10. Lyric
CHAPTER 10
LYRIC
The restaurant was the kind of place where secrets were bought and sold over five-course meals. The private dining room oozed opulence—low candlelight, crystal stemware, a sweeping view of the Monaco skyline glittering beyond floor-to-ceiling windows. A setting designed to flatter a woman into forgetting her place in the social hierarchy.
I wasn’t flattered.
And I was sick of men thinking they owned me. Moreau. Ethan. Even Flynn.
Especially Flynn.
His voice still echoed in my head—“ I want to. God help me, I fucking want to.”
He had no right to that possessiveness. No claim on my decisions. I wasn’t a damsel in distress. I was the damsel who caused distress.
Moreau was already seated when I arrived, lounging with the lazy arrogance of a man who had never heard the word no and wouldn’t recognize it if it slapped him. His suit was midnight blue and molded to him like a second skin. The cut of the fabric, the glint of the watch beneath his cuff, the way he swirled his wine glass—it was all curated. A masterclass in power projection.
Power he expected me to acknowledge.
I didn’t.
Instead, I stepped into the room like I owned it, let the ma?tre d’ pull out my chair, and sat without waiting for Moreau’s approval.
“Elisa,” he purred. “You look stunning.”
I smiled. “I know.”
His chuckle was low, indulgent, like I’d performed for him. “And I see you left your guard dog behind.”
“Colt Mercer isn’t my guard dog,” I replied, setting my clutch on the table. “He is a highly trained security specialist and my lover. He wasn’t happy about being left behind.”
Moreau’s eyes sharpened, his amusement suddenly edged with something darker. “Ah. So that’s the arrangement.”
“There is no arrangement. Just mutual satisfaction.”
“I see. Well, maybe we can come to a mutually satisfying arrangement tonight.”
Gross. Inwardly, I gagged. Outwardly, I kept my pleasant smile firmly in place. “Maybe we can.”
“Excellent. This calls for wine.” He lifted a finger, and the waiter appeared as if conjured, setting down two glasses of wine.
“1995 Chateau Margaux,” Moreau said, watching with a hungry glint in his eyes as I brought the glass to my lips. “I also took the liberty of ordering dinner for you. Chateaubriand with black truffle jus and pommes Anna. I hope you don’t mind.”
It was another power play. Everything with him was, every gesture calculated to shrink the space I occupied. To make me feel small. Controlled. Owned.
Unlike Flynn.
Flynn’s possessiveness earlier, as infuriating as it was, had come from someplace raw and honest. He didn’t need me to stroke his ego just to feel like a man. Moreau, on the other hand, craved it.
“Perfect,” I lied, letting the wine roll across my tongue. Ask me, it wasn’t worth the seven-hundred-dollar price tag. I’d had better ten-dollar bottles.
He ran a finger around the rim of his glass, his gaze sweeping over me, assessing like a collector studies a rare artifact for flaws. “Tell me, chérie . What is it you truly want from Sentinel?”
I tilted my head just enough to catch the light in my earrings. “I already told you. Security. Control. The same thing every man in that auction room wants.”
“Ah, but you are not a man. And your kind typically prefers softer methods. Subtler games.” He reached across the table and captured my hand, his thumb tracing the pulse point at my wrist. “Are you playing games with me, Elisa?”
I allowed it, maintaining the cool, unaffected facade of Elisa while calculating how many fingers I could break before his guards, tucked discreetly away in the shadows, made it to the table.
At least three.
Our dinners arrived, and Moreau released my hand, sitting back to shake out his napkin. He took his time cutting into his filet before speaking again. “You intrigue me, Elisa. You come from money, but you move like someone who’s had to fight for power.” His gaze dropped to my hands. “I imagine you don’t enjoy being underestimated.”
“I don’t mind,” I said lightly, spearing a potato with my fork. “Underestimation is an advantage.”
He hummed, clearly pleased. Whether it was with the dinner or our verbal sparing match was anyone’s guess. “A woman who understands the game. Rare.”
“A woman who wins the game,” I corrected, lifting my glass again.
He smirked. “We shall see.”
The rest of dinner passed in a delicate dance of probing questions disguised as small talk. Moreau asked about my background, my family connections, my education. I fed him the fiction Ozzy had crafted—a Swiss boarding school, a fortune inherited from my father’s shipping empire, investments in defense technology that had turned a modest inheritance into a formidable portfolio. Each lie was cushioned with enough truth to make it digestible, each answer calculated to make me desirable as both an auction participant and a conquest.
He nodded approvingly at all the right moments, but I could see the calculations happening behind his eyes.
He didn’t believe me. Not entirely.
Good. I didn’t want him to trust me too easily. Men like Moreau respected resistance… to a point.
When the plates were cleared, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small velvet box, setting it on the table with a slow, deliberate push.
“Another liberty,” he said, his smile lazy.
I didn’t immediately reach for it, and he tapped a finger against the top.
“Go on.”
I exhaled through my nose, then flicked open the lid. Inside, nestled against black silk, was a diamond bracelet—delicate at first glance, but edged with marquise-cut stones that gleamed like tiny blades.
“It reminded me of you,” he said. “Elegant. Sharp.”
I closed the lid and pushed it back across the table. “I don’t want diamonds. I want Sentinel.”
Moreau’s smile tightened at the corners. “You’re direct. I like that.” He pushed the box back toward me. “But I insist. Consider it a gesture of goodwill. A symbol of what could be… if we reach an understanding.”
His eyes never left mine as he reopened the box, lifted the bracelet, and held it suspended between us. “May I?”
It was the first time he’d asked permission for anything, and we both knew it wasn’t actually a request. I extended my wrist, letting him clasp the cold diamonds around it. They caught the light and threw prisms across the tablecloth when I turned my arm.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, his fingers lingering on my skin too long. Then he leaned back in his chair and picked up his wine glass, swirling the blood-red liquid. “Tell me, Elisa. How far are you willing to go to secure Sentinel?”
I took a careful sip of wine to buy myself a half-second. This was the moment—the fulcrum point where my next words could either secure an invitation or get me killed.
I set the glass down with care and smoothed my hand over the linen napkin in my lap. This was the part where Elisa Deveraux would purr, would lean in, would offer just enough suggestion to keep him biting.
But I couldn’t make myself do it.
Moreau was a handsome man by all conventional beauty standards, but those eyes were empty. A shark’s eyes. He tweaked a primal part of me that warned of danger—not the delicious, reckless danger Flynn represented, but the kind that made my skin crawl.
Flynn was right about one thing: Moreau was a predator. And predators watched for weakness. If I let him see how much he rattled me, I wouldn’t leave this restaurant with an invitation.
I’d walk out with a target on my back.
So I swallowed my revulsion and leaned forward. “That depends.”
His gaze dropped to my breasts, his eyes half-lidded. “On?”
“On whether you’re offering a business transaction, or something else entirely.”
Moreau’s lip curled. He leaned forward, and his cologne invaded my space. His hand slid beneath the table, settling with possessive weight on my thigh. “Why choose? Some deals are best sealed in both boardrooms and bedrooms.”
Once before Monte Carlo, before Flynn, I would’ve done it, no hesitation. Sex was just another mask, after all. Another currency.
But now I couldn’t stop comparing.
Flynn’s touch igniting something in me I thought I’d cauterized years ago. Moreau’s hands, smooth and manicured, landing on my skin like ice.
Flynn’s eyes, hungry but honest, versus this predator’s calculating gaze.
Flynn’s possessiveness, raw and instinctive, versus Moreau’s ownership.
Moreau’s hand slid up my thigh, and the bit of dinner I’d had curdled in my stomach. I kept my expression smooth, my posture relaxed. But inside, I was screaming like a spider was on my leg instead of his hand.
He leaned in and kissed me. I knew it was coming, and yet I couldn’t suppress the involuntary stiffening of my body. His lips were cold and practiced, moving against mine with the prowess of a man who’d learned technique but never passion.
And once again, Flynn invaded my thoughts.
Flynn, whose kisses were wild and unpracticed and real. Whose touch never once felt like a transaction.
Flynn, who didn’t need to prove anything to anyone because he already knew what he was.
Everything in me revolted, a visceral rejection I couldn’t hide. I jerked back too quickly, too sharply.
A mistake.
Moreau pulled back with the kind of satisfaction that made my stomach churn. “Ah,” he murmured. “There it is.”
I locked my jaw.
He reached into his jacket once more. This time, he pulled out a gold-embossed invitation and placed it between us with a casual flick of his fingers.
“You’ll have to wait for the auction, I’m afraid,” he said lightly. “A shame. I was hoping we could come to an… earlier arrangement.”
I slid the envelope into my clutch without breaking eye contact. My wrist itched under the weight of the bracelet, but I didn’t take it off. “Then I’ll see you at the auction.”
Vidal approached and leaned down, murmuring something in Moreau’s ear.
“Take care of it.” Moreau didn’t look at me again when he added, “And escort her out.”
I stood slowly, offering my most gracious smile, and let the guard lead me toward the exit. This night hadn’t been a complete disaster—I had managed to secure an invite to the auction—but I kicked myself for reacting the way I had to the kiss. I should’ve slid my tongue into his mouth, climbed into his lap, and used the opportunity to plant the tracker.
Instead, in the moment of truth, I’d flinched. Recoiled like an amateur.
C’mon, Lyric. You’re better than that.
Yes, I was. And I was going to plant the damn tracker.
At the last turn in the corridor, I opened my clutch and slowed, pretending to search for something. Vidal slowed, too, but his attention was on his phone now, brows drawn in a tight scowl as he typed one-handed.
He was distracted.
Which was the best opportunity I was going to get.
I stepped too close, bumping his arm with my shoulder as I reached for something inside my clutch. The phone slipped from his grip, clattering to the floor at the same time my lipstick, compact, and a handful of credit cards spilled from my bag.
“Oh, how clumsy of me,” I said smoothly, already kneeling.
Vidal let out a sharp sigh and crouched, too, reaching for his phone.
But I got to it first and pressed the tiny tracker against the case, where it would hopefully blend into the matte black finish. Ozzy assured me it would be undetectable unless someone were explicitly looking for it. They couldn’t scan for it either. The tech was too new, too advanced.
“Forgive me,” I murmured as I handed it back with a sheepish smile. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
He didn’t respond, just gave me a long, flat look and slipped his home back into his pocket as he straightened to his full height.
I rose more slowly, tucking the last of my things back into my clutch and smoothing my hair.
“Mr. Moreau has arranged transportation for you,” Vidal said, his accent clipping the words into harsh consonants. He gestured toward a sleek black Mercedes idling at the curb.
I smiled. “That won’t be necessary. I have my own car.”
Vidal’s expression didn’t change. “Mr. Moreau insists.”
Of course.
I kept my smile plastered on my face until I reached the hotel, maintaining the charade of gratitude for Moreau’s “courtesy.”
The moment the car pulled away, I dropped the facade, my shoulders slumping, hands trembling. I curled them into fists to hide it, fighting the urge to tear the diamond bracelet from my wrist and throw it into the sparkling fountain.
I had to get inside and out of this dress.
Because whatever Moreau had told his man to handle … I had a feeling it wasn’t good.