I swallowed a breath. “How so?”
“Win at all costs is the Hale family motto, so there will be times I’m going to say or do things you’re not going to like.” His expression was resigned, like a doctor delivering tough news. “I’ll be mean, Marist. Maybe even awful. I’ll tell lies, and when this is all over? You might think I’m worse than my father.”
My hands, which had been resting in my lap, tensed into fists and my mouth went dry.
“But,” he continued, “you’ll know it’s lies. Anything I say or do when other people are around, don’t believe it. That’s not me. It’s a character I’ve invented to help me win the game. The person I am with you is different than the one outside.”
Whoa. I sipped in air through my parted lips. He’d already shown me this a little, hadn’t he? That day of the dreadful luncheon, he’d been a completely different person in my family’s sitting room when it had been just been the two of us. His night-and-day personality was by design.
“You have to adapt constantly if you want to survive. You never know with my father, because he can change his mind in an instant, and everything he’s promised? It’s gone. He says he’s a man of his word, but it’s always going to be your word against his, and who do you think wins there?”
“He does.”
Royce threaded a hand through his hair, which fell back into its perfectly messy style. “You’re smart, Marist. I probably don’t need to tell you, but you should do the same. Be the girl he wants when people are watching. When it’s just you and me? You can be the girl I found in my library with green hair, buried in a book when there was a party going on downstairs.” He gave me the full intensity of his stare, the one that saw all the way into the depths of me. “You can just be you.”
“Okay,” I whispered. There was no other answer. I was vaguely aware I was sliding under his spell, but I was powerless to stop it.
I hadn’t noticed the tension he was holding in his shoulders until he released it on a heavy breath. “Good.”
There was a series of windows on the far wall, and since the sun was setting, the garden lights outside flickered on, catching my attention. A century ago, the sprawling acres of the Hale estate might have been cornfields, but now they were landscaped gardens and a meticulously maintained hedge maze.
When I was little, I’d hunted for eggs in the maze every Easter Sunday with my sister and the other HBHC executives’ kids. The golden egg had five grand in it, but I’d never been lucky or fast enough to find it.
As a girl, I’d been insanely jealous of Royce and Vance. If I’d had a hedge maze in my back yard, I’d have played in it all day. I’d have lived my Labyrinth fantasies with Jareth the Goblin King and never come out when my parents called. Neither of the Hale boys seemed to care about the maze at all. Maybe they’d seen The Shining too many times.
I hadn’t seen the gardens or the hedge maze from this vantagepoint before. It was much bigger than I would have thought. The exterior was square, but the maze had curves and lines and dead-ends decorated with statues or stone urns. The thick, evergreen hedges were well over six feet tall, separated by narrow pebble paths, and in the center, a three-tiered water fountain glowed.
The carefully executed maze was a daunting work of art.
Even now, a part of me still longed to go searching for David Bowie, where he’d seduce me into being his queen and take me to the masquerade ball.
Royce leaned back and cast an arm over the back of the couch, relaxing. It looked like an invitation, and I wasn’t opposed to it. The deal had been made. There was no harm in enjoying the benefits.
“This won’t be easy,” he said. “If you ever need anything, just say the word. I’ll do my best to help.”
“Okay.” I lifted my chin and smoothed my hands down my skirt. “You can actually help right now.”
He gave me a questioning look.
“I waited a year, Royce. Touch me.”
His blue eyes widened with surprise, then heated. A seductive smile spread slowly on his lips. He tipped his head down toward his lap, then back to me in a gesture that said, what are you waiting for?
I shook my head. There was a cat currently where I wanted to be, plus this was a power move. I’d given up so much already in this deal. He could give up something.
“Oh, you want me to come to you?” His tone was silk.
He was the only person besides myself who’d made me come, and my sex-starved body demanded his attention. I wasn’t a prude. I was very interested in learning about sex and had no one to explore it with, and that was mostly his fault. My frustration had reached critical mass.