Rome’s mouth twitched.
“No bodies. Yet.”
I shifted my weight, letting my shoulder hit the doorframe. “Good. Because I have a question.”
His gaze slid over, defensive already.
“The girl. Who is she.”
“Dynasty daughter.” His jaw tightened. “High-ranking. That’s enough.”
“You want to tell me why a DuPont dynasty daughter was in your fantasy suite. With a private booking under someone else’s name.”
Nothing.
“You want to tell me why you looked like someone had taken a swing at your heart when you saw that door closed.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, same tell he’d had since he was five.
“Rome.”
He swore under his breath.
“She was waiting on me. Alright?”
There it was. I exhaled through my nose.
“Let me get this straight. The girl those two thought they could corner is Charlotte DuPont.”
For a moment there was a silence.
“Daughter ofthoseDuPonts.”
Still nothing. I dragged a hand down my face. “You do realise there isn’t enough blood pressure medication in the world for me to keep up with you idiots.”
His eyes narrowed. “What idiots.”
“You, sneaking off with a DuPont princess to my clubs. The twins falling in love with an Adams dynasty daughter. I swear, if there is a woman on this planet who doesn’t come with a nuclear-grade last name, one of you is physically incapable of wanting her.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it.”
He glared at the floor.
“She okay?” he asked. He wouldn’t met my eyes. That is when I know it is bad.
“Shaken. She hit the panic. Staff got there fast. They pulled her before anything irreversible. Med cleared her.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Let me guess. She was waiting in that room for you. And you were late.”
He flinched.
“So.” I pushed off the frame. “Two things are true. One, you owe her an apology. And two,” I added, switching back to Crow dialect for the last part, letting the heirs hear the sound if notthe meaning, “next time you quietly claim a girl like that, you tell me. So I know how hard I’m allowed to hit the men who touch what’s yours.”
He looked at me, shoulders dropped a fraction. The rage was still there. Under it, something that looked a hell of a lot like I felt every time Madeline walked into one of our buildings and the air changed.
