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“And you’ll let me handle that as well.” If I spent years fending off monetary requests from Alexander and Gloria, one more debt added to the pile wouldn’t hurt a damn thing.
“And what else?” She looks so skeptical. “You’re building up to something, I can tell.”
“You owe me a favor,” I say cryptically. “One you can’t refuse outright.”
If gentle extortion is what it takes to ensure that neither Adrian Riley nor anyone else can harm her, I’ll do it.
“What?” She tilts her head, her expression thoughtful. “That I run away from the city and never speak to Adrian Riley or his cohorts again?”
My upper lip quirks at the suggestion. “Something like that.”
“I’m not a piece of property, Graeme.” She sounds so damn convinced of that—as if Adrian Riley didn’t mark her asminefrom the second he saw her. “Besides, I like Dahlia. She doesn’t seem so bad when you or Riley aren’t around.”
“Then, at least promise you’ll hear me out first.”
She bites her lip for the umpteenth time. Then her eyes flit toward my chest, and she nods with a sigh of defeat. “Deal.”
When I’m discharged, she does all but try to sling me over her shoulder and carry me out. Upon reaching the Royal, I manage to escape her grasp.
“I need to see Gloria.”
“I called her,” Evelyn admits to the shock of no one. “She sounded worried, but I assured her you’d be discharged today. I can arrange for her to visit you—”
“No, I’ll go see her personally,” I say, thinking ahead. Her guilt will make her more amiable to the conversation I have in store.
She wrings her fingers. “Maybe I should come.”
“No.”
“Graeme, you were just released from the hospital.”
I grab her hand and press her slim fingers to my mouth. “I’ll be back tonight.”
She’s so startled by the action that she’s rendered utterly silent—a moment of shock that I take advantage of by locking my door and signaling James to drive on before she can react.
* * *
Gloria’s reaction to my miraculous brush with death is to dab at her dry eyes with a handkerchief when I enter her private suite in an exclusive hotel as far from the Royal as her standards would allow. “Darling.” She sniffles into her napkin. “Thank heavens. Evie called and told me about that horrid incident. Are you in pain—”
“Enough of that,” I snap before taking the chair opposite her. The wound does smart like hell, but I’d rather suffer in silence than have her fuss over me. Evelyn, on the other hand…
She’d be frantic were she here, biting her lip in that infernal way while blathering on about the dangers of infection. My upper lip quirks at the mental image. She’d be too distracted then to put up much resistance if I fingered the hem of her modest sweater and lifted it, revealing the taut line of her stomach. She’d shiver in that goddamn delectable way, and her eyes would meet mine. After she paused to mutter some half-hearted reason why we shouldn’t fuck, we would.
And, Evelyn being Evelyn, she’d endeavor to make sure the ridiculous bandage stayed intact while riding me like a hellcat.
“Oh, my darling!” Gloria reaches for my arm, tugging at the sleeve of my suit jacket as if she expects the damn thing to be dripping with blood. “You don’t look shot. Oh, I’ve been in bits all morning—”
“I know that those tears are really for the fact that my survival denies you the chance to dig out my will,” I say tiredly. That damn mental image of Evelyn King in the throes of ecstasy won’t leave my mind. Then and there, I endeavor to make that fantasy a reality.
“Must you be so difficult?” Gloria tosses her handkerchief aside with an exasperated sigh. “Oh, Graeme.”
“Spare me the lecture, Mum. I didn’t come here for your dramatics. I want… Your opinion.”
“Really?” She sits forward, her despair entirely forgotten. “Regarding what?”
A dilemma I’ve been wrestling with since Adrian-bloody-Riley made his return into my life. Ironically, the sole solution has been obvious all along. Smug, I lay out my plans for Evelyn, but Gloria reacts to my proposal with none of her usual fanfare. All she does is gape.
“Graeme. Are you serious?”
