Page 85 of Merciless Heir

On an old art deco desk is a mirror, old and exquisite, and in front of it is an ornate box and a beautiful carved blackwood dish.

In that is the necklace.

I smile as I pick it up and turn it over in my hands.

There’s no doubt in my mind this is a Mininchi. Or meant to be.

It glows with a delicate touch, and its beauty can’t be captured in full from photos.

But Yia-yia is right.

Still, I’d love to have these. I covet them in a way I’ve never coveted jewels before. I’d keep them, and it would be so easy to slide this into the hidden pocket of my full skirt.

The air shifts around me and my heart starts to beat fast as I close my hand around the necklace.

I look in the mirror.

And meet Kingston’s gaze.

He isn’t smiling.

“What the fuck are you doing, Sadie?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kingston

Sadie’s gaze holds mine.

She doesn’t panic, doesn’t tumble out excuses at me. Doesn’t look startled.

And I give her points for that, I really do, but anger builds in me as she turns, still holding the necklace.

“I wanted a closer look.”

“With your hand? Maybe by hiding it somewhere?”

She looks stunning, elegant, romantic. The black satin dress has a full skirt that ends above her ankles, and she wears stacked heels. The top of the dress is fitted with a plunging V-neck that is lovely rather than obscene. It hints and doesn’t overtly display. The spaghetti straps cross in the back into a pattern that makes up the top part of her bodice.

But stunning isn’t the same and trustworthy and whatever tenuous ways I was making there, teeter.

“No,” Sadie says. She opens her palm. “I wanted to touch it, feel it, study it. And it’s not really something I can go and ask.”

“Of course you can. We can. Or could have.”

She nods but makes no move to put the piece back. “You want your mother to know I want to look at them?”

“Honestly? I really don’t care.”

“Don’t you?”

I cross the bedroom, stopping halfway across the room because I’m interested to see what her aim is. I’m aware her turning up at my place and getting me here was definitely an excuse for this.

The eye fucking she gave when I opened the door? That barreled into her. Me, too. Because it took all I had not to throw her to the wall, drop my shorts, push up between her thighs, and wrap those long legs about me and plunge to the hilt into her.

The sheer effort it took for me not to get a raging hard on?

Steel will and stubbornness on my part.