CHAPTER NINE #2
“Ms. Love,” the woman greets me, proving I’m not as anonymous as I’d hoped. She stands. “I’ll show you to his office,” she says, not even bothering to ask who I’m here to see.
“I know the way,” I reply.
Her red-painted lips curve ever so slightly. “He said you’d say that.”
“Of course he did,” I murmur, turning away from her, needing an escape from the sudden adrenaline rushing through me, I ignore the elevator to my left and head up the wide stone steps to my right.
This is it, I tell myself. One meeting. Then we are done.
Done. Done. Done. I repeat that word in my mind and stop at the top level, telling myself to find my Otherworld and step inside.
To be Agent Love. But this is his world, his place to command, and my Otherworld refuses to intrude.
Inhaling a breath meant to be calming, I puff it out with absolutely no change from one moment to the next in how I feel.
Screw it and just do it, I tell myself, cutting left down the hallway to the huge double doors, which are protected by a horseshoe-shaped desk with a familiar blonde as guard and secretary.
“Lilah,” Tabitha greets me as I approach, her demeanor—at least to me—as icy as ever, with a big ol’ stick up her ass.
But hey. If I were a Harvard-educated attorney who lost my license and was now playing secretary to Kane Mendez, who I want to fuck but who won’t fuck me, I might be a bitch, too.
Well, more of a bitch than I am already.
I stop at her desk. “You’re looking as Barbie Doll–ish as ever, Tabitha,” I comment, noting the total absence of lines in her thirtysomething face, which tells me that she, like most of this town, is already a Botox addict.
I flick her deep cleavage a look and return my attention to her plastic face. “Are your breasts larger now?”
“My breasts are natural.”
I smirk. “Right. Natural. Got it.”
She glowers and I dismiss her by walking past her desk and straight to Kane’s double doors, opening one of them without knocking and stepping inside.
I shut the door behind me and lean on the wooden surface while Kane sits in the center of a half-moon-shaped room framed by nothing but windows and water.
It’s a stunning view I doubt many notice but for the man behind the catercorner, massive cherry desk, his powerful presence dangerous to anyone who dares negotiate with him, let alone challenge him.
“Lilah,” he says, leaning back in his chair to study me, his suit a gray number, custom-tailored to fit him to perfection. His tie is a dark blue to match the thin pinstripe running through the material of his suit.
“Kane,” I reply, and while I intend to move, I do not, seconds ticking by until he is arching a dark brow in my direction.
“What are we doing, beautiful?” he queries.
“Lilah. My name is Lilah.”
“You told me to stop saying your name.”
“Semantics, Kane,” I say, crossing the large space between us while his eyes follow my every step. “Stick with Agent Love,” I add, claiming the leather seat in front of his desk.
“I do rather like the way that sounds,” he replies, his voice silk and sandpaper, and I have no doubt it’s by design as everything he does is by design. “Agent Love.”
I ignore what I know is a suggestion of one of the man’s many sexual appetites. “Tell me again where you were last night.”
He leans forward, hands resting on the desk, the air crackling sharply. “Lilah,” he reprimands me softly, throwing my Agent Love directive out the window.
“Were you really with Samantha Young?” I press.
“I have no reason to lie about something like that, while I have one very big reason, which is you, to tell you otherwise.”
More like he needs an alibi, I think. “Were you with her?”
“Yes.”
“From what time to what time?”
“Estimate. Six to eight.”
“Were you aware she’s dating my brother?”
“You mean she’s fucking him.”
“You knew,” I accuse.
“No, I did not. And obviously there’s more to your choirboy brother than either of us realized.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say, recognizing the raw nerve my brother opened as taking a direct hit.
“She’s corrupt and that’s not unknown in this town. You know this.”
“And yet you fuck her.”
“She’s a fuck for me. I know what she is and I really don’t care. If he’s telling you he’s dating her, that’s a different can of worms. There’s no way he doesn’t know what she is, which means he just doesn’t care.”
The sister in me goes to my brother’s defense. “Kind of like me with you?”
“Attacking me over my bloodline doesn’t change the fact that your brother is involved with her. That she’s letting him believe what they have is a relationship tells me she wants something from him.”
“And what does she want from you?”
“Things she will never have.”
“And from my brother?”
“Things you had better make sure she never gets.”
“Like what?”
“I have no idea,” he says. “But if he’s involved with her, he’s either fallen off his golden pedestal, or he’s being manipulated in some way.”
“He’s clean.”
“She’s not.”
“And yet you just got naked with her. What does that say about you?”
“Is that what this is about? Me and her? Because you’ve come back to that twice, now. Correct me if I’m wrong, which I’m not, but I believe you’ve been doing your share of the same with that blond Ken Doll in LA.”
“I’m not talking about you because of me.”
He arches one of those dark brows of his. “Are you sure about that?”
“This is Andrew’s case. I can’t validate your alibi without him knowing you were with her.”
“Tell him. If he is clean, even if he’s not, maybe it will wake him up.”
“And when he comes after you?”
“Ah now, beautiful. Do I dare believe you’re worried about my relationship with your brother?” He doesn’t give me time to issue an objection. “I can handle your brother,” he says.
“You aren’t an enemy I want him to make.”
“I’ll be gentle on him for you. You know how gentle I can be. If you want me to talk to him—”
“No,” I say quickly. “You say nothing. Let me decide how to deal with this. What if she denies you were with her?”
“There’s an interesting prospect. I guess I would be the one who was fucked then, now wouldn’t I?”
I inhale and stand up, walking around the desk to stand at the window, arms folded in front of me.
I don’t have to look to know the moment Kane joins me, close enough to establish dominance but not quite inside my personal space.
He knows exactly how to push the boundaries of those around him without going too far.
I stare out at the ocean crashing on the rocks beneath us, and remembering the way I’d once loved this view, and this man, is damn near suffocating.
“What do you want to know?” he asks, his tone soft but demanding, because he’s just one big demanding wolf of a man.