CHAPTER ELEVEN MineHis
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mine or His
Secrets have a scent. And his smelled like leather, whiskey, and blood. Sinfully dark.
The bookshelf slid back into place with a muffled click, but the sound shattered the silence as if I’d just been shot in the chest.
My fingers trembled as I wiped them against my dress. As if they could erase what I had just touched, what I had just seen.
The room still existed behind that wall, even if I pretended it didn’t.
And I had left the papers untouched, yet I knew too much.
Too much to sleep. Too much to breathe properly.
Like a loaded gun. And the worst part?
I wasn’t sure whether it was aimed at him… or me.
Shit. What more was he hiding? How many of these… terrifying secrets did he have?
I ran a shaky hand through my hair. Knees threatening to collapse.
Then I heard it.
Approaching footsteps.
I quickly shut the door to the red room and turned just in time, when a shadow stretched along the dimly lit corridor outside the library.
My breath hitched. Still in the wrong place. Still too close to the truth.
I turned just as the heavy door creaked open.
Elena.
Her wide brown eyes flickered between me and the bookshelf, but she didn’t speak right away. The silence carried its own accusations.
What did you see?
Do you know what happens to people who dig too deep?
But she didn’t say any of that. Instead, her voice was a breath above a whisper, “Miss… you should return to your room.”
Not 'What are you doing here?’ Not 'Should I call for help?'
Just that.
And that’s when I realised—Elena was neither friend nor enemy. She was something worse.
A bystander.
She knew exactly what kind of man he was. And she did nothing.
“Is he looking for me?” I asked, my voice even despite the chill creeping up my spine. I damn well knew he wasn’t at home, so whatever kept my skin attached.
Her fingers tightened around the fabric of her apron.
For a moment—just a moment—I saw something flicker across her expression. Regret? Pity? Fear?
“Not yet.” A pause. Then, even softer, “But he will once he’s back.”
A shiver slithered down my spine.
He will.
Elena was right.
By the time the summons arrived, I had already been waiting for it. It didn’t make sense, how I’d been messed up throughout the day, thinking about the inevitable. I wonder if Elena snitched. Knowing her loyalty to him, she would. She should.
Yet only a few words left her mouth. “He wants you in his office.”
I should’ve run. I should’ve burned this house down.
Instead, I rose from my chair, exhaling slowly.
Into the lion’s den, then.
The air smelled like fresh-cut roses and wealth when I made my way downstairs, and it made me sick. The walls were lined with the kind of artwork people killed for. The chandeliers dripped with more money than most would make in a lifetime.
And the man who owned it all?
A monster wearing a tailored suit.
The study was warm, dimly lit, thick with the scent of leather and whiskey—like power wrapped in something deceptively soft. It smelled like him. Strangely his. Unmistakably his.
He was sitting behind the massive wooden desk, sleeves rolled up, exposing forearms lined with veins and… scars. Scars that didn’t look like accidents.
His whiskey glass sat untouched beside him, the ice melting into golden ruin. How long had he been sitting there, waiting? Thinking? Deciding what to do with me?
And then there was him.
Terrifyingly beautiful in the way only monsters could be.
It was strange that his face wasn’t just striking—it was sculpted by something cruel, something that had no interest in kindness.
A brutal kind of beauty, too sharp to admire without bleeding for it.
The scar that slashed across his cheekbone didn’t take away from it.
It cemented it. Made him something carved from war and wrapped in tailored silk.
A predator in his den.
A god on his throne.
And me?
Just a little thing, trespassing in his kingdom.
His eyes lifted.
The warm room suddenly turned cold, and I unconsciously tugged at the edges of my dress. His gaze pinned me in place, slowly travelled from my feet to my legs, and then settled over my face. Unhurried. Gauging. As if he were deciding not whether to kill me, but how.
And I realized something.
Men like him didn’t raise their voices to scare you. They lowered them.
And right now? He wasn’t saying a damn thing.
And somehow, that was worse.
“You're late,” he murmured, not even bothering to hide the hunger in his eyes.
I wasn’t. I had arrived exactly on time. But I knew this game. Knew what he was trying to do.
I still had doubts about whether Elena had told him something, but if she hadn’t, I couldn’t risk getting caught.
I swallowed the sharp reply that burned my tongue. “You didn’t specify a time.”
His gaze narrowed. Sharpened like a knife, he wanted to stab me in my chest.
“I didn’t think I had to.”
Something cold slithered down my spine. But another part of me—one I didn’t recognize—rose. Fuck that.
“Maybe next time, be more specific,” I muttered, hoping he wouldn’t hear, but he did. “It’ll save us both the confusion.”
For a second—just a second—something flickered in his eyes.
Amusement. Interest. A lion humouring a rabbit, letting it think it had room to run.
Then, in the space of a breath, he stood.
The chair scraped against the floor as he rounded the desk. Not hesitant—never hesitant. He moved like a man who had never been denied anything, a man who had never learned what it meant to ask.
And then he was in front of me.
Close.
Too close.
My lungs forgot how to function.
The air shrank to nothing. Collapsing in on itself like a dying star, pulling me into its gravity before I even had a chance to resist.
Heat licked up the back of my neck.
I felt it everywhere—the sheer force of him, the quiet dominance in the way he took up space as if even the walls bent to his presence. My stomach tightened. My fingers twitched at my sides, desperate for something to hold on to, something to keep me tethered.
Leather and spice— invaded my senses.
My knees locked.
But still—I didn’t move.
Didn’t step back.
Didn’t flinch.
Even as he raised his hand and his fingers brushed my chin, tilting it up with a touch that was both lazy and possessive, like he had all the time in the world to undo me.
Even as his thumb ghosted along my jaw, his skin was impossibly warm against mine.
Even as my body—traitorous, foolish—shivered beneath his touch.
“You've been restless today,” he mused, his thumb skimming along my jaw, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.
I forced my features into something close to boredom. “Maybe I just don’t like being locked in a mansion with a man who refuses to use words when he has them,” I murmured.
His lips curled in a sharp real smile.
And it was the most dangerous thing I had seen all night. Or my life. It was the first time I’d seen him showing this kind of emotion.
“Careful.” His thumb traced the curve of my lower lip, lingering just enough to make my pulse slam against my ribs. “You're starting to sound brave.”
I met his gaze, refusing to look away. “And that would be a problem because…?”
His fingers flexed against my skin. Just slightly. Just enough to remind me who was in control here.
Then, just as suddenly, he let go.
Stepped back.
And smiled.
“Because, Dolcezza,” he murmured in sin and leather, “bravery is such a fragile thing in the wrong hands.”
Mine, or his.
I didn’t want to find out. Cause in the end, some women collect memories. Others collect scars. And I was about to collect both.