What the fuck type of game was she playing?
“What is going on?” Sinclair asked, looking from Jarvis back to me.
I handed him the file as the entire moment was frozen in time, every emotion I’d experienced over the last few days swirling around me.
“Fuck. If one of Russo’s enemies discovered the information, it would be a complete smoking gun. That had to be why Russo approached Pops.”
“What are you going to do?” Sinclair’s voice was muted given the ringing in my ears.
“Get some goddamn answers.” There was no cooling down, no ability to stop the inevitable. I took long strides from the room. Both Jarvis and my brother knew better than to try to stop me.
I rushed up the stairs two at a time, throwing open the door. She wasn’t in the bedroom, the bathroom door ajar.
The anger was to the point I could hurt her. Was that my intention? Honestly, I wasn’t certain at this point. She’d lied to me. The woman I’d shared more with than I had with anyone else in my life had lied.
The woman I’d hungered for…
Needed.
Craved more than any other.
Had. Lied.
When I barged in the bathroom, I was momentarily taken aback by her beauty and by the look of shock on her face. But something immediately told me that she knew why I was standing here and why I was furious with her.
She held the towel close to her naked body, her eyes searching mine. “What’s wrong?”
“I think you know. Don’t you,my angel?”
“You’re scaring me. No, I don’t.”
I ripped the towel from her, tossing it aside, exposing her beauty. The little vixen was cunning. I’d give her that.
She immediately covered herself as much as possible with her hands, the hint of defiance I’d so coveted when I met her returning. In watching her eyes open in fear, I should feel something. Anything. Right now, all I felt was contempt. I was finished with being yanked around by anyone and if she thought she could sweet-talk me or find clemency in some way, she was very wrong.
The rage was too intense. I wrapped my hand around her throat, shoving her against the wall. “You’re going to be honest with me.”
“What are you doing? Please. Don’t. Not like this.” She placed her palm on my chest and as with every time she’d done so before, I was momentarily lost in the closeness and the wash of white-hot electricity.
And in her.
The emotions returned, but they were tinged with the years of hatred.
I couldn’t allow her beauty or what I felt for her to shade the truth any longer. “You’re fucking royalty. A goddamn princess.”
“What?” She clawed at my shirt, her eyes searching mine. Hoping for some sense of calm. She was pleading for leniency.
She wasn’t due anything but my wrath.
I squeezed her neck, taking exasperated breaths. “You lied.”
“Alexander. Talk… to… me…”
Seeing her face, the redness drifting over her soft skin, feeling her rapid pulse and the fight still in her was stilling. I was locked in the moment, the need so intense I wasn’t the same man I’d been only a few days before.
Hating myself, I released my hold, yanking her by the arm and tossing her across the edge of the counter. Forcing us both to stare at our haunted reflections. “Tell me what you see, my angel. Tell me.”
“Alexander. What is going on?” Her eyes darted back and forth, the fear so intense that I was fueled by it, famished for it.
