The Kiss Thief

I made a point to be at home as little as possible, which wasn’t very hard between flying out to Springfield and DC frequently.

Francesca was still adamant about having her dinners in her room (not that I cared). She did, however, fulfill her commitments as far as cake-tasting, trying on dresses, and doing all the other bullshit wedding planning I’d dumped on her (not that I minded if she showed up in a goddamn oversized napkin). I didn’t care for my fiancée’s affection. As far as I was concerned, with the exception of amending the no-fucking-other-people clause before my balls fell off, she could live on her side of the house—or better yet, across town—until her last breath.

On the fifth day, after dinner, I buried myself in paperwork in my office when Sterling summoned me to the kitchen. It was well past eleven o’clock, and Sterling knew better than to interrupt me in general, so I figured it was of critical importance.

Last thing I needed was hearing that Nemesis was planning an escape. It seemed like Francesca had finally realized she didn’t have an out from this arrangement.

I descended the stairs. When I reached the landing, the smell of sugar, baked dough, and chocolate wafted from the kitchen. Sweet, sticky, and nostalgic in a way that sliced through your body like a knife. I stopped at the threshold and examined tiny, fierce Sterling as she served a simple chocolate cake with forty-six candles on the long dining table. Her hands were shaking. She wiped them on her stained apron the minute I walked in, refusing eye contact.

We both knew why.

“Romeo’s birthday,” she mumbled under her breath, hurrying to the sink to wash her hands.

I ambled in, dragged over a chair, and sank into it, watching the cake as if it was my opponent. I wasn’t particularly sentimental and exceptionally bad with remembering dates, which was just as well as all my family members were dead. Their death dates, however, I remembered.

I also remembered the cause of their deaths.

Sterling handed me a plate on which she’d piled enough cake to clog a toilet bowl. I was torn between thanking her for paying her respects to the person I loved the most and yelling at her for reminding me that my heart had a hole the size of Arthur Rossi’s fist. I settled for stuffing my mouth with the cake without tasting it. Sugar consumption was not a habit of mine, but it seemed excessively spiteful not to take a bite after she went through so much trouble.

“He would have been proud of you if he were alive.” She lowered herself onto the seat in front of mine, wrapping her hands around a steamy cup of herbal tea. My back was to the kitchen door. She faced it—and me. I stabbed a fork into my cake, unfolding the layers of the chocolate and sugar like they were a human gut, digging harder with each motion.

“Wolfe, look at me.”

I dragged my eyes to her face, pacifying her for a reason beyond my grasp. It was not in my nature to be nice and cordial. But something in that demanded an emotion from me that wasn’t disdain. Her eyes widened, dotted sky-blue. She was trying to tell me something.

“Be gentle with her, Wolfe.”

“That would give her false hope that what we have is real, and that’s entirely too cruel, even by my standards,” I drawled, pushing the cake across the table.

“She’s lonely. She’s young, isolated, and frightened to the bone. You’re treating her like an enemy before she even lets you down. All she knows about you is that you’re a powerful man, you hate her family, and don’t want anything to do with her. Yet you made it clear that you’ll never let her go.

“She is a prisoner,” she finished simply. “For a crime she did not commit.”

“It’s called collateral.” I laced my fingers behind my head and sat back. “And it’s not very different from the life she would have led with anyone else. With the exception that unlike the majority of Made Men, I’d spare her the lies when I cheated on her.”

Sterling winced as though I’d struck her across the face. She then leaned across the table and took my hand in hers. It took everything in me not to withdraw. I hated touching people in any capacity in which my cock wasn’t in one of their holes, and Sterling was the last person on the entire planet I’d fuck. Not to mention, I particularly disliked it when she exhibited her feelings openly. It was inappropriate and way out of her job description.

“Choosing something doomed and being forced into it are two very different things. Showing her mercy will not weaken you. If anything, it will assure her you’re confident in your power.”