“He said you asked for this job.” He jammed a hand in his hair, visibly unsettled. “What did you give him?”
I put my hands on my hips. “It’s none of your business.”
My answer angered him further, and I enjoyed the unease that simmered in his expression. He stared at me, silently demanding I explain.
I sighed. “I gave him nothing.”
His gaze narrowed. “He doesn’t give people what they want, ever, and definitely not out of the goodness of his heart.” Royce clenched a hand into a fist and pressed his knuckles against his desktop. “He doesn’t even have a heart. So, I’m asking again. What did you give him?”
“It’s nothing,” I repeated, my voice giving away nothing about how unsure I felt on the inside. “I have to play him in chess every night.”
There was no reaction. He was a statue. “For how long?”
“Until I win.”
It sounded ridiculous when I said it out loud, but tension corded his muscles, making his shoulders stiff.
“Great,” Royce snapped. “Did he mention he played competitively when he was at Harvard?”
I deflated a little. “No.”
He let out a tight breath and straightened, setting the full power of his intense stare on me. “So, now you’ll have to go to him every night. He’ll wear you down, Marist. He’ll get inside your head and turn you against me.”
“He won’t.” A part of me wanted to laugh. Right now, Royce didn’t need his father’s help turning me against him. He was doing just fine all by himself.
“Something you need to understand about my father is he doesn’t play a game unless he’s sure he’s going to win.”
I swung my gaze away. Royce’s office was so professional and impersonal, decorated for the persona he projected. Did he think other people would see it as a sign of weakness if he acted like a human? Was that how his father had taught him?
For being a family company, it was like he hid that part of himself.
“I wish you’d let me go with you last night,” he said.
“Yeah? Well, I wish you hadn’t sold me for one hundred thousand shares, Royce. You don’t always get what you want.”
“But I do.” His tone softened. “I wanted you, and now here we are.”
His statement rankled. “You don’t have me. You gave me away.”
He was abruptly right in front of me, wearing a determined look while heat warmed his eyes. It distracted me long enough for him to get his hands around my waist.
I squirmed in his hold. “No. We’re not allowed to—”
Everything from his expression to his voice was dark and aggressive. “Yeah, he told me all about how you agreed to his stupid ‘no contact’ deal. But I didn’t.”
It stole my breath the way he kissed me. He was a rollercoaster. Thrillingly dangerous even when there was no threat to my safety. I wasn’t going to die. All the danger was manufactured, but it didn’t feel any less real.
It was just a kiss, anyway. Breaking Macalister’s rule wasn’t going to cause the end of the world.
Was it?
Royce’s hands slid around my back as his tongue slipped into my mouth, and before he’d made the deal, I would have enjoyed this, but now all I could taste was his manipulation. I couldn’t trust him when his mouth was pressed to mine. And I couldn’t trust myself not to cave.
“No,” I said, stepping back.
My retreat left him adrift, but he recovered with lightning fast reflexes. His eyebrow arrowed up. “No?”
“You just take whatever you want and demand I trust you, but trust doesn’t work as a one-way street. Until you get that, I’m not sharing any part of me with you.”
Oh, he didn’t like that. His jaw set, and I was struck by how much he could look like his father when he was challenged. But he relented, one layer at a time, either returning to the man he was when we were alone . . . or shifting tactics.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed the engagement ring he’d given me. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we’re in this together. I can’t protect you if you shut me out.”
Fire ignited inside my belly. “Except you never let me in.” I pulled away. “And I don’t need your help, Royce.”
By the end of the week, I was second-guessing every choice I’d made.
Working as Royce’s assistant was a joke. He spent his days in meetings and conference calls and long lunches, all of which I wasn’t allowed to sit in on. There were no paper trails or clues in his immaculate office. No hushed conversations for me to overhear. His email wasn’t run by me, and I didn’t screen his calls.
I’d also been distracted with wedding planning. Alice was focused on the anniversary party and demanded I step in and oversee the coordinator she’d hired. My future step-mother-in-law was the CEO of my wedding. I was just middle management, executing her vision.