Stolen Hearts (Hearts 1)

Did Eden Morelli really hit on me? Did that actually happen?

Laughing, I filled up my empty glass and took it up the stairs to my bedroom. My bedroom was all white, as per the senator’s request. Floors, ceiling, linens. The furniture was mahogany and dark in the shadows.

I hated all white.

I should change it.

“I should move,” I said out loud.

“And go where, Princess?”

I screamed, dropped the glass and fumbled for the light, but he crept out of the shadows before I could turn it on.

“Leave it,” Ronan said. “This is a conversation better suited to the dark.”

11

Heart pounding, the vodka in my stomach churning, I ran.

I made it down the hallway to the top of the stairs before he grabbed my hand, yanking me to a halt so fast it wrenched my shoulder.

“What the hell are you doing in my house?” I cried, trying to get my hand free, but his grip was iron. And I knew when I couldn’t win against a man’s strength. So I stopped fighting and waited for him to relax.

“I’m here to get some questions answered,” he said, turning back to the bedroom, pulling me behind him like a fish.

Yeah, I wasn’t going back into that bedroom with him. I started fighting again. If I could get downstairs to the alarm—

“Stop it, Poppy,” he growled and grabbed me by the waist and hauled me back into the bedroom. He threw me down on the bed, and I scrambled off, standing on the other side of it. In front of me was the king-size bed, Ronan, and a dozen yards between me and the door.

Behind me were French doors and a balcony. If I was careful and did everything just right when I jumped, I would land in the pool.

“Thinking of jumping out that window?” he asked. “I wouldn’t. It would be a shame to end this night scraping your broken body off the deck.”

“What do you want?” I asked, taking a step backwards towards the door.

“To talk some sense into you.”

“In my bedroom?”

“Calm down, Poppy. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I made some kind of scoffing whimpering noise in my throat and took another tiny step back.

“You don’t believe me?” He circled the bed, and there was no place for me to go but back against the wall. “You think I already hurt you?”

He made it sound like I was a child. Like I had no idea all the ways he could give me pain.

“Stop.” I put up my hand, as if I could fend him off.

He grabbed me by the elbows, yanking me up on my toes. “How am I supposed to keep you safe when you do something as stupid as go talk to the Morellis?”

The moonlight caught him across the face, and I’d never seen him so angry.

“Keep me safe?” I laughed, which was probably risky considering his anger. But I was beyond giving a shit. Those words didn’t even make sense coming from him.

“What did you talk to Eden Morelli about?” he asked.

“How do you even know I did?”

“There are a thousand wires crisscrossing between the Morellis and the Constantines, and you tripped half of them reaching out to Eden. Who, just to be clear, is not to be taken lightly. She’s as bad as they get. Feral, like. Vicious.”

“And what are you?”

“Oh, Princess, I think I’ve been very good to you.” The low purr of his voice thrummed between us. Making the memory of his hands between my legs tangible and real.

It was time for this to be over. I pushed at his chest, but he didn’t budge. If anything, he pulled me closer. My toes barely touching the floor. But I didn’t wince. Or beg. I gave him nothing.

“Am I hurting you?” he breathed.

“You know you are.”

“This is nothing compared to what could be done to you.”

“You think I don’t know?” I spat at him. “You think there’s one inch of pain you can show me that I don’t know by heart?”

His eyes were dark in the shadows, all the color leached from his body. He was black and white and grey. But when he smiled, he gleamed.

“There you are,” he said. God, this man. He was only happy when I was spitting at him.

“What do you want?” I asked. “What do I need to do to get you out of here?”

The grandfather clock in the hallway clicked forward a minute, so loud in the quiet between us.

“What would you do?” His voice was soft.

“Not what you’re thinking.”

“You don’t have the slightest idea what I’m thinking.”

I rolled my eyes at him. Something that once got me smacked so hard I had to go to the dentist. “Trust me, Ronan. You’re not as original as you think you are.”

That made him tip back his head and howl with laughter, and then he stepped away, slowly letting go of my body which I let sag against the wall while I caught my breath. Pretending to be brave. Strong. It took a lot of effort. Far more effort than cowering and hiding. But I was done cowering and hiding.