on James’s shoulder and shook his head in remorse. “Ben was a giant among men. No one in this world will ever replace him.”
It was an interesting choice of words, given what they had all gathered to do, but nonetheless, the rest of them made their way forward. They took turn offering their official, obligatory condolences, offering an anecdote here and there to try to lighten the mood. Some were sincerer than others, but most couldn’t keep their eyes off the broken hinges on the door.
I pressed my back against the wall, clinging to it like a goldfish that had accidentally wandered into a whole sea of sharks. I knew I had no business being there, and even though I’d played an integral role in saving their company, I had never actually met most of them. I was really only there because James asked me to be, and there was truly no limit to the things I would do for that man, especially when he needed me that badly.
James went through the motions with a clenched jaw, keeping one eye on Robert the entire time. He was neither fooled nor moved by the sudden show of comradery. Quite the contrary, the longer the sow went on, the more bitter he seemed to be.
Finally, when the last man returned to his seat, James stepped forward with a dry smile. “I can’t tell you how much those words mean to me,” he bullshitted, and his voice took on a dangerous edge as his eyes flicked around the room. “It means even more to see you all here. That would have touched my father deeply, considering his feelings for you all.”
Not good. Something’s coming.
Like a child who couldn’t turn away from a train wreck, Robert was forced to ask, “What do you mean by that?”
James glanced innocently around the table, somehow managing to hold everyone’s eyes at once. “Well, I can only assume you’re here to discuss a memorial, correct?”
The room fell dead quiet.
“A tribute?”
More ringing silence ensued.
“A funeral perhaps?” he said, and just like that, his innocent façade dropped, only to be replaced with a savage rage, a quiet fury that sent shivers racing down my spine and likely the spines of every man in the room. “After all, my father has yet to be laid in the ground.”
A collective chill circled the table, and one by one, the most powerful men in Britain failed to meet his eyes.
Robert darted his eyes around in a panic, like those of a deadbeat captain suddenly realizing he was standing on a sinking ship. Finally, he turned entreatingly to his brother. “James, of course those are...valid concerns, but we’re almost finished here. Why don’t you wait in my office, and then—”
