I wrap my arms around myself as he wraps his hand around the back of my neck in that way he has. The one that screams possession.
His.
I shudder even though his touch is warm. I wonder again where he spent the night. Who he touched with that hand.
And mostly I wonder why I give a single fuck. Didn’t he put me in my place last night? If I ever had any doubt what I was to him, last night should have made things crystal clear. I’m just too stupid to get it.
My uncle’s gaze flits to where Damian is holding me, but he doesn’t comment. Instead, he nods his goodbye to me and walks out, leaving Damian and I alone in the office with its glass walls.
It’s deadly still for a long minute after the door closes. I wonder how it can be so quiet in here with the cubicles and all the people out there.
I wipe away the last of my tears and turn around, pulling out of his grasp. “Did you spend the night with one of your whores? You look a little worse for wear.”
“I could say the same for you, but the only man with access to you would have been Cash, and he knows I’d castrate him if he so much as looked at you wrong.”
I open my mouth to give a sharp reply, but he gets a sly look on his face and goes on.
“So, was it thoughts of me that kept you up?”
“You wish.”
“Did you finish yourself off imagining your fingers were mine?”
“Fuck you.” I hear the door open. Thank god that it does.
Damian lifts his gaze beyond me, and I turn to find Cash waiting beside the door.
“Time for you to get back. The hairdresser will be there shortly.”
“That’s it? I go back to the apartment and what? What’s happening later anyway?”
“A party of sorts.”
“What sort exactly?”
“Your donors will see the new face of The Valentina Foundation.”
“You’ll really do the dirty work in my name?”
“Something like that. Now go. Maybe you’ll have time for a nap. I want you to look your best tonight.”
“Why don’t you invite the woman in whose bed you slept last night instead?”
He grins, gives nothing away. “Cash,” he calls over my shoulder.
“Sir.”
“Take Cristina home,” he says, dismissing me.26DamianI let her get to me last night. I let an inexperienced girl, barely a woman, and a virgin at that, get to me.
Christ.
My plan was to take her to my bed after dinner. Sink my cock into her. But she’d known exactly which button to push and threw my plans out the window.
But she thinks I spent the night in another woman’s bed. She’s bothered by the idea. That makes me smile.
I watch the men congregating in the next room and make note of who’s talking with whom, but I’m distracted. Cristina should arrive any second.
Adam Valentina walks through the door. He looks like he got some rest since this morning. His suit is crisp, face freshly shaved. Can’t take a chance with this group. If they even think they scent weakness, they’ll go in for the kill.
The dozen guests are here. Apart from Cristina, I’m waiting on one last arrival.
A knock comes on the door, and I turn my head, sipping my whiskey as Tobias opens it. Cash nods to me, then stands aside, and Cristina steps into my line of vision.
I wonder what the men in the room will do when they get a look at her. At Joseph Valentina’s daughter all grown up. She doesn’t know it yet, but every one of them apart from her uncle would benefit if she just went away.
But I won’t let that happen.
She’s stunning in a silk dress of palest milky white. The dress is exceedingly feminine, delicate to the point of leaving her vulnerable. It’s the opposite of all the testosterone in the next room. Her hair, piled high on her head, is glossier than I’ve seen it and a thick fringe of bangs has been cut which frame and intensify the rich violet of her eyes.
The instant those eyes meet mine, it’s like the world stops. Like the monitor isn’t on and there isn’t a meeting of a dozen of some of the most dangerous criminals on two continents in the same building as us.
Tobias steps out of the room and closes the door.
We’re alone.
I swallow my whiskey as she visibly recovers, her throat working as she swallows and steels her spine to stand as tall as possible before crossing the distance between us.
I take in how she moves in that dress, and my dick stirs. It’s a little pornographic, how it floats around her, caresses her hard nipples, displays the V between her thighs. I wonder if I’ll see the slit of her sex if I look hard enough. No panties under there. Just the finest layer of silk separating her from me.