CHAPTER 2 ROHAN
ROHAN
In Rohan’s line of work, there was significant overlap between the art of negotiation and the art of war.
If at first you did not succeed, you chose a different pressure point and tried again.
Personal matters, however, were a different sort of beast, which was precisely why Rohan had always made it his policy to avoid attachments of any kind.
And then there was Savannah Grayson.
She slammed Rohan back against the wall the moment he stepped into the room she and her twin had claimed aboard the yacht on which all of them had been sequestered for hours.
Savannah’s eyes locked on to Rohan’s. “I told you to stay away from my sister.”
She had indeed—rather forcefully. Technically, Gigi was the one Rohan had approached about an alliance, the one he’d asked to accompany him back to England, but Savannah had wasted no time in shutting that down, and it was clear from the way she had been standing guard over her sister’s sleeping form that to get to Gigi again, Rohan would have to go through Savannah.
The prospect was not without appeal.
“You told me a lot of things.” Rohan smiled, a pointed smile, one meant to get a rise out of her.
Refusing to take the bait, Savannah dropped her hold on him. “I told you good-bye.”
In those words, Rohan heard shades of others she’d said to him before. You do not get to decide whether or not I betray you. All you get to decide is whether you are really that scared. Of me.
“I have a proposition for you.” Rohan let his gaze linger on Savannah’s. “One that I would wager you do not want your sister to hear.”
Wagers made. Deals struck. That was how this thing between Rohan and the formidable Ms. Grayson had gone, almost since the beginning.
“The answer,” Savannah said, her voice sharp as diamonds and clear as glass, “is no.”
Rohan glided forward and angled his head down. “Is it?” he murmured. “Because my proposition involves Brady’s sponsor—and what said sponsor offered you.”
What Savannah had been offered was the location of a body.
Her father’s, to be specific. And all she’d had to do to earn that information was find a way to take Rohan out of the Grandest Game.
Ultimately, Savannah had rather mystifyingly chosen not to betray him, but she had won the game.
Rohan had lost, and that might be enough to earn Savannah the information she sought.
Having baited the hook, Rohan swept out of the room. As he wound his way through the yacht, as Savannah deigned to follow on his heels, Rohan wondered if she’d even once flashed back to the moment when he’d slipped his dice into her hand. The moment he’d given her the win.
What choice, he’d asked her in the aftermath, did I have? Right from the start, what choice did I have with you?
Rohan had an hour at most to win her back to his side now.
The dead of night lasted only so long. One way or another, dawn was coming, and thus, Rohan lost no time leading Savannah back to the last place the two of them had truly been a team: the yacht’s hot tub.
Champagne bottles that had been nestled in ice during the game lay at the bottom of the adjacent pool now.
“That’s the thing about ice,” Rohan said without turning around. “Barring freezing temperatures, it always melts.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Savannah said behind him.
“The laws of thermodynamics?” Rohan quipped.
“The melting of ice. A change of heart. Last I checked, neither of us has one to change.”
There you are, winter girl. Rohan turned back to face her. “You’re here, aren’t you?” he said. She’d followed him. This wasn’t over. They weren’t.
“I didn’t take you out.” Savannah cut straight to the heart of the matter. “I won. Who’s to say Brady’s sponsor would feel she owed me anything for that?”
“Who indeed?” Rohan replied.
“Even if I wanted what she had to offer,” Savannah continued, “even if I thought an argument could be made that I’d earned it, I wouldn’t need you for that.”
“You know where to find her, then.” Rohan played along. “Zella.”
“You mentioned her once during the game. You also mentioned that she’s a duchess.” Savannah deployed a pointed smile. “How hard could a duchess named Zella possibly be to track down? I’m betting there’s only one.”
“And yet…” Rohan took a step forward just to see if Savannah would step back. “The Hawthorne heiress’s head of security hasn’t managed to find her.” Another step. “Ask me how I know.”
Savannah didn’t so much as blink. “You’ve been keeping tabs on them. Avery’s people.”
Rohan had been on this yacht for hours, and he’d put his time to good use. “The heiress is still MIA,” he informed Savannah. “They haven’t found a trace of her, and for what it’s worth, I would wager that they won’t be keeping us here past dawn.”
“They’re just letting us go?” Savannah challenged. “All of us? Even me?”
Rohan reached into his jacket and pulled out a single sheet of paper, presenting it to her with a flourish. “Even you, love.”
Savannah ignored the term of endearment. “What’s this?” she demanded.
“The nondisclosure agreement they’re going to be asking us to sign.” Rohan arched a brow. Your move, Ms. Grayson.
A lesser mortal’s eyes might have flashed, but Savannah’s composure was as much a weapon in her arsenal as Rohan’s charm was in his. “I won’t be signing anything,” she said.
“I would wager that you will.”
“No more wagers.” Savannah took a step—a rather aggressive step—toward him. “I’m not playing this game with you anymore, Rohan.”
“Want to bet on that?” Rohan knew he was pushing his luck, but luck was meant to be pushed.
“The NDA doesn’t say anything about your father or his death.
It covers the duration of the Grandest Game and our time spent aboard this yacht, and that is all.
Now that you’ve lost the element of surprise, Avery’s people clearly don’t consider you much of a threat. ”
That barb drew blood. Savannah’s delicate upper lip curled back from pearly white teeth.
“And Jameson Hawthorne just as clearly considers you his lapdog,” she retorted.
“I assume he offered you money to help him find Avery, starting by finding out what the duchess knows about the so-called Watcher?”
That was, in fact, exactly what had happened.
“And you doubtlessly agreed,” Savannah continued mercilessly, “because heaven forbid you have to rely on a promise from me.”
Rohan had relied on Savannah’s promise—when he’d given her his dice. “Without Avery Grambs,” he pointed out, “there is no prize money for you to give me.”
“I don’t care about Avery, and I don’t care about the money.”
One of those things was true.
“You never wanted the money,” Rohan replied. “You wanted to be heard. You wanted to make the whole world listen to you.” He cocked his head to the side. “You still do.”
This time, Savannah’s eyes did flash, like lightning striking ice. “How would you know the first thing about what I want?”
Rohan’s mind went unbidden to the last time they’d kissed, soaking wet and treading water beneath a dock. Savannah’s shoulders had been bare, her pale eyes all fearlessness and frost.
I decide, she’d told him then. Not you.
“You aren’t in the habit of wanting things.
” Rohan’s voice came out quieter than he’d meant for it to.
“You set goals. You achieve them. End of story. Perhaps you still want your revenge against Avery and the Hawthornes. Perhaps you do not. But I would wager a great deal you’ll want that decision resting in your hands and no one else’s. ”
You see, love. Rohan willed her to feel the heat in his gaze. I do know you.
“If I had any interest whatsoever in wagering with you, Rohan, which I do not, I would wager that the reason you are so desperate for money has something to do with the Mercy.”
The Devil’s Mercy was an institution of unspeakable influence, part gambling club, part secret society—and the only home that Rohan had ever known.
He’d been raised in the halls of the Mercy, had risen through its ranks doing everything he could to prove himself a worthy heir to a legacy that stretched back to the Regency period.
Once every generation or two, control of the Mercy passed from one Proprietor to the next.
At the moment, all that stood between Rohan and the only thing he’d ever wanted was the little matter of ten million pounds.
Jameson had promised Rohan that money if and only if Rohan helped him find Avery, starting by luring the duchess out and wringing every last bit of useful information out of her.
And if Rohan could, in the process of doing so, also find a way to disqualify Zella as his competitor for the Proprietorship, all the better.
The Mercy was power, and if Rohan played all of this exactly right, that power could still be his for the taking. “I’m hardly desperate, love. Desperate men rarely come out on top.”
“You don’t say.” Savannah arched one delicate brow. “How much would you like to bet that I’ll find the duchess at the Mercy? You obviously consider her a rival.”
During the game, Rohan had given Savannah a few select truths about who he was, but she didn’t fully know what was at stake for him. She didn’t know that he was playing not merely to return to the Devil’s Mercy but to lead it.
She had no idea what it took to wear that particular crown.
“You’re welcome to try to find the Mercy, of course,” Rohan told her, “but it’s remained hidden for centuries, plural. Even if you could find it, you’d never gain access, and even if you did, I can guarantee you the duchess won’t be found until she wants to be found.”
Without the Mercy, Rohan was nothing. And without the buy-in that would win him the throne, Rohan would never step foot in the halls of the Devil’s Mercy again.
Go on, love. Take the bait. Ask me.
“And what,” Savannah said, “could possibly make the duchess want to be found?”
Rohan knew then that he had her. “Leverage.”
“What kind of leverage?”
Rohan smiled. “The kind we’ll need your sister’s help to obtain.”