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“Thank you.”
I made sure the volume on my phone was turned up. I didn’t want to miss Renee’s call.
I tasted the wine and leaned back, staring up at a starry sky.
“Carpe noctem?” The growl invaded my ears and rattled my spine. “Your company is carpe fucking noctem? I still can’t believe it. I’ve heard it. Read it. Seen the doc, and I still don’t believe it.”
I almost shattered the glass at the sound of his voice. My eyes opened.
“How did you get in here?”
Knight grinned. “I just told them who I was at the front door. I was even given condolences by your butler. Seems my father used to pay you visits here.”
“You should go.” I swung my legs around, but Knight was there, blocking them. His solid body, an obstacle to any movement I made.
All I could think about was this moment five years ago. Here. Him chasing me down. Kissing my lips.
“I’ll call Kimble,” I warned.
He huffed. “I’m surprised about a lot of things since I’ve been back. Keeping him on your payroll is at the top of my list.”
“You don’t have the right to judge anything I’ve done while you’ve been gone.”
The look in his eyes said otherwise.
Chapter20
Knight
The suit. She was wearing a red bathing suit. At night. Under the fucking starry sky like a damn siren. Who wears a fucking bathing suit when the sun goes down?
“Kennedy.” My jaw clenched. So did my fist and in it the notice I had received from her office. Scrawled across the top in embossed gold were the wordsCarpe Noctem, LLC. “What is this?” I demanded.
Her eyes fell to my fist. It gave me a brief second to scan her breasts. To admire the way the dip between them made my mouth water. She’d always had the most beautiful skin. Skin that should be licked and tasted. Worshipped.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She tried to reach for the paper, but I recoiled. “If that’s from my accountant, it’s only a routine letter. You can throw it out. We’ll set up a new payment plan. I meant to tell him to extend the grace period since, well, since your father…”
My eyes narrowed. “The interest rates on these loans are absurd.”
She sighed. “Your father agreed to the terms. He was willing to pay the interest.”
“Well, I’m running things differently than he did. I can’t agree to this. I’m not going to pay you double what I should.”
She shrugged. “The contracts were signed. They aren’t renegotiable. No one in their right mind would redistribute that money at a lower interest rate. I have to abide by the original agreement.”
“You could tear them up.” I tried to keep my eyes on her face, but it didn’t rein in my restraint much better than a full view of her legs. I’d always loved her legs. Long legs I had stood between. Kissed. Massaged. Felt the firmness of in my palms.
“But I won’t,” she answered. How did I shake her? How did I knock logic into her?
I felt the electric charge at the end of my thumb before it even grazed her shoulder. She stared at the end of my hand. Was she daring me to touch her? Begging me? My thumb inched closer. I fought every instinct in my body to keep my hands off her.
The instant my hand clasped around her, the heat surged between us. I’d lied to myself when I’d fucked other women. I said I could forget Kennedy. For years I had let the lie take over. Five years it built in Paris. London. Munich. The lie was layered with women. I never looked in a woman’s eyes and felt devotion. Any of them could have been Venus, sprung from the sea—it didn’t matter. No one else was Kennedy. There were no emotions with the other women. Nothing and no one came close to what this woman did to me. What she used to do to me.
The letter fell to the pool deck. “Knight.” Her voice was soft and sexy. A call to my primal side.
I cupped the side of her cheek. “Don’t say another fucking word,” I growled as I took her mouth against mine. It was a kiss that had been raging beneath the surface since the night I left New Orleans.
My lips burned for hers in a way I didn’t know was possible. I wanted to bruise her. Bite her. Leave a mark from this kiss she would never forget. She drew a ragged breath and tried to push off me, but I wrapped my arms around her, grazing her skin. Digging my fingers into her flesh.
