Chapter Eight #2
Cal nodded, nibbling on her lower lip pensively. “Row and Rhyland are both in business with him. He wouldn’t want to jeopardize his work for anything. You know business always comes first for him. Let’s exhaust all our options before we freak out.”
I swallowed, nodding. Tate usually put his company’s needs first, but he was also unpredictable, a mad king reigning an empire of thorns. A pyromaniac with a decadent taste for destruction.
And he was dead set on ruining me.
“His ears must be ringing…” Cal jerked her chin toward my phone. The screen showed Tate’s name.
Stifling a groan, I picked it up. “What do you want?”
“An agreeable fiancée, for a start.”
“I’m afraid I’m fresh out. Anything else?”
“Come downstairs. We have a ring fitting to attend to.”
How did he know I was with my friends? Did he follow me? The thought made invisible spiders crawl along my skin.
“Let me guess, Citoyenne Jewelry?” I drawled.
“Good, you’re watching the game. Who is winning?”
“Your ego.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s gigantic. Size matters in football. Hurry up.”
“What’s the magic word?” I didn’t have an appetite anyway.
Besides, I was eager for Cal and Dylan to go back to their partners to try to defuse the situation.
“Immediately?” he tried.
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
A half-human, half-feral grumble came from the other end of the line.
“So?” I coaxed sweetly. “Magic word?”
“Abracadabra.”
“Try again.”
“Alakazam?”
“No.”
“Hocus-pocus? Open sesame? Daimon? Voilà? Sim sala bim? Fidelio? It largely depends on the period and culture. A little guidance wouldn’t hurt.”
Oh God. He didn’t… Surely, he couldn’t…
“You don’t know what the magic word is, Tate, do you?” I gasped.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I know everything. What language is it in?” he huffed.
“ English ,” I enunciated slowly. “It’s please. The magic word is please. Have you never used it before?”
Silence. And then, “I’m sure I have, once or twice.”
“Well, happy to pop your cherry. Ask me nicely .”
This was going to be his entire life from now on. I was going to set obstacles and be obnoxiously difficult until I wrung out his will to live.
“ Please ,” he enunciated sardonically. “Come downstairs.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to get my soul sucked by the ghoul I’m marrying.” I stood up, bidding my friends goodbye.
“Hey, as long as it’s the only thing that’s going to be sucked.” Dylan saluted her cocktail in the air. “Don’t worry, girlie. We’re on top of it.”
I took the elevator down.
Oh yes. I was going to fulfill my part of the deal, but I wasn’t going to be nice about it. I had taken note of all the things Tate appreciated about me and made sure to hide them.
Which was how I knew he’d have a heart attack when he saw me.
I poured myself out to the frosty street and immediately spotted Tate’s Ferrari Purosangue. It was the same shade of gray as his eyes.
He’d parked in the middle of the street, blocking traffic. I hurried over to the back seat and popped the door open, realizing to my shock that he was in the driver’s seat, not Iven.
“You have a driver’s license?” I blurted out. In all my years working for Tate, I had yet to see him drive a car himself.
His eyes tapered. “Get inside.”
The honking behind him intensified. I ducked my head, about to slide into the back seat.
“ Next to me. I’m not your chauffeur.”
I did as I was told, biting my tongue and waiting for the next opening to piss him off.
The opportunity presented itself not even ten seconds after the car slid forward and into busy Manhattan traffic.
“Your dress.” His cold eyes flickered over my bare legs.
“What about it?” I asked innocently.
“It’s nonexistent.”
Indeed, it was skimpy by my standards. I made sure to purchase a new wardrobe with skirts and dresses shorter than my fiancé’s fuse in order to aggravate him.
This one was a rose-gold sequin mini dress that was a far cry from my usual buttoned-up work dresses and pencil skirts.
“If you think you’re going to tell me what to wear—” I started.
“You can wear whatever you want,” he cut me off. “What will happen to men who stare at you as a result is on your conscience, though.”
“So what I’m hearing is I’ll get to piss you off and get you arrested for aggravated assault.” I crossed my legs seductively and sat back, knowing he was going to steal another glance at my thighs. “Say less.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. He kept his gaze on the road. “You will have to choose an engagement ring fit for the wife of a respected billionaire.”
“I’m marrying a respected billionaire?” I lurched forward, placing a hand on my rib cage. “I thought I was marrying you.”
“Hilarious.”
“No, you are,” I said cheerfully. “For thinking I’d let you play any role in choosing my engagement ring.”
“You’re a reasonable woman.” His teeth slammed together.
My plan was working.
I was driving him bonkers.
“Start acting like one.”
“I was a reasonable woman,” I corrected. “Now, I’m whatever you don’t want in a wife. That is my entire personality.”
His nostrils flared. A lick of fear ran along my spine.
Tate was a dangerous man. I’d never seen him get fucked over in deals—he always did the fucking—and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the consequences of my own actions.
The car came to a screech in front of a white, arched building in the heart of Manhattan. The entire six-story jewelry store glowed from the inside. He threw the vehicle into park and swiveled to me with his entire imposing body.
“I’ve satisfied my part of the transaction in good faith.
I have twisted a lot of arms and broken a lot of laws to get your mother into this program in record time.
Yet instead of a blushing bride, I so far have had to deal with an unruly banshee.
I find that the best way to work with a disorderly business partner is to either bend them to my rules or sack them altogether. ”
“Sack me, then,” I whispered.
“Oh, but you wouldn’t like that.” His tone, of pure gravel, caressed every inch of my body. His cordial smile held a threat.
“Why not?”
“Because you want your mother to live, and as easily as I put her in this program, I can also remove her.”
Tears clogged my throat and burned the backs of my eyeballs.
I hated him. Yet I was attracted to him in the same way the moth longed for the flame, knowing it’d kill it.
He reached to me slowly, giving me time to retreat, and cupped the side of my neck. His touch was warm and rough and comforting.
God , it made no sense. Why couldn’t my body be in tune with my mind?
I realized depressingly that a broken egg cannot be unbroken. A bitten apple could never be whole again.
Now that I knew what Tate’s touch felt like, I could never erase it from memory, could never resist it.
“Would marrying me really be the end of the world?” Tate asked silkily, fingers traveling along the column of my neck.
“Yes,” I choked out. “It would. I’ve lost so much already. My only hope is to choose a good-hearted, faithful husband and to choose him well.”
“You could be happy.” His gaze dropped to my lips, his fingers still lightly caressing my neck, his thumb circling the skin just beneath my ear.
“You’ll be the richest out of your friends.
Draped in the most lavish of frocks. I will be faithful.
As long as you open those pretty legs for me, anyway. You will have children to fuss over.”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “I’ll have all those things, but I won’t have love.”
“Sweetheart, love is like God. An abstract invention for poor people to cling to in lieu of better, materialistic things.”
“Yet that’s all I want and the only thing you cannot give me,” I croaked.
“I could grow to tolerate you,” he said.
Smiling miserably, I shook my head. “No, you won’t. You’re not the type to protect, to shelter, to piece someone back together. To…to…give cute nicknames,” I explained. “You’re a villain.”
My words seemed to sober him. “It is pointless to negotiate with you.” His upper lip curved into a snarl. “I want your word that you’ll behave.”
I stared out the window, silent.
“You’re making a grave mistake, Apricity.”
“Apricity?” I whipped my head his way.
“The warmth of the sun in winter.” He smirked fiendishly. “It was what popped into my head when I saw you for the first time. There’d been a snowstorm. It was freezing. And you looked…” His eyes rested on the faint pulse of my neck. “Well, hot .”
Snowstorm ?
He’d first seen me in August. More specifically, he was present when I walked into an interview for a position at Fiscal Heights Holdings, a hedge fund company, where he sat with the man I was supposed to be interviewed by, named Baron Spencer.
“My apologies, Miss Bennett,” Spencer drawled, surly, not even a bit remorseful. “My assistant forgot to inform you the position has been filled.”
“Oh.” I stood there, smiling awkwardly. “No worries. I’d better—”
“But I shared your CV with my friend here, Tatum Blackthorn.” He gestured to a tall, darkly handsome man who looked like a young version of him. “And he’s been thoroughly impressed, which doesn’t happen often. He’s looking for a PA.”
“I am looking for a job in finance.”
“You’re looking for whatever people like us are willing to give,” Spencer corrected me. “And you’d be wise to remember that.”
Was this premeditated?
More than a coincidence?
When did he first see me?
Did he stalk me?
If so, why ?
It was hypocritical of me to judge him for stalking. A few years back, I did the same thing to someone else. But still…
My thoughts scattered like marbles, running in a million directions. Tate knew me well before I knew him.
I’d been the center of this man’s attention long before I learned of his existence.
Every fine hair on my body stood on end.
“As I said.” Tate unbuckled and yanked the keys from the ignition lock, unaware he’d given himself away in this crucial, small detail.
“I haven’t a chivalrous bone in my entire body.
I will retaliate and twice as hard. Play your cards right, and I will give you half my kingdom.
Defy me, and you’ll lose everything that’s dear and precious to you.
” He kept his little finger on my neck, relishing the rhythm of my hammering pulse, his thumb brushing my lower lip down.
He stared at my mouth with those unsettling eyes, unblinking.
“Do you want me to destroy your life, Gia?”
I shook my head faintly.
“Good. Now, you are going to get out of this car. I will drape you in my coat to hide those lovely legs I cannot wait to have wrapped around my fucking shoulders, and you will choose a ring no cheaper than one million dollars. There’s paparazzi waiting outside, so you’ll be on your best behavior.
You will gaze up at me lovingly, point at different rings, and generally have a good fucking time.
” His voice was low, steady, smoky. “Am I understood?”
I clutched my seashell bracelet in a death grip.
You are your father’s daughter. You won’t cower to this arse.
“As you wish.” I slammed my teeth over the tip of his thumb, desperate to hurt him back.
Tate grinned, placing his thumb in his mouth and sucking off the little blood I drew.
“Now that’s a good girl.”