AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He bowed out of the room and Damian sat down in his chair, steepled his hands in front of him as he studied her.
“I can’t imagine why you’re here,” he finally said.
She drew in a breath, nodded slowly. “It’s… unconventional, I know.”
“More than that,” Damian said. “It’s been more than twenty-four hours and your brother hasn’t accepted my offer. I’m sure you know what that means.”
Her throat rippled as she swallowed. “War. It means war.”
“That’s right. And that makes you either a traitor or a pawn.”
Her dark eyes flashed. “I promise you I’m no pawn.” She looked at her hands. “I’m no traitor either.”
Admiration coursed through him. She was right.
She was a queen. She just didn’t know it yet.
“Then perhaps you should explain,” he said.
She looked down at her hands, twisting the strap of her bag. “You don’t know him,” she said. “He’s… not well.”
“I gathered as much.” He chose his next words carefully, wanting to be kind in spite of the conflict between their organizations. “And I’m sure you understand that isn’t my problem.”
She looked up, met his eyes. “It will be your problem,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. To warn you.”
He couldn’t hide his surprise. “To warn me?”
She nodded. “There is no honor code for my brother, not with Malcolm pulling the strings.”
“This is not news to me,” Damian said.
She shook her head, frustration visible in the furrow of her brow. “You don’t understand.”
“Help me understand then.”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to see my brother hurt. He needs help, but he’s not a bad man. If you extend the consideration period, I may be able to convince him to take your offer.”
Damian turned his palms toward the ceiling. “The terms were set in our meeting.”
She hesitated and he sensed there were things she wasn’t saying. He was surprised to find that he wanted her to say them, not as a way to use her against her brother but because he wanted to unburden her. Wanted to smooth some of the lines from her brow, banish the shadows from her eyes.
“They’re your terms,” she said. “Which means you can change them.”
“I won’t.”
She rose suddenly, a whirl of activity that took him by surprise as she stalked to the window overlooking the neighborhood.
“You’re making a big mistake,” she said, her back still to him.
The words caused an unexpected flood of anger to rush his body. Who did this woman think she was coming here to his headquarters? Challenging him? Upsetting the careful balance of his life?
He rose to his feet. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”
He saw her breath in the shudder of her shoulders. When she turned, her eyes were glistening, an observation that left him with only two possibilities; either Aria Fiore was a world class actress or she was scared. He was still trying to figure out how to address the show of emotion when something on her face caught his eye.
For a minute he could only stare, his whole body still, his fists tightening at his side. He was hardly aware of stalking across the room to where she stood by the window. Hardly aware of taking her chin in his hand, tipping her cheek to the light. The bruise was faint, covered by makeup and more red than purple.
But he’d seen enough flesh marked by violence to know what it was.
“Who did this?” He sounded strangely calm, even to himself, particularly given the floodgate that had opened on his rage.
She froze, her eyes downcast, her breath soft against his wrist. He was torn between wanting to lower his mouth to hers — to kiss her tenderly in a vain attempt to make up for whoever had dared to hurt her — and the desire to drive to Platinum and kill Primo and Malcolm and anyone else who had done this or let it happen on their watch.
It was bad. Worse than bad.
But it wasn’t unrecoverable. He would try to minimize the damage to her when he destroyed her brother’s organization. Would take pleasure in the fact that he was hurting whoever had hurt Aria Fiore, because he knew if it wasn’t Primo Fiore himself, it was someone in the twisted sickness of his organization.
It all made perfect sense until she lifted her eyes. Then the heat that had sparked to life between them at the club expanded into a full-fledged wildfire.
And that was when he knew he was fucked.
