Page 96 of Vicious Seduction
“No need to thank me for treating you like you deserve to be treated.”
“Oh yeah? What if I really,reallywanted to show myappreciation?” Her hand drifted down my chest toward my cock.
“Who the fuck am I to tell you what you can and can’t do?”
She grinned, nipping at my bottom lip. “That’s what I thought.”
I nipped her right back, then carried her to the bedroom. She showed me just how grateful she was, and I returned the favor. Twice.
Afterward, we showered and cleaned up to get ready for a night out. I was done in a fraction of the time it took her, so I went to my office for a bit before checking back in on her. She was putting on the finishing touches of her makeup, her golden hair almost glowing in loose waves down her back.
I leaned against my vanity and watched her. “Wellington’s gone. I thought you should know.”
Lina’s hand froze in the air mid-application of her mascara. “I suppose that’s good,” she said quietly. Her eyes caught mine in the mirror before she resumed what she was doing. “What about my mother?” The words were no more than a whisper.
We hadn’t spoken about the woman since Lina consented to her death. I had started to assume that Lina wasn’t ever going to ask.
“Gone, but we made sure that she transferred her estate to a living trust with Amelie as the beneficiary. The money will likely take a while to come through since we’ll have to have her declared dead. There won’t be any body.” I’d considered making it look like an accident, but where would the fun have been in that? Lina had never told me to do it quickly. Eliza Brooks had needed to suffer. By the end, she begged me to kill her.
The past two weeks had been some of the most satisfying of my life.
“That’s fine. Mellie’s fine without it for now.”
“She may be fine without the money, but she won’t be fine without her sister, which is what will happen if you don’t hurry. Ten more minutes and we’ll be late.”
“Crap! I’m ready, I swear.” She ran the little wand through her lashes one more time, then slammed it back into its bottle. “Let me just put on my shoes and grab my clutch.”
We made it to the car with three minutes to spare. I’d hired transportation, not wanting to mess with parking since we would be dealing with theater district traffic on a Saturday night. Walking would have taken less time, but at twenty-five degrees out, that wasn’t an option. Instead, we sat in the back of a plush Escalade, watching others battle the cold.
After twenty minutes of Lina fidgeting absently with the zipper on her purse, I placed my hands over hers as the driver pulled up in front of the theater. She met my amused stare with wide eyes, then peered at our hands, unaware of what she’d been doing.
“She’s going to do fabulous. This is what she’s dreamed of doing.” Amelie had unexpectedly scored a minor role as a dancer in the Broadway production ofChicago, temporarily filling in when the cast was hit with a wicked strain of the flu. It wasn’t a permanent gig, but it would be huge for her résumé.
“I know, it’s just that she’s had so little time to learn the choreography. I’d be petrified.”
“She’s not you, Lina. Choreography is her life.”
Lina nodded just as the driver opened her door. We exited the car and hurried inside the building. Winter was clearly not done with the city yet. Inside, an usher scanned my ticketbarcode from my phone and showed us toward the hallway to our box seats.
“Just out of curiosity, are you going to be this nervous with our kids as well?” I asked, fighting back a smirk.
“Our kids?” she blurted, then slammed a hand over her lips and looked around to make sure no one had heard her.
“You adore Amelie, and with your age gap, she’s almost like a daughter. Makes sense that you might want your own.” I hadn’t thought much about kids before Lina. Now that I’d witnessed her nurturing nature, kids sounded pretty incredible.
“I don’t know. It didn’t feel like much of an option before, so I hadn’t put much thought into it. I suppose it worries me a little.”
“What part?”
“Motherhood. What if I don’t love my kids like I should?” Her whispered words were heartbreaking. I hated that her mother could make her doubt herself like that.
I smiled and shook my head. “Not possible. People either have a soul or they don’t. Someone who loves as big as you can’t just shut that off. You’d be the best mother in the world.”
She stopped and looked up at me with glassy eyes. “I love you, Oran.”
My lungs seized tight in my chest. “Say it again,” I demanded, not sure I could ever hear it enough.
“I love you, baby.”