I draw in a deep ragged breath as I try to calm my racing thoughts.
I feel another person enter my space. It’s the way the air shifts and heats. “What are you doing?” a rough voice asks, the low timber making me shiver.
My hands stop and I ball them into fists to keep from tapping. “Waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
I force myself to open my eyes, which is a mistake. I am eye level with trim Italian dress slacks that hug a pair of masculine hips and powerful thighs. But it’s the bulge in the crotch that has my chin snapping up.
My eyes clash with the dark, bottomless gaze of Ryker Smith. I gasp in a breath, pressing back in my chair as my hands cross over my chest, clasping together.
He’s not classically handsome. His features are harder, craggier, with a crook in his nose, slashing brows, and hard, prominent cheekbones. But somehow, all his features come together to make him so appealing in this completely dominant male way. He scares the shit out of me.
His arms cross over his chest too. But his is a power move where I for sure look like a frightened child.
“Answer?” His deep voice makes me jump.
“Answer what?” I stutter out, swallowing down a lump.
The cut between his brows deepens. “What are you waiting for?”
“You.” I gasp out not understanding what we’re even talking about.
His eyes narrow into slits as he continues to stare at me like he’s learning my soul. “Are you attempting to be fresh with me?”
I don’t understand the reference. I’ve spoken English all my life and I’ve watched a lot of American television, so I know plenty of cultural slang but in this moment, what the wordfreshmeans escapes me. “Like fruit?”
His mouth opens and then closes and then his face gets even harder. “My men think you were counting cards.”
I stare at him, wishing I’d rehearsed some version of denial before I ended up in his office. I do so much better when I practice. “That’s illegal.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
Ryker is a tall man, he towers over me even when I’m standing. But sitting like this, I feel so vulnerable. “And besides. We’re about to be family.”
“Yes. Yes, we are.”
Since he hasn’t directly asked if I was or I wasn’t stealing, I don’t directly answer. Is this a technicality? Yes. Yes, it is. But I’m not very good at lying either so I’m avoiding it. Not that he looks like he believes anything I’m saying. “Did you know this was my casino?”
His change in tactic has my head spinning again. “No,” I answer softly, the truth ringing through before I’ve had the chance to think about whether I should have admitted that or not. Shit.
“Did you think it was still your brother’s casino?”
I actually feel the blood drain from my face. This had been Dimitri’s casino? This is so bad.
“And how did you manage to be out alone this evening?”
I nip at my lip. He knows I should be locked in my luxury apartment. A prisoner. He helped put me there. “Oh…you know…”
“No. I don’t. Why don’t you tell me.” And then he leans against his desk, which somehow does nothing to diminish the masculine lines of his body. If anything… I look away.
I’m so screwed, it’s almost comical, if I wasn’t bordering on hysterical. “Are you going to let me keep my earnings?”
“No.”
I gasp, pushing up from my chair, my chin notching. I’d put everything I’d saved into this casino. If he doesn’t give any of it back, I’ll have nothing. “But my money!”
“You should have thought of that before you tried to steal from me,” he answers, his jaw hard enough to cut glass.
