“Why?”
She closes her eyes. “Because I’m yours.”
“You’re lying. Open your eyes and make me believe you.”
She opens her eyes, but I’m taken aback by the pure spite in them. “I can’t do that, Eva. I can say the words. But I can’t make youbelievethem, because it will never really be true. But I’ll lie to you, if that’s what you want.”
The words are like ice water. She’s staring up at me, daring me to push her, and all I can think is: What am I doing?
What is this obsession withwinning, this need to conquer her, this constant demand for surrender?
“Lies will do,” I tell her coolly. I bury my fingers inside her and fuck her mercilessly, twisting my fingers to hit that spot that makes her cry out. “Come for me, my lying little bird.”
She does, bucking and shuddering, her cunt clenching hard around me. It’s a beautiful sight—the flush in her cheeks, the way her mouth goes slack, the desperate sounds she makes. When the shudders have subsided, I withdraw my fingers, bringing my fingers to my lips to taste her once more. The gesture is possessive, primal, and the way her pupils dilate tells me she understands exactly what it means.
You belong to me, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.
I straighten my clothes while she lies there catching her breath, taking perverse satisfaction in the contrast between my composed appearance and her thoroughly debauched state.
“You should clean up,” I say, voice once again cool and controlled.
She sits up slowly, reaching for her discarded sweater with shaking hands. I watch her dress, filing away every detail for later contemplation. The flush on her skin. The way she avoids my eyes. The slight tremor in her fingers as she buttons her jeans.
“Eva,” she begins, and I can hear the question in her voice. I turn away before she can finish it. But she won’t be deterred. “Why were you working so late last night?”
Because I can’t sleep in a bed without you. Because closing my eyes means seeing my father’s lifeless face. Because the only thing that quiets the chaos in my head is watching you on security monitors like some perverted voyeur.
“Business,” I say instead. Short. Final.
But Robin doesn’t take the hint. “Have you found out who took a shot at you in Paris? Or who might have killed your father?”
I turn slowly, my expression shifting to the glacial mask that’s served me well in boardrooms and back alleys alike.
“You’re here for one reason,” I say coldly enough to freeze blood. “Remember?”
She looks at me thoughtfully. “Of course I remember,” she says quietly. “To provide a release for you. Which…I haven’t. Yet.”
I turn and leave the library without another word, before I can give in and mount her frantically, or demand that she get on her knees and worship me with her mouth.
Because Ishouldbe satisfied. This is what I wanted—distance, boundaries, a clear understanding of what she means to me. Which is nothing. She means nothing.
And I want her to know that. But she just won’tlearn.
Alone in my study hours later, I stand before the stone hearth watching embers glow like dying stars. The fire’s heat does nothing to thaw the cold knot that’s taken residence in my chest since Paris. Since my father died. Since I sent Robin away and immediately regretted it.
I haven’t slept properly since all of that. Every time I close my eyes, I see my father’s lifeless face. Or worse—I see Robin’s stricken expression when I dismissed her. When I reduced her to nothing more than a paid whore in my bed.
But sheisnothing more than a toy, I tell myself. A plaything. A way to enjoy myself while I send hunters after my father’s killer, my own would-be killer, and I consolidate power in the Consortium.
That’s all Robin ever was.
But the thought sits so sharp and jagged that it’s too hard for me to swallow anymore.
I have to admit the truth, even if it’s just to myself. Because Robin Rivers is many things—naive, stubborn, maddeningly optimistic, completely desirable—but she’s notnothing.
She never was nothing.
In fact, she’s the only person who’s ever made me want to be better than I am. And I seem determined to crush that possibility under my heel like a cigarette butt.
