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“He’s gonna need a doctor before he can sign anything,” I say. Zayne’s shoulders seem to relax a little. He’s probably relieved to hear me speak again. It’s a miracle to me, too, that I managed to untangle my tongue.
“It’s not going to take long,” Zayne replies, his voice like rippling death. Seductive, and yet raising goose bumps in its wake. “All the documents have already been drafted. Priest himself checked and greenlighted them.”
I shudder thinking about the dark clergyman and what hidden talents he might harbor, too. The last time we saw each other in the penthouse kitchen comes back to me, the secretive air between him and Zayne reminding me how much more I still don’t know about the man I fell for.
Secrets, not only his but also my own, stand between us. Buried so deep that I can’t even grasp them in the dark recesses of my memory. Almost completely forgotten but this one tiny thing...
“Yes, but I–” I look down at the coppery stains on my dress and my stilettos, my blood curdling. “I need to get cleaned up, too. If the office is going to be packed with lawyers and whatnot, it may be better if they didn’t see me covered in blood. I mean, even if you do decide to disappear these two, you know, maybe we should minimize the...” I let the idea trail off because it’s absurd. We are surrounded by armed men who saw it all.
To think of how calm Zayne was about it, evenly imparting orders like this was just another fucking Tuesday, makes my muscles tense so much they ache. I don’t think I’ve ever quite grasped the range of his power, and doing so now is mind-blowing. Even if I do manage to run away from him, I probably won’t make it far. But there’s no fighting this tug in my heart towards something I need to do, a place I need to go.
Zayne regards me with suspicion. No one in their right mind would dare cross him, but he must sense that I’m planning something.
“Please,” I mutter. I look down at myself, my fingers curling into the flesh on my arms as I hug myself. “I need to get this off me.”
The next few seconds hang so heavy between us that I’m certain they’ll crush me. He finally nods, his jaw clenched, everything in his face steely. Like it costs him great effort not to yank me close and demand to know what I’m thinking.
“All right,” he declares, then sizes up Boris like he’s a piece of shit. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” I protest, a little too quickly, earning me a flashing stare from Zayne. I fidget on my feet, jerking my chin toward Boris. “I mean, maybe it’s better that you keep an eye on this one. We wouldn’t want him bleeding out on us before he does what he promised.”
Boris is barely even conscious at this point, and something tells me that’s the only reason why Zayne decided to allow him medical attention.
“Escort my fiancée to the penthouse,” he instructs his men.
The words nail me to the floor.
All the times he referred to me as his future wife in that basement, they shocked me too deeply even to understand how I felt. Now, a mixture of dread and exultation travels through me. I choose to believe that I’m scared of having to spend the rest of my life with this man, as I definitely should be. And yet looking up at that flawlessly beautiful face while knowing the scars that mark his body underneath his expensive suit, I realize that I’m scared of how badly I want to heal him. The connection between us is out of this world, and if I want to figure it out, I need to get away from here or die trying.
“Come on Zayne, it’s the same building,” I say, struggling to sound casual. “Just a few floors between the penthouse and the office, there’s no need for security. I’ll be with you in no time.”
“Mr. Thorngren, sir.” A man heads quickly toward us from the elevators. I recognize him as one of Zayne’s assistants on the headquarters floor. “Mrs. Loveless is here. She’s waiting in your office with–” the man swallows. “Priest.” He shudders like he just spoke out the name of the devil.
Zayne’s eyebrows dip into a frown. “Priest is here with Kelly?”
The man nods quickly, wringing his hands as he goes on. “Yes, and they say there’s something they need to discuss with you ASAP. Code Red.”
A heavy shadow falls over Zayne’s face. “Tell them I’ll be right there.”
The man takes a quick bow and scurries away. I stare in his wake, realizing how many times I’ve seen people bow in front of Zayne.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” he says to me, hurling Boris into the arms of his men, who respond like a well-oiled machine to grab him. “I’ll see you in the office in an hour.” He looks over his shoulder at his men. “Make sure he doesn’t fucking die until then.”
“Yes, Sir.”
As Boris is taken away, and the rest of his people drain out of the lobby, Zayne and I face each other in the closest thing to privacy we’ve had since this morning. His eyes trail down to my fingers, still curled into my arms, making me suddenly aware of how stiff they are and how much they hurt.
“You must have questions,” he says, pain leaking through his voice. “Know that I will answer them all.” His Adam's apple bobs. “I’ll face your judgment, too, when the time comes.”
He lifts his hand to touch my face, but I step back. He stops like it’s a stab in his chest, his nostrils flaring. Then, slowly, his mouth curls into a pained smile.
“I can’t expect you to love me after this, and I don’t.” Those eyes, filled with pain and hell lock on mine. “But I love you, Sirenna. Ardently. Desperately. And when you started falling for me, too, I knew–” He presses his lips together as if the words hurt. “I knew I couldn’t let you love a lie.”
He straightens his back and arranges the cuffs of his sleeves, looking impossibly pristine. No one would think that he caused mayhem just an hour before he declared his love to me. Because that’s what he just did, isn’t it?
“And in virtue of the truth... I know I’m not the lover you dreamed of,” he says, taking a step closer to me. Slowly, carefully, like you’d approach a scared animal. This time, I don’t flinch. I stare right up at his face as he comes closer and closer. “I’m the kind of lover who would torture a man to death just for looking at you wrong. I’d prolong it for hours if that look were infused with lust. Lusting after you is a fucking deadly sin, one I’m most definitely guilty of. But you are mine, my sin, a permanent craving that dug itself into my bones, and I won’t have any competition for it.”
My skin pebbles with every word that leaves his mouth in that dark voice, with that devilish look in his eye. It’s fear mixed with pleasure, and all I want is to drown in it.
