CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE #2
Her lower lip wobbles. “My mother?”
“Yes. He showed me. He had pictures.” I palm the back of her head and plant a chaste peck on her quivering mouth. “I’m so fucking sorry, Zar. If I could’ve—”
“I don’t blame you. I didn’t even when I first got here. You aren’t your father.” Unaware of how impactful that pronouncement is and unwilling to linger there, she waves her hand over the desk. “This was some sort of lesson, I assume?”
“It was my way of demonstrating that even if things are uncomfortable or threatened by outside interference, you are my priority.” I gather our toys, stuffing them in my pockets. “I will take care of you. All your needs. And keep you safe.”
“That’s why you had Stella come in?” There’s a hue of disbelief staining that.
“In part. But also because I got wind that there was speculation about us. I needed to subdue it, and she spreads rumors like wildfire.”
She chortles, accepting the validity of that, as she climbs off my lap and kneels to run her finger over my shoelaces, where some of her cum remains. She pops her coated fingertip into her mouth, sucking it off. “I’m surprised you didn’t order me to clean up my mess.”
A goddamn dream.
“I planned to,” I admit, reaching between her legs to push the dripping cocktail of our release back inside her with a satisfied growl before gliding my wet fingers into her mouth to have her suck those too. “But my dominance is helpless against your tears.”
She smiles, though it’s a facade for the insecurity she’s concealing. “Do you usually have women—or subs—in here?”
“Never.” I glide my knuckles down her cheek. “I’ve never been intimate with anyone other than you in a location that held any genuine connection to me. It’s always been separate, but Stella doesn’t know that. Hopefully, asking about you confused her.”
“Right. Because we can’t be—”
“No.” I clutch her chin, ensuring she’s giving me her full attention. “We can be everything. I was buying us time.”
“Time for what?” she asks, but there’s enough hesitancy laced through it that it’s clear she’s getting there.
“Hold that thought for me.” I weave our fingers together, guiding her to stand and follow me into my bathroom first so I can clean her up, and then to my closet so I can dress her.
“Arms up,” I instruct, skipping her bra and sliding her top on.
“Let’s revisit Lev Popov’s concern. You were hired to find intel regarding a media conglomerate? ”
Her throat rolls through an arduous swallow. It’s plain she doesn’t enjoy divulging information, even to me, but she finally nods.
This is why I haven’t turned over the informant’s identity to KORT yet. Once I realized Zara had possibly overheard Bernard and I discussing it, I wanted to see if she would go after it.
“What else were you asked to look for?” I probe as I pull her heels off, glide her skirt on, and slip her feet into her shoes again while she balances with her hands on my shoulders.
She bites her lip, studying me as I buckle her stilettos, likely debating what to share until she settles on, “That’s it really. I’ve been doing pattern of life on the entire resort—but all of it with the media angle in mind.”
I rise to my full height, curling my hand around the back of her neck and resisting the yearning to kiss her since it will derail this discussion. “I think you’re working for KORT.”
“For them?” Her brows jump for the ceiling, but there’s an unmistakable tinge of relief on her face.
“It’s possible,” I return, straightening my shirt and tie, shrugging on my suit jacket, and proceeding with caution as to not offer more cushioning than is certain. “The timing. The reason you’re here. It fits.”
Her emeralds rove all over my face, glistening with curiosity. “Why don’t you know?”
Tucking the gift I stored in here into my interior suit jacket pocket, I blow out a frustrated breath and lead her into the passageway.
“Because my role as one of the five KORT seats is a conflict of interest with the empire I’ve built.
And though I don’t broadcast this to KORT, I consider La Lune Noire my top priority and KORT to be a headache.
So, I’ve requested that matters that compromise the integrity of my La Lune Noire position are relayed only as necessary. ”
She must’ve suspected I was a KORT chair because she doesn’t miss a beat. “And if you ask now, it points to my inadequacies.”
“Yes, and it’s also possible you’re working for the people after my sister’s family, which would be worst-case scenario.
Catastrophic maybe.” I pull her into my side when I feel her flinch, not glossing over the issue, but trying to paint the positive as well.
“It’s one or the other. But you showed up at the same time I was told an asset was coming to sift through the resort on KORT’s behalf. ”
“Maybe.” She ponders that as we walk, her thoughts so loud that they demand to be heard, even before they’re vocalized. “But Shep … would KORT want me neutralized already? I haven’t been here long, and I’ve been turning in reports. Something is amiss.”
So fucking sharp.
“Agreed. They wouldn’t have turned on you at this point.” I don’t ask if she could’ve been wrong about Shep because Bernard drew the same conclusion, and if she was mistaken, she’ll hate herself for killing him.
“But they also wouldn’t have cared about you being suspicious of me, which would explain why they left me here when I was compromised. If I’m working for KORT, it changes things?” Her voice is so soft, so hopeful with that query, but she’s missing the bigger picture.
“It makes things easier, but it changes nothing for me. Are you in this?”
“What does that mean?” She rubs her forehead, her weariness growing more apparent with every step. “What is being in this when you’re telling me we can’t even be seen together?”
As if to emphasize that point, I scan my retina, inviting her in through a hidden entrance of the penthouse so there’s no trace of us being together, but I swiftly haul her out to my private balcony, letting the fresh air and New Orleans vibrancy extend a whiff of transparency.
“KORT only permits one-night stands or marriage. Nothing in between. I’m hiding this for your safety. ”
She soaks in the evening I planned for us, noting the elegant table set with dinner under a freckled night, and she inhales the fragrance of our elevation—magnolia and cypress with a hint of Creole that embodies NOLA culture—missing that it’s all hers and whispering, “Okay.”
I crowd her against the spiral staircase that leads to the rooftop entertainment area. She leans back, gripping the heavy wrought iron spindles, her eyes gleaming with ambivalence, her breaths shallow. An uncanny sense that she’s going to shatter me washes my mouth with acid, but I choke it down.
“Get out of your head, Zara. I want you to be mine, to declare it to the entire world, but it’s dangerous if you aren’t all in. That’s how they work. I won’t risk—”
“I have to abandon my mission,” she aptly concludes.
There’s an urgency in my bones to convey how vital this is because of the hell that KORT will put her through if anything suggests she’d be a liability.
But Ivy was firm about the fallout that would ensue if they suspected I’d prepared her.
Zara may respond out of character if she’s aware it’s a test, and that would be viewed as deceit.
So, I simply turn it around on her. “Isn’t your mission essentially botched and over?”
“Only if I don’t manage to come through, which I still could.
” She ducks beneath my arm and sashays to the stone parapet wall, bracing her hip against it.
“Giving it up helps you and your organization trust me. But if my client isn’t KORT, that abandonment puts my father’s and brother’s lives in jeopardy.
It will look like I was a double agent for KORT, like we deceived them.
” Her hand folds over her mouth, as if she’s envisioning the carnage.
“And even if I work for you after I flake on this mission, any job I get would then be given to me on your merit. Not mine.”
The ire coursing through my veins threatens to eat me alive. I respect her concern for her family, but if I’m not mistaken, her dear ol’ dad is the one indicating she might be neutralized.
There’s no concealing my defeat. “So, that’s your answer?”
“No,” she insists with a wistfulness that expresses her aspiration to strive for this. “That’s not … I want this to work. The thought of being yours is … everything.”
“You already are mine.”
She throws up her palm, rejecting that. “Unless I refuse to—”
“You are mine regardless.” I drop down before her, perched on a side table and peering at her from a position that is more submissive than I’d generally assume, but I need her to absorb this.
So, I tug her between my legs, my hands flanking her hips.
“You are it for me. I don’t know what that looks like if you …
but we need to figure it out. I have half a mind to chain you to my bed.
” I chuckle when her eyes flash with excitement.
“My filthy girl. We’ll back-pocket that idea for something fun, but not for a real solution. ”
“How much time do we have?” she asks, her fingers scratching my nape.
“Until the Prohibition Ball.”
She scoffs, brows buckling from the weight of indignation. “Three days?”
“Yes.” I hedge before deciding to add a little more. “That’s the last possible moment for me to claim you without it blowing up in our faces. I’ve already pushed it.”
“And to be yours in public, claimed, what would that entail?”
“Marrying me,” I tell her, and even I’m surprised by the elation ushering those words. The mood is somber, but I can’t snuff out my joy at the thought of her being my wife.
She pushes off my chest, putting several feet between us, the luminescent moonlight casting an angelic glow on her despite her clipped reaction. “No.”
“No?”
“That’s my answer.” She glares—the Zara from the gym mats, the Zara who held a gun to my ribs. “I’ll say coin if it’s confusing. Not like this. I can’t.”
I rise and pull her against me, unwilling to let her escape that easily. “Like what?”
“Like you have to—”
“Zara, you want to know why I said my Atlas tattoo only partially represented what I was trying to explain about carrying things for the people I love? Because Atlas was cursed. But I don’t feel cursed.
I feel guilty sometimes because after what happened to my mom, it would’ve been a deserving penance if raising my siblings felt like a curse.
Being a father to them—a far better one than I had, even when I was at my worst—has been the greatest privilege of my life. ”
A drop of anguish spills down her face. “This is—”
“You are no different,” I cut her off, swiping my thumb across her silky cheek and collecting her pain.
“Even if you were hired to take down my entire kingdom, I’d still deem you my greatest treasure.
Since the day you arrived, I’ve woken up with you on my mind and closed my eyes to the vision of your beautiful face.
And you’ve ushered my every step in between.
Marriage was always something I considered a burden.
Until you. With you, it would be a gift. ”
She heaves a sigh, putting more space between us as she stares out at the evening cityscape. She’s so striking here, looming over everything, like the regal goddess she is. “I’m familiar with how these organizations work. It means you’d own me.”
“In regard to my KORT position, my alliances, and your ability to leave me? Yes. I won’t sugarcoat it.
There would be no way out. Divorce is prohibited, which means there would be no way out for me either.
You’d own me just as much.” I shove my hands in my pockets, listening to the muffled din of all I’ve built, as if soulful blues were the melody for my entreaty.
“As far as my business goes, La Lune Noire, my family? You’d be an equal, my queen. And I’d be everything you need.”
Those green gems that sparkle with so much conflict and despondency search me in earnest. “You present it like … are you really offering me a choice?”
“I’m not sure.” I pull the long box out of my pocket, placing it in her hands. “Don’t open that until you have some time to think about things—alone. It’s not a ring. Obviously. I have one for you, but I won’t show you that until …”
I turn away, scrubbing my hand over my face, hating that this feels so similar to the days preceding my parents’ deaths. I can’t shake it, but it fuels me with the compulsion to lay it all bare, so I twist back to her.
“You indicated on your sheet and in things you said that a part of you wanted to be owned. That’s how this would be—you by my side, but mine.
Mine to spoil. To shelter. To tease and satisfy and lead beside.
To love. My greatest treasure. Yes,” I rasp on a shuddered breath, sweeping her satin locks away from her gorgeous, questioning face.
“I love you. So much that it hurts. I can’t seem to breathe or … Don’t respond to that yet.”
Her tears stream freely now, but she wipes them frantically.
I wish she wouldn’t. I wish she could fully unveil herself to me.
Crashing my lips to hers, I taste us on her tongue and nearly crumble from the majesty of it.
I’ll get lost here if I’m not careful, and that won’t serve either of us.
We both need a breather, so I press my mouth to hers once more before pulling back.
A shiver racks through her—either from the cool night air or the chilling reality shrouding us.
I remove my suit jacket and wrap it around her shoulders, wishing I could be the sole source of warmth for her. If only she’d let me.
Cradling her jaw, I tip her chin to me, our faces so close that I can still taste the kissed air between us.
“You want me to burn the world for you? I’ve got some experience with that.
Let me grab the gasoline. You want to burn it yourself?
I’ll buy you a solid-gold Zippo fit for royalty, gather the kindling, and carry you across the globe, cheering as you set it all ablaze.
We’ll drink cherry champagne and discuss our favorite books amid the flames.
Your dreams and your desires will become my only mission.
I will do anything for you, Zar. Anything. Name it, and it’s yours.”
My forehead drops to hers with a final plea before I walk away. “But don’t ask me to let you go.”