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“Besides sleeping, what did you do with yourself today?” I ask as I put a pan on the burner.
“Why ask if you know everything?”
Her sarcasm makes my grin stretch wider. I wasn’t joking when I said she knows how to make me laugh. Her defiance is cute.
Facing her, I cross my arms. “So much for small talk.”
She purses her lips and puts a tomato in the center of the cutting board.
Unable to resist, I tease, “Aren’t you going to ask me about my day?”
She slices the knife through the air and beheads the tomato with a vicious thud of the blade on the wood before asking sweetly, “How was your day?”
I suppress a laugh. “Business as usual.”
“Which is?”
“Investments and properties.”
She continues to massacre the tomato. “I didn’t mean the legal business you use to launder your money. I meant the real business.”
With a father like hers, she should know. “Gemstones. Diamonds, specifically.” I take a salad bowl from the cupboard and leave it on the counter.
Drawing the bowl closer, she scrapes the mush she’s made of the tomato inside. “Blood diamonds.”
“Conflict free, actually. I own a couple of mines.”
“In Cullinan?”
The mention of that place makes my spine go rigid. It reminds me why she’s here.
I turn back to the stove and throw the steaks in the pan, using the time to gather myself. My features are schooled when I say with practiced cool, “In Kimberley.”
“Will you acquire more mines?”
It’s not a safe subject. I glance at her from over my shoulder. “You studied economics. Are you hoping to work in that field?”
She looks away.
Still angry about the Cullinan jibe, I throw one of my own. “Or is marriage a professional career for women like you?”
She’s a mafia princess. Mateo is right. I forget too easily. But when I think about Nathan putting a ring on her finger, inexplicable violence pumps through my veins.
At her silence, I turn around, catching her without her mask in place. Hurt reflects in the jade green of her eyes. She blinks it away, but not before I’ve noticed.
For a moment, the only sound in the kitchen is the meat sizzling in the pan.
Suddenly, it’s important that I know. “Do you love him?”
“Who?”
I frown. “Nathan.”
She utters a laugh. “I’ve never even met him.”
I’d lie if I say the news doesn’t please me. “Why didn’t your parents arrange a meeting?”
“You know how it works in our world,” she says. “Women are pawns in men’s power games.”
Some fathers don’t love their daughters enough.
The declaration tightens my chest. The jab hits its target. I’m using her. That makes me no different than Warren. I clench my teeth. Now isn’t the time to grow a conscience.
“What about the party?” she asks. “Did they go ahead with it?”
My voice is clipped. “They cancelled.”
She nods a couple of times as she processes the answer. Seemingly sensing my darkening mood, she switches topics. “What about you? What did you study?”
“MBA.”
“You must be good at it if you’re a self-made billionaire.”
It’s not a compliment. I narrow my eyes. “It seems your education isn’t as lacking as I thought. Maybe your father did teach you some things.”
She drops the subject, going back to preparing the salad. I flip the steaks, watching her from the corner of my eye. At least she treats the lettuce with more mercy than the tomatoes.
I don’t have to ask how she likes her meat. It’s surprising how much you can learn about a person by studying their purchase habits and what they order in restaurants. By hacking into Evie’s bank account, I can tell what she buys and where. I can map out her movements with nothing but her credit card statements. She’s a keen shopper and a big spender. She’ll make an expensive wife, but I suppose that’s part of the perks if love isn’t in the equation.
I serve her steak medium and mine rare, leaving two for Mateo and Andrew in the pan. They’ll eat when they’ve finished their business, which is checking on the surveillance around Warren’s house.
“Eat up,” I say, putting salt and salad dressing on the counter.
She cuts the corner off the meat and pushes it around on her plate.
“What’s the matter?” I ask. “Is the steak not to your liking?”
She puts down her fork. “When are you going to do it?”
“Do what?”
“Rape me.”
I clench my fingers around my knife in a fist. I fucking hate that word. “I told you, I don’t force.”
Anger glimmers in her luminescent eyes. “I guess forcing my hand doesn’t count.”
My smile is frosty. “You’re yet to say yes.”
“Didn’t I?” she grits out. “I thought that’s what earlier in the TV room was about.”
“You have to say it in words, sweetheart.”
Shutting her mouth, she gives me silence.
I lean closer, cupping her hand where it lies next to her plate, and tell her in a cold tone, “Say the word, and Warren gets my message. How long we wait after that to put the deal to bed—excuse the pun—is entirely up to you.”
