Just like that—
He kissed me.
One kiss. Firm. Confident. Hot.
His lips pressed against mine with the certainty of a man who had every intention of following through with the words he’d just said.
While my mind protested, my body did not.
“See you tonight,” he said, lips still touching mine. “When you’ll be against that wall.”
“Tonight?” I jolted back, swallowing.
“Day off starts at midnight.” He pushed off the back of the bench to stand up straight. His upper body blocked out the sun, and the light streamed around him as if it were framing an angel.
The glint in his eyes told a different story.
The sun wasn’t even highlighting a devil.
It was highlighting a walking, talking, sin.
One I should be saying no to.
One I couldn’t say no to.
One who enthralled me and held my attention in the palm of his head, who distracted me at every possible turn.
If I had to compare him to something, it’d be a romance novel. One that was deep and dark and questionable, full of secrets and twisty-turns layered under lies and sex and lust.
“Midnight, then,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper.
“Midnight.” He winked and turned, and as he disappeared from my view, I didn’t have the words to ask him where he was going.
But me…I had to go home.
I had to think about what the hell was going on and what the ever-loving hell I was doing, playing with fire the way I was.
Twenty
Damien
“Cease and Desist!” Dad roared, throwing the sheets of paper down onto the desk between us. “A fucking Cease and Desist, Damien!”
“I got one, too.”
“The offer was one and a half times what that shithole is worth!”
The smell of hard rum permeated the air.
Once a year, it took over.
Numbed the pain, he said. Of her birthday. Of their deaths. Of the loss of more than them. Of everything. As if it didn’t hurt for the rest of the year, too. Like it didn’t hurt worse when it was ignored.
“Her father was a nightmare, but this girl is something else. She learned from the worst,” Dad went on, kicking a chair under the desk. “I’m surprised she hasn’t gone out of business already. Fucking hell, it’s a miracle that her old man managed to keep the business going. I give her six months before she fucks it all up and—”
“You know nothing about her.” I stood, shoving my chair away from me. “I have no idea what your fucking obsession with that bar is, but you have no idea what kind of a businesswoman she is.”
He hit me with a dark stare. “What kind of businesswoman is she, Damien? She ruthless? Harsh? Cutting?”
“She’s honest.” I rubbed my hand across my forehead, pulling my chair back beneath me.
My father’s laugh was cruel as it sliced through the air. “Honest? Honest works when you’re sixteen, son. Not in business.”
“I said she was honest, I didn’t say she was weak.”
“You mistake those for being different things.”
“Do I? Because the way I see it, Dad, she’s the furthest thing from weak. She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. She’s twenty-five and just got an entire business dumped on her shoulders. Have you considered the kind of pressure she’s under right now?”
“Strong?” That cold laugh echoed again as he reached forward and grabbed the cigarette box from the desk. He tapped one of the long, white sticks out and placed it between his lips to light it.
I wrinkled my face as he lit a match and held it up to the end. It glowed bright orange in the dim light, the smoke from the dying match swirling through the air in front of Dad’s face.
“She just ran away for three months,” Dad said, silvery smoke escaping his lips with each word. “She hid and left the running of her bar up to someone else. That’s not strong, son.”
“She was strong enough to realize she needed time.” I stared up at him.
He cut a cold, heartless figure, one that was hard to love—that had been hard to love for the past few years. Every ounce of ability to feel emotion he’d once had, had died with the two people he loved most in this world. That much was painfully true, and it was a fact I was reminded of every time I opened my mouth.
I might have been the prodigal son, the heir to the Fox empire, his visual double, but I was the furthest thing from perfect. I’d always been third-best to him. I always would be.
“And for you to talk about strength is rich,” I said in a low voice, unmoving. “You’ve drunk your way through their deaths each year. You hide every time they’re mentioned and refuse to talk about them. You avoid it as if it never happened and they’ll walk through the door any minute. When you accept the fact that Mom and Penelope—”