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“Just like you never asked Carmen, right?” he spits, growing more agitated with every passing second.
I never went to Carmen, I want to say. It was always her coming to me.
But I don’t.
Sucking in a deep breath, I steel myself against the rage building like water behind a levee, threatening to drown me in its ferocity. I focus on the smooth swing of the pendulum, blocking out everything until all I can hear is the ticking.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
An itch crawls deep beneath the surface of my skin, and I round my desk as Rafe drones on, pulling the pistol out from the drawer. Lining it up, nerves eating at the steadiness in my grip, I unlock the safety and pull the trigger, watching as the bullet sparks across the room.
It passes clean through the picture frame, fracturing the glass in an explosive connection, and lodges in the wall behind it; glass shards fly off the frame, the force knocking the pendulum off balance, and I watch as it crashes to the floor, one arm breaking off, finally falling silent.
“Do you hear me, Anderson?” Rafe asks. “You have two choices: money, or your sworn fucking loyalty in the form of services. Otherwise, you’re dead.”
Pulling the phone from my ear, I tuck my gun back inside its drawer and hang up.
* * *
I findElena in the back yard a little later, hauling sacks of soil out of a cardboard box and dragging them over the grass to where she’s set up a makeshift workspace against the hedges.
Marcelline stands a few yards over, steeping a tea bag in a blue ceramic mug while she watches.
Brushing a sweaty piece of hair from her face, Elena turns to survey our yard, putting her hands on her hips. The lavender dress she has on perfectly outlines the heavy swell of her ass, and as I approach her I’m flooded with the memory of grasping it while pulling her onto my cock.
For a moment, I can forget about the other things going on and lose myself in her presence. She’s like a cozy spring afternoon, recent blossoms and fresh sea air carried across a breeze, and it wraps around me, blotting out the ugly reality of everything else.
I’ve never been the kind of man to run from adversity, but as I stand there staring at the woman before me, the one I’ve dragged into my mess, I find myself wishing I could. Wishing this could be the life someone like Elena deserves.
“Don’t be mad,” she says before I’ve even reached her, spinning to face me. There’s a look of elation cast over her delicate features, a softness erasing deep-set rigidity. An afterglow I can only explain as a residual effect of mind-blowing sex.
“Why would I be mad?” I ask, reaching out to frame her cheek with my palm. My thumb grazes the underside of the bruise around her eye, noting that the swelling and purpling has gone down significantly since last night.
“I’m about to fuck up your yard,” she says, pointing to the bags of soil. “And I have no clue what I’m doing. Marcelline’s supposed to be reading the Wikipedia page, but...”
She rolls her eyes around to look at my housekeeper, who shrugs, sipping her tea. “But gardening is not part of my job description.”
Elena huffs. “Neither was helping Kal kidnap me, was it?”
My insides churn at her flippant use of the word, and I wonder what all her sisters told her about what the news says back home. If it changes the way she views all of this.
Clearing my throat, I drop my hand and stuff it inside my suit pocket. “I’ve got a few meetings keeping me busy the next few days, but I could probably help you this weekend.”
“Really?” Her eyebrows raise, and she nods at the rectangle she has marked off with driftwood. “Do you know anything about planting flowers?”
“I assisted on a successful triple bypass during my residency, and have stitched up more open wounds than you’ll likely ever see in your lifetime. I’m sure I can handle plants.”
Leaving the two of them outside, I return to the Asphodel and hunker down in the library, trying to rid myself of the strange feeling curdling in my stomach. It’s not quite painful—almost a nauseating wave that crashes against the shore over and over, without ever fully receding.
Unscrewing a bottle of fifty-year-old scotch, I pour three fingers into a tumbler, pick up the first book my hand lands on, and flop down in one of the two leather armchairs in front of the dormant fireplace.
Opening the book, I balance it on my knee, my eyes glued to the page without actually reading. My heart beats rapidly, repulsed by the way my stomach burns with awareness, trying to ignore the fact that the Riccis once again played me.
Because that’s what all of this boils down to; if not for the friendly guidance and promise of luxury Rafael gave when we met, my entire life would likely be different.
