Chapter 29
COLE
Forty mill—that’s what I paid for the Soutine. It’s worth a lot more than that to me, because it’s the first painting I ever bought.
No one could ever say the bleeding carcass is beautiful.
But it’s raw, in every sense of the word.
It’s powerful. When I saw it in a New York gallery, it reminded me of the first fight I ever saw in juvie—the loser’s ruined face, certainly, but also the winner, the animal barely kept hidden by flesh and clothes and rules.
We’re all meat inside.
Kate eyes me, clearly calculating how much she’s willing to pay to make her point. It takes a full minute before her fingers shift on the letter opener, relaxing just enough that I know my painting’s safe.
“Fuck you,” she says, trading one attack for another that’s far more familiar.
I shrug. “You can pay that way too. What’s your asking price, for a full night in the dungeon?”
Her blush really is extraordinary. It starts at her throat, just a hint of a rosy glow. It deepens, though, as it spreads to the tips of her ears, washing out her freckles until her cheeks resemble coral.
I wonder how dark her nipples are right now. I imagine how dark her flush will grow if I ask.
She plants her hands on her hips. “Am I yer feckin’ prisoner?”
Irish thickens her voice, making her sound wild, like one of those sheep that clings to sheer cliffs with nothing more than willpower and the curl of four sharp hooves.
She’s supposed to be a mob princess—pampered, sheltered, and bred to marry off.
But she’s something stronger. Something a million times more willful.
I take care to meet her sparking gaze. Lowering my voice so she has to catch her breath to hear, I say, “You’re my wife.”
I watch the word hit her, same as my palm against her cheek on that sidewalk up in Boston. She’s doesn’t want to want this. She doesn’t want to comply. But something inside her craves the world I’ve opened up before her. Something inside her soars.
She has to clear her throat before she can speak. “That’s no answer.”
It is, and she’d know that if she wasn’t so intent on fighting me for every inch of ground. I shrug and clarify my terms. “You’re free to come and go. Until you give me a reason to lock you up.”
Resistance is woven into the cells of her body.
It’s the only way she’s found to keep from drowning in the cesspit where she was raised.
I understand that. I lived that. Her fingers tighten around my letter opener again.
“Yer waitin’ fer that,” she says, her voice drenched in Ireland again. “Lockin’ me up.”
Something primal inside me rises to the challenge. “As much as you are, girl.”
We aren’t laughing now. I’m not teasing. I’m not calling her my dear, joking about her temper, her language, her drive.
Girl is what I called her downstairs when I tied her to the cross. Girl means she took my cat o’ nine tails, fighting to hold the wooden knobs. Girl means she is mine.
I watch shame and pride blend on her face, swirling into equal measures of disgust and desire, of denial and need. That one word—girl—slaps her harder than any other blow I could deliver.
She can lie now, deny she ever wanted punishment. She can put up a wall against last night, claim she was unwilling every step of the way.
Instead she twists the gold ring I slipped onto her finger in front of her clan, her priest, and her God. Stammering, she says, “I— I want to see my Granny.”
That’s not a fighter’s demand. That’s a child’s request. She’s frightened—of me, of us, of losing control over the world around her.
I could tell her no. I could pinch her neck and shake her like a trapped rabbit. I could march her downstairs this very minute and make her pay for threatening the Soutine, even though she didn’t cause it harm.
But I don’t.
I flash my hands over my keyboard, locking down the various screens where I’m monitoring a dozen client matters. I take special care to close out the email I received last night, the threat to disclose my record.
Pushing back from my desk, I twitch my pants into place, doing my best to ignore my cock’s interest in this negotiation. I’m running a business. It doesn’t get a vote.
Walking together down the hall, our footsteps are loud. The air is fresh outside, warm, and for just a moment I wonder why I’m still working behind a desk when I have more money than I could spend in a thousand lifetimes.
I shove down that thought almost as soon as it surfaces in the graveyard of my brain. Money is how I keep score. That’s it. Plain and simple.
When we reach the heavy brick posts that anchor the gate, I automatically glance at the mirrors.
The street is clear to our right. Halfway down the block to our left, a trio of girls huddle over a cell phone, elbowing each other to get a better view of the screen.
Their plaid skirts and white blouses mark them as middle schoolers at St. Ignatius, around the corner. Not a threat.
My palm is steady as I set it against the white biometric pad. I lean in so the green laser can map my eye. The gate glides open the width of my shoulders.
Kate plants her fists on her hips. “I want my own access.”
The defiance in her glare makes me glib. “I’m sure we can work out appropriate payment.”
She blushes again, which was purely my intention. Pushing past me with an exasperated huff, she snarls, “You’re a right arsehole, aren’t you?”
The schoolgirls look up, immediately captivated by the promise of drama. I scowl because I prefer avoiding attention from anyone—even children. “Careful,” I warn Kate.
Her eyes gleam as if she’s just discovered a target far more valuable than my Soutine. “Careful of what?” she challenges.
“Stop calling attention to yourself.” I should know I’m waving a red cape in front of a bull.
“That wasn’t calling attention,” she argues. “This is calling attention.” She stomps to the precise center of the street. The girls have forgotten their cell phone. They’re gaping like they have front row seats at a Taylor Swift concert.
Kate looks at them. Looks at me. And then, with the precision of a jeweler carving a hundred-carat diamond, she enunciates in a voice that can be heard three states over: “Shove your fucking payment up your hole, shitehawk.”