ADRIK
For the first time since the night we met, my head is blessedly clear—except for one thought.
I need to get the fuck out of here.
"Please do that again." Emery is liquid against me. Naked and vulnerable. Everything I wanted before.
I’ve heard this song before.
I’ve been down that road.
I won’t do it again.
I disentangle myself and zip my jeans quickly. She looks around, wide green eyes blinking. "Adrik, wha—"
"Once is more than enough for me," I spit.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Suddenly, she's trying to cover herself. She holds an arm over her breasts and presses her thighs together.
I yank on my shirt and run a hand through my hair. "It means this won’t be happening again.”
She flushes with anger and hurt, but I’m already spinning on my heel and stomping out of the room.
A few maids are lingering in the hallway a little too close to the dining room door for it to be a coincidence.
"You'll want to clean the table before the next meal," I bark at them as I storm by.
Let them gossip. I don't fucking care.
As soon as I'm back in my room, I head to the master bathroom and clean up.
“You goddamn fool,” I snarl in the mirror. “Durak.”
If I were the kind of man who had regrets, I wouldn’t be where I am in this world. But I shouldn't have fucked Emery. Not like that, not now, probably not at all.
"She begged," I grit out, arguing with my own goddamn reflection. “Isn’t that what you demanded from her?”
There's a scratch mark on my neck from her nails. My lips are red. My hair is mussed and wild.
How convenient that she finally cracked and begged for my cock just as I accused her of working with the Volandris. It was probably her emergency plan for if things were going sideways. Like biting down on a suicide pill.
Fuck him. Distract him. Do what you have to do to get him off your tail.
I grab my phone and call Stefan.
"Congratulations," he says in lieu of a greeting.
I grimace. "News travels fast."
"It does when you have sex in the middle of the mansion. Half the staff heard you. I just walked into one of the maids re-enacting it." He snickers. "If she wasn’t exaggerating, it sounds like Emery enjoyed herself."
“She’s lying.”
He gasps melodramatically. “Hold the phone—are you saying you think she faked it?”
“That was the one thing she definitely didn’t have to fake,” I retort. “I’m offended you’d doubt me.”
“Hey, everyone has off days.”
“Lesser men, maybe. Not me.”
Stefan snorts. “Okay, so what did you mean then, big shot?”
“Malcolm Waters is working with the Volandris,” I say. “I saw a ghost orchid when I was at his house.”
There’s a long pause before Stefan speaks. “Do you think I’m Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes? Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“The only other place I’ve seen one of those is in the Volandri greenhouse. Sofia took me there once.”
“Oh. Oh. Shit,” Stefan breathes. “So does that mean Emery is—”
“I don’t know.” I lean back against the bathroom counter and cross my arms. “I questioned her, and she denied it, but—”
“You questioned her before or after you fucked her on the dining room table? Thanks a lot for that, by the way. I eat on that table.”
Thoughts of what else I could eat on that table pop into my head. But no. No more fantasies of Emery until I know the truth.
“I questioned her before. Things got… intense. She denied it, but I want to keep a closer eye on her.”
“Hence the cameras,” Stefan says. “I’m guessing that’s why you’re calling. I got them installed in her room this morning, but you had me running all over the place today, playing with Isabella and driving Emery around. I didn’t finish the app setup.”
“How long will it take?”
“Twenty minutes?”
“Then what are you doing on the phone still? Text me the details when you’re done.”
Stefan agrees and hangs up. I turn back to the mirror.
As the adrenaline and endorphins fade from my system, my head is starting to ache. No doubt because Emery bashed her skull against mine.
She was defying me, but fuck if it wasn’t hot to see her fight. As hot as it was to walk in on her boxing with the punching bag in the workout room.
I hate that room. Have hated it for years. But seeing her bouncing on her toes, lean arms raised and at the ready…
It almost made being in there bearable.
Fifteen minutes later, Stefan texts me. Five minutes ahead of schedule. You’re welcome.
I open the app and punch in the code he sent along with the text. Immediately, four camera angles appear.
Two are in Isabella’s room. One trained on the door that separates her room from Emery’s, and one on the window to make sure no one comes in or out without me knowing about it.
The other two are in Emery’s room. One aimed at her door, the other pointed at the bed.
I’m sure she’d call it an invasion of privacy, but I don’t give a shit what she thinks. Privacy is dangerous.
In private, she could reach out to the Volandris.
In private, she could share my secrets.
In private, she could plot against me.
So no—the bratty little princess will not be getting any privacy.
I don’t see her in her room, and the cameras in Isabella’s rooms don’t show enough for me to see anyone. So I stare at the frames for a few seconds, nothing moving except the time signature in the bottom right corner ticking away.
Then, finally, Emery appears.
She blows a kiss in the direction of Isabella’s bed and then turns out the lights. I switch feeds to follow her progress as she walks from one room into the next.
Shutting the door behind her, Emery leans back against it for the length of a long sigh, as if to steady herself. Then she walks to the nightstand and picks up her phone.
"Do it," I whisper to the phone. "Call your contact. Call the Volandris and tell them everything."
But she doesn’t.
She puts the phone back down without even unlocking it and spins towards her dresser. She tugs off the clothes that were lying on my dining room floor only half an hour ago and steps into a pair of cotton shorts and a tank top. My cock twitches hungrily.