Page 86 of Merciless Heir
Both things I clung to with the thinnest of string.
And now?
There’s a reason I’m standing this far from her.
But still…
She looks so goddamn good.
The pulse in her throat throbs. Her eyes are dark, a spark of sheer defiance and lust in their centers and I’m beginning to think I have no problems with fucking her here and now in my brother’s room like some randy fool.
But I’m not going to do that. That’s why I’m standing this far from her. Though I’m suspecting it isn’t far enough. I don’t know what would be.
“Okay,” I say. “You got me. I do care. As in, I care if she’s dabbling in some kind of bullshit to fuck me over. Which I think we can agree, she isn’t.”
“I don’t know your mom.”
“Don’t you?”
She smiles and it’s a little feral. My blood pressure ticks up. “I work for you.”
I let it go because any transaction between them isn’t about fucking me over. It might be my mother playing games, but she’s not out to get me.
“So you do.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me,” she says, opening her palm and holding out the necklace, “if I came to steal this?”
“I think I did.”
“Your conclusion?”
“I think you’re good enough to do it, but you’re also not that stupid.”
For a moment, we both look at it, and the stones glint in the light. For a moment, I think she just might slide it in a pocket or down her top or something, just to fuck with me.
But she doesn’t. Sadie turns and slips it back in place. “I wanted to look at it to get a feel. I need to be able to tell—”
“Athena?”
She casts a narrow-eyed glance at me. “Yes.”
The look is dangerous and sexy as all get out. “How is that coming along?”
“It’s coming.”
I gesture to the door and she starts to stalk past me, but I catch her arm and pull her in close. “Don’t test me by stealing from my family.”
Her lips press together and the withering look she sends me tells me she can do just that and she also won’t. And that it pisses her the fuck off that I said that. “I’ll do what I want.”
“Yeah,” I say, breathing in her sweet and smoke laced scent, “you will.”
And we go back down to the rest of the soiree.
I forget what the charity is. This is probably some offshoot for my slightly reformed, black-hearted brother, Magnus. Who is so far from the ruthless and driven man I know, that sometimes I have to take a step back. It’s not immediately obvious if you don’t know him, and it’s way more pronounced when he’s with Zoey, the woman who stole his heart.
He’s still hard as nails, still driven and ruthless but with rounder edges. And the things he does for the community in Brooklyn where he’s building his vision of the future of tower complex living is real. Because of her.
Even work focused Hudson has loosened up with the bubbly, talkative Scarlett. He’s wound in knots and relaxed. The former is her pregnancy, the latter all her. And of course there’s my lothario brother who fell hard. Ryder still charms women, still flirts, but his eyes, his soul, they’re for Elliot. And it’s not just a new love thing, much as I loathe saying it. It’s one of those long-term things.