I meet Hades’s gaze. “Two weeks won’t make a difference one way or another. Beyond that, I wouldn’t worry too much about Cordelia seeking revenge since she’s the one who sent her baby sister here tonight in the first place.”
Hades doesn’t blink. “I highly doubt she envisioned the terms of the bargain you struck with Isabelle Belmonte.”
Heat courses through my body, but I muscle back my physical response. All in good time. Because we do have time now. Two weeks is more than long enough to play out every filthy fantasy I never let myself contemplate with Isabelle. The fact that Gaeton will be doing the same concurrently feels strangely right. We began this journey at the same time, and we’ll finish at the same time as well. “That’s our business.”
“See that it doesn’t become my business.” He glances at Isabelle, gaze cold. “She’s playing in deep waters. Don’t let her drown and bring ruin upon us all.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “If you’re done …”
“I am. For now.”
I turn and lead the way out of Hades’s office. Aurora is nowhere in sight, which is just as well. We don’t need an escort to the exit. I nod at Adem at the front desk and step into the elevator. We don’t speak again until the doors slide open and the cool air of the parking garage seeps into the elevator. “Your place, your transport.” I know where Gaeton lives, of course. It pays to keep track of these things, especially since we’ve both found ourselves in something of a precarious position leaving our old territory, but he’s hardly sent out engraved invites to his place.
He nods and leads the way down the ramp to a sleek black SUV. I glance around for a driver, and he catches the look. Gaeton gives a shit-eating grin. “Not all of us are fancy bitches who need to be carted around.”
I narrow my eyes. “I prefer to keep my hands free for other purposes.”
He snorts. “Whatever you have to tell yourself, asshole.”
Isabelle stirs as I open the back door and Gaeton sets her carefully on the seat. She blinks those big brown eyes at us. “Did I fall asleep?” Her hands flutter to her hair, seeming to register how tangled it is, and then to Gaeton’s coat. “You ruined my dress.”
“Won’t be needing it where we’re going.” I nudge her across the back seat and follow her in, leaving Gaeton to walk around to the driver’s door.
Isabelle slaps my hands away when I reach to fasten her seatbelt. “You can’t be suggesting I’m not wearing clothes for the next two weeks. Don’t be absurd.”
Gaeton backs out of the parking spot and heads for the exit. “Depends on how many pieces of clothing you want ruined, Isabelle. Your choice.” The easy charm is gone again, leaving a simmering anger I recognize down to my very soul. Another similarity I don’t want to share with this man.
I lean back against the seat and look at her. Even out of her depth and looking like she’s just been fucked within an inch of her life, Isabelle is a study in perfection. She’s always been beautiful, but it’s the intelligence in those brown eyes that draws me in again and again despite myself. My position in Carver City would have been a lot more secure if I’d been able to resist that spark. Her father, Orsino, didn’t exactly disapprove of our dating her, but that man would have taken the moon right out of the sky for his youngest daughter, though, so he never said a word edgewise. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with it, though.
Fuck, but I miss him.
Angry at the loss of another person I cared about, angry at myself, I rake my gaze over her. “What the big man isn’t saying is that your pussy is ours for the next two weeks and we won’t tolerate anything limiting access.”
She jerks back, staring at me as if she’s never seen me before. “Have you always talked like this?”
Not to her. Never to her. I bound myself up in love until I couldn’t breathe, just so I could be worthy of this woman. All for nothing. All of it was for no goddamn reason. I lean forward and give her a cold look. “Only to the people I fuck.”
An important distinction, and one she picks up immediately. “I see.” She narrows her eyes. “So you’re going to fuck me, Beast? Take all that aggression and anger out on me?” She lifts her chin, a clear sign that she’s stepping to the line drawn in the sand between us. “Bring it on.”
“Isabelle,” Gaeton rumbles. “Playing the brat isn’t going to make him stick his cock into you out of spite. He’s got better control than that.”
I’m glad one of us is sure of it. Right now, it’s everything I can do not to fall on her and fuck her until she begs for mercy. Until I can get rid of the tight feeling of my skin being too small. No matter what I did for this woman, it wasn’t good enough, and when Gaeton finally called it quits and she should have been mine by right, she left me in the dust. And I still don’t know why.