The drumbeat is back behind my eyes, throbbing harder and louder and drowning out everything else. Suddenly my world is upside down and I’m carried off, my brain too busy banging against my skull to notice.
“Nighean milis,sweet girl, look at me.”
I open my eyes, chest heaving, and look around. Lachlan’s carried me into their greenhouse. It’s blissfully quiet aside from the faint hiss of the water misting the orchids.
“Ah, there you are,” he looks pleased, as if I’d done something more complicated than open my eyes. “Here, drink this.”
Blindly taking the flask from him, I nearly spit out the first mouthful. “Scotch? What is wrong with you? I almost died from Scotch, remember?”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he chuckles, taking it back and finishing it himself. “A good Scotch is a restorative.”
“Not for me,” I shudder.
“Aye, it appears Macallan will be your undoing ‘till the end of time.” Setting the flask aside, he pins me with a searching look. “The color’s back in your face, that’s good.”
“Who’s got the paperwork?”
“I have it here,” he pulls it from his tux jacket. “Let’s read it later. That vein throbbing in your forehead might explode if you have any more stress.”
“First, flattering about the vein thing, and second, I need to know. Please, Lachlan.”
It’s the ‘please’ combined with a complicated flutter of my eyelashes that makes him relinquish the envelope with a sigh.
Scanning the contract quickly, my heart sinks.
“That son of a bitch. Thatbastard.”
“We can have our legal team look at it-” he starts.
“We have a top-notch legal team of our own,” I hiss. “Who I will be sacking the second I get home. They prepared this contract without my knowledge or Zed’s. This is airtight. The cartel willargue that it doesn’t matter if he’s dead, Uncle Bastard was the figurehead of the King Syndicate when this was signed.”
“Now you know what we’re dealing with,” Lachlan takes the papers away, folding them and sliding the envelope back in his jacket. “Nothing is airtight, baby. Now. Spend the rest of the night celebrating with me, and we’ll feck him up tomorrow, aye?”
I don’t miss the “we” and it’s comforting, though any plan of Lachlan’s will likely involve a funnel cloud of chaos we may not recover from.
Still.
“Tomorrow,” I nod. “Let’s go dance.”
Chapter Seventeen
In which Aria resents Lachlan’s easy charm. Does anyone else remember the whole married at gunpoint thing?
Aria…
When I wake up the next morning - okay, more like noon – but in my defense it was averylate night, the bed is empty, the pillow next to me is cool. Why am I feeling a little disappointed by this?
There is a note on my bedside table.
My bonnie bride,
I have some business to take care of this morning. Why don’t you take your brother and sister out for some sightseeing and we’ll go out to dinner later.
You taste delicious, by the way.
L
My cheeks heat up like I suddenly sparked a fever and I groan. Is his dirty talk on a note enough to do this to me?
