Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
And then she looked at me with those bright and furious silvery eyes.
A sane man would have walked away.
A better man would have.
Instead I put my hands on her.
I kiss her all over again in my memory, and my grip tightens on the wheel until the leather makes my palms sweat.
Her lips locked tight beneath mine.
Her breath catching.
Her body betraying her.
Mine betraying me.
I close my eyes for a second. It’s enough to see her.
A tiny tremor in her breath when I crowd her space. A pulse beating hard in her throat. Not surrender. Not fear.
Want. Desire.
That’s what’s going to destroy both of us if she keeps this up.
I open my eyes and start the car.
I should go home.
I don’t.
Instead I drive east, toward one of the old Vexley properties the family still owns but rarely uses. It used to be a private dining club decades ago, the kind of place where men in dark suits made decisions over brandy. My father kept it after the membership fell apart.
Now it’s mine. For all intents and purposes, I live here. Nate shows up now and then, though.
The building sits back from the street behind wrought-iron gates. No sign out front. If you squint hard enough, it looks like a castle.
Every beast should have a castle.
I park in the private drive and head inside. The place is mostly dark, only the low amber sconces lit in the hallway. The air smells faintly of old wood. My footsteps echo on black-and-white marble as I cross the foyer.
I know Nate is here before I see him.
He has a way of occupying a room without disturbing it. He doesn’t press his presence outward the way I do. He lets a place fold around him until it looks like it belonged to him all along.
We both know how to own a room, just in different ways.
I find him in the back room, standing near the fireplace with a glass of whiskey in one hand. The fire is low, and the dim light hits his face. Dark hair. Green eyes. Our mother’s eyes, colder in his face than they ever were in hers.
He doesn’t look surprised to see me.
That pisses me off before he says a word.
“You took your time,” he says.
I shrug off my coat and toss it over the back of a chair. “You were waiting for me?”
“Yes.”
I pour myself a drink from the decanter. The whiskey burns all the way down. When I turn back, he’s watching me over the rim of his glass.
Does he notice the slight swelling in my lower lip where Delaney’s teeth caught me for half a second?
“Interesting,” he says.
I set the glass down. “Try finishing a sentence.”
“You went to see her.” He draws in a breath. “After her apartment was searched.”
“And?” I say.
“And that wasn’t wise.”
A laugh scrapes up my throat. “You think you summoned me here to lecture me?”
“I didn’t summon you. I knew where you’d come. Where you always come.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You told me to keep her close.”
“I didn’t tell you to get involved with her.”
“Be careful, Nate,” I say, gritting my teeth.
“Or what?”
I step closer, enough that the firelight catches the ring on my hand. “Or I stop being polite.”
He laughs dryly. “Were you being polite in her apartment?”
My blood turns hotter. Faster.
I turn away before I put my fist through his teeth.
My father used to say men like us were not made. We were revealed. Strip enough away and the truth stands there naked.
“She found the contractor,” Nate says behind me.
That gets my full attention. I turn back slowly. “How much does she know?”
“Not enough.”
“But she’s close.”
“Yes.”
I pick up my drink again. “Who marked her?”
“We’re still sorting that out.”
I stare at him. “That answer irritates me.”
“It irritates me too.” Nate sets his glass down on the mantel and folds his arms. He looks relaxed.
He isn’t. I know him too well.
“The contractor matters,” he says. “But not in the way she thinks.”
“She thinks he ties back to us.”
“He does.”
“Directly?”
A pause.
Then, “Not exactly.”
That means yes, but only through enough layers to make any proof difficult to hold. Vexley business in a nutshell. Fronts behind fronts. Names moved through shell companies and dead men and handshakes that never happened. My father doesn’t build walls. He builds mazes. Mazes that no one can get through without marking themselves.
Delaney’s apartment being searched means she reached one of the corridors he wants hidden.
“They didn’t take anything,” he says.
“I know.”
“Then they weren’t looking for an object.”
“No.” I set my glass down. “They were sizing her up.”
“Yes.”
I look at him. “And?”
“So far she’s not backing down.” The faintest thread of admiration winds through his tone. Not for Delaney. Not really. For the problem she presents. Nate admires difficult things.
“How much does our father know?” I ask.
“Enough.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he knows she’s still asking questions.”
Still.
Still asking. Still digging. Still stepping closer to a door she doesn’t understand.