Was it possible this was Sophia Alby’s doing?
I hoped so. I was a student of economics, and information was a commodity, so it was fascinating to me the impact a simple rumor could have on this huge, global company.
Royce’s gaze landed on me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I answered. “Do you mind if we have lunch together?”
He liked the idea until he checked his watch. “I wish I could, but that meeting blew up my schedule, so I don’t—”
“I had it delivered and put it in the kitchen. I thought we could eat in your office.”
We didn’t eat at his desk. Instead, he sat beside me on the couch in the small sitting area of his office, his open takeout container balanced on his lap. “Did you get that meeting with Frank Davos on my calendar?”
I made a face similar to the one I’d made yesterday when he’d forwarded me the email. He didn’t usually ask me to schedule stuff, and it likely took him longer to forward the message than for him to do it himself and enter it on his phone.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep the irritation from my voice. I could handle a simple task. “It’s done.”
“Okay.” He looked relieved. “It’s, uh, important. I wanted a second set of eyes on it.”
He considered a meeting with his personal broker, a man who worked for Royce, important?
“You don’t like your lunch?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.
I looked down at the hand-pulled noodle dish. “No, it’s good. I’m . . . nervous.”
His chopsticks paused. “About what?”
I set my container down on the low table in front of us and put my sweaty palms on my knees. “I need to show you something.”
His expression clouded, but it dissipated when I stood and turned to face him, my hands moving behind my back. I found the top of the zipper on the back of my dress and pulled it down slowly, going tooth by tooth.
Royce’s eyes hooded as I shrugged out of the straps of my top, pulling the dress down and exposing the lacy bra I wore. He abandoned his lunch, tossing it down on the table with a messy thud, and then settled back on the couch, casting one arm along the back of it. His posture was confident and relaxed, and his wide smile was inviting. He thought I was stripping and wanted me to continue the show.
But I grabbed my left bicep with my right hand and pulled it toward my chest, showing off the newly inked skin along my ribcage.
He sat forward to get a better look, then stood and set one hand on my waist, the fingers of his other hand tracing the edge of the bandage. His delicate touch lit up my skin.
“Medusa,” he said simply. “It’s beautiful.”
A sliver of relief worked its way through my system. “You like it?”
“Yeah, I do. When did you get it?”
“This morning.”
It hadn’t taken long for the artist to do the design. Arturo had sketched it out last night and texted me the sample, and this morning he’d inked Medusa painfully into the skin just below the band of my bra. It was one of the only places on my body that I’d see and likely no one else. Well, except for my future husband.
Who stared at the small, single-colored tattoo like it was a work of art.
And it was. She had a classically beautiful face, surrounded by locks of coiling snakes. He’d captured her as young and confident—more of a sexy temptress than an evil monster.
Royce’s fingers continued to outline the edges, carefully avoiding my irritated skin, and his touch sent goosebumps rippling along my arms. “Did it hurt?”
“Yeah,” I said. Shame colored my voice. “And I deserved it.”
He hesitated, his fingers stopping in their tracks. “What?”
“I did something awful.” I stepped away and struggled to push my arms back into the straps of my dress. “Your father controls everything, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I don’t recognize that girl in the mirror. Not the way I look, or the clothes I wear, or what I post to stupid fucking Instagram. I know this sounds insane, but I feel like I’m . . . disappearing.”
My voice broke as the emotions swelled in me, and the worry in his expression skyrocketed, but I had to keep going.
“I needed this tattoo. Something he couldn’t take away from me.”
Royce’s arms circled around me. “Marist, it’s okay. Believe me when I say I fucking understand, and—”
But he wouldn’t, not when I told him everything. “To get this done without him knowing about it, I needed my car. You remember when you told me he doesn’t just give people what they want?”
His arms around me hardened into stone. “What’d you do?”
“He wanted to play another game.” My pulse quickened. “It was really fucked up.”