Beauty in Deception

“Tomorrow,” he says, his voice already sleepy.

Tomorrow. It’s so tempting. The moment I succumb, my muscles soften. Tension I wasn’t aware of leaves my body. How easily he seduces me. If he carries on like this, I’ll start to miss things that shouldn’t be mine. The price I’ll pay when I leave here will be heavy.

Keep up the show.

Play the part.

It’s not real. It’s just an act playing off on a stage.

His chest is warm beneath my cheek and the beat of his heart strong in my ear. I listen to the rhythm of his pulse as his breathing evens out. Unable to help myself, I graze my fingertips over the hair that covers his chest. It’s wrong to touch him while he sleeps, but war justifies many wrongs.

Turning on my back, I use his bicep as a cushion and blink at the dark ceiling. Did Evie and Nathan get engaged in secret? For all I know, they moved the wedding forward. Bell wouldn’t want anything to stand in the way of an alliance with the Stones. Now more than ever, if he’s to beat Roman, two forces are better than one.

CHAPTER 10

Roman

* * *

When I wake up, Evie is gone. I don’t stress about it. She can’t leave the property.

I have a shower and get dressed in a button-down shirt and pinstripe suit since I have meetings lined up at the office. Omitting the tie, I walk to her room. I open the door without knocking to find the room empty. The sound of running water comes from behind the closed bathroom door.

I leave her to her shower and go to the kitchen. Mateo and Andrew are already there, both dressed casually in jeans, T-shirts, and leather jackets. Mateo looks up from flipping a pancake. Andrew sits at the counter, sipping coffee. They both watch me as I pour a cup of coffee and take a seat.

“What?” I say, bringing the mug to my mouth.

“How is she?” Andrew asks. When I raise a brow, he adds, “Mateo filled me in.”

I turn my gaze to my brother. “Gossiping, much?”

Mateo tosses the pancake on top of a pile of them stacked in a plate and slams the pan back on the burner. “He needed to know.”

I take a swallow of the strong brew. “She’ll be fine.”

Mateo’s brow furrows as he carries the plate to the counter. “It’s not how I expected Warren to treat his daughter. The more I learn about him, the less I like the fucker.”

“That makes two of us,” I say, thoughtful. “Since she’s been here, she’s not mentioned her parents once.”

Andrew stabs his fork into the mound of pancakes and drops three onto his plate. “So? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re probably the last person she’ll talk to.”

“No,” I say slowly. “It’s not that. In her situation, she should be concerned about her parents. They’ll worry, not knowing what happened to her. Bella Warren must be going out of her mind not knowing where her only daughter is. Evie asked me to let Warren’s guards go. She’s making sure I feed them. Yet she never said a word about her mother.”

Mateo drowns his pancake in syrup. “Now that I know how Warren treats her, I’m not surprised.” His smile is wry. “It doesn’t sound as if they’re close.”

“Do you think Nathan Stone knows she’s kidnapped?” Andrew asks. “Warren may have confided in her fiancé. I don’t like this silence. Something about it smells fishy.”

“He’s not her fiancé,” I say a tad too brusquely. “They didn’t get engaged.” I made sure of that. “And no, Stone doesn’t know, or he would’ve retaliated with an attack to rescue her by now.”

I’ve humiliated him in the worst possible way by stealing his betrothed. No man will sit back and let that slide, not if he values his honor and wants to protect his position in our clandestine hierarchy.

“What’s the status on movement around Warren’s house?” I ask Mateo.

He pours a generous amount of cream into his plate, mixes it with the syrup, and drags a piece of pancake through the sticky mess. “Nothing out of the ordinary. He’s sitting tight, waiting for us to make the first move.”

“That time has arrived.” I grab a pancake and eat half of it in one bite. “I’m sending the message this morning.”

“About time,” Mateo says around a mouthful of food.

I direct my order at Andrew. “Bring the youngest of the guards, the skinny one with the tattoo on his neck.”

Pushing off his seat, my cousin leaves to execute the order.

A moment later, Andrew returns with Number Six. His hands are tied behind his back. Evie didn’t choose him for no reason. She knows as well as I do he’s the weakest of the four men. If one of them is going to break, it’s him. She’s clever. Observant. I’ll do well to remember that.