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“Yes.” I drop my hands to my lap and study the slightly round, extremely short woman who only wants to keep me safe. “Yes, she was my sister.”
“So you’re aunt to a Malone son,” she summates, “and in love with another Malone son? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Well… I didn’t mention love. You did.”
“You’re showing it!” she explodes, thrusting a hand toward my computer. “You’re putting your head on the chopping block and handing out three knives! One to Pastore, another to that nasty, gossiping bitch Towers. And a third,” she exhales, “to Malone himself. How are you so sure he won’t punish you for your lies?”
“I’m not.”
“Jesus.” She brings that same hand up and drags it along her face. “You’re playing with fire and dancing in the gasoline.”
“I suppose that makes me exceptionally stupid, huh?” Crossing my legs, I look down at my lap and smile. “Whatever happens, happens, Dana. He needs to know the truth, and she needs to lose the control she has over him.”
I shake my head and meet her gaze. “He’s a protector. That’s what hedoes. It’s what he knows. And she takes that for granted, holding a crime over his head that he never committed, and destroying his life in the process. She’s angry, Dana. Sick. She never got the help she needed after an incredibly traumatic experience, and now she wants someone else to pay the price for what was done to her. He will never set her aside on his own. He can’t. So I have to force him to make a choice. Her, or?—”
“Or you?” she cuts in. “You’re gonna make him choose between the two women in his life?”
“No.” I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and pray Felix makes it out of this unharmed. That he learns the truth before his enemies make a move. “I’m going to make him choose between her and himself. Because it’s time.”
Exhaling a long sigh, I scan my document one last time before saving it and shutting everything down. Then pushing up to stand, I slide my laptop into my bag and keep my phone in my hand. “You can go, Dana.” I show her the device pressed to my palm. “I have a phone call to make.”
“Are you sure?” She swallows, her throat bobbing as she gulps. “I can stay with you awhile.”
“I’m sure.” And to push my point home, I set my bag on my desk and swipe my screen unlocked.
I never asked for Felix’s phone number, and I certainly never saved it as ‘Call me Daddy.’ But here we are anyway, with an obnoxious man messing with my personal belongings, and a picture of me in a gown, my hair salon-styled, and my eyes, intensely staring at the photographer, as the image he selected for himself.
Hitting dial, I gesture toward the door and wait expectantly as my assistant considers her next move. To do as the boss says and go, or to stay, and pretend she’s strong enough to single-handedly stop a war?
“Hey, Darling.” Felix answers, his voice low and seductive and annoyingly heart-pounding. “I was just thinking about you.”
I can’t have this conversation with a third set of ears, so I bring my gaze up and raise a brow. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dana.”
“Yeah, Dana,” Felix mocks. “Go away.”
Hesitantly, she turns on her heels and swings my door wide. “I’d like a text before you go to bed tonight. Proof of life.”
“Goodbye.” I step around my desk and move all the way to the door,then closing it behind her and shutting the woman out, I press my back to the glass and stare out at a weeping city. “Felix…”
“Has anyone ever conducted research on emotions? Like, I didn’t know you a few weeks ago. I saw you around, of course, and whacked off to your headshot in theCannon Dailyeach morning.”
I drop my head back and close my eyes. “There’s something genuinely wrong with you.”
He sniggers. “I knew who you were, Ms. Cannon. Only a blind man could miss your beauty. But fuck, I could live without you back then.”
“And now?” My eyes turn instantly itchy. “What about now?”
“Now… Well, I guess it feels like you’re oxygen, and I’m lungs. The world is an ocean, and everyone in it wants to hold me under the surface. They press a boot to the back of my neck. So fucking desperate to take me out. From infancy, Christabelle, I was punished. But you’re life itself. You’re the first good thing I was ever gifted. And as stupid as it sounds, you leaving for work eight hours a day makes me feel like I’m suffocating.”
Damn, damn, damn him for being who he is.
“I don’t do slow, Christabelle, and I don’t do gentle. I’m not the guy who’s gonna play this out for six years, dating and fucking and romancing you until we’re sure of what we’ve got.”
“No?” I swallow the painful lump threatening to choke me. “So what’s your plan?”
“All-in, beautiful. I’m gonna come pick you up, okay? Are you done with work?”
“Almost.” My jaw trembles. “I have one more meeting, but it’ll be quick. How far away are you?”
