In bad moments, I was on the verge of tears from frustration and confusion. Sometimes, I remembered how Adrian confessed how vulnerable he was, how he was becoming a changed man, and how intimate and wonderful last night had felt—only to then jerk around to the utter silence of the day. If he had gone back tosomethingthat was business-related, something that threatened his empire, would the King of Diamonds, the mask, return?
No, I wasn’t feeling so much confusion as I was soul-crushing sadness. The cynical journalist in me, a professional mask in its own right, had been right all along. Adrian might have truly wanted to change, but at the end of the day, he was a ruthless billionaire. He wouldn’t want to change when he realized what kind of sacrifice that might entail.
“Delilah!”
No way.
My head whipped around as my heart lurched, struggling to keep up with what I was taking in. I sawhim.Adrian, of all people.
“Come,” he said, nodding his head to a nearby conference room.
Too confused to process anything, I went into the conference room, my hands shaking, my legs wobbly, my mind struggling to be certain that the man before me was in fact Adrian Valeand not one of his brothers or even a Morril. Thank God it was evening, at least. No one else in the office would see this.
Which would be a very King of Diamonds move.
That sobering thought slowed me down just enough to take full stock of the man before me. He was a man of seemingly contradictory messages. On the one hand, he wore a very nice gray suit with gray pants and a white button-down. He didn’t have a tie, but he sure as hell had those diamond cuffs on.
On the other hand, there was no amount of dress or makeup that could hide how exhausted—perhaps even desperate—his eyes appeared. He was shaved, but with visible bumps and irritations, as if he’d hurried through his shave. His lips were contorted into an overly controlled, taut expression, one that someone who didn’t know any better would think was ice cold, but I knew better.
This was a man who had come not as the vulnerable, handsome man from the night before, but as a man who knew he had fucked up today somehow—and rather than make it right, he was trying to smooth things out. Perhaps I was being too harsh for only having said two words, but if I was to listen a bit more to the doubting journalist, I needed to believe my gut reaction.
“Been a long day, huh?”
“Not even an apology,” I said, folding my arms. Adrian’s eyes widened, but I would not cut him any slack. Not when I could see which man stood before me. “You know why I’m here? I could sit here and tell you that, unlike some people who have more money than the city government, I don’t get to choose when I have to focus on work.”
I should have bitten my tongue. King of Diamonds or Adrian Vale, this was too hard, too mean-spirited a remark. But the anger that had built in me today, the feeling of betrayal and being used, all boiled to the surface in the harshest words Icould find. And as it turned out, this journalist had some strong editorials to unleash.
“But that’s not the truth. I couldn’t even tell you a damn thing that I’ve done at my desk today. I came here because I needed to be somewhere comfortable. Why? Because I was so uncomfortable, so hurt by your complete silence.”
As if to prove a point, what followed in the next few seconds was exactly that. When I realized that Adrian had nothing to say, I went for the kill.For whose benefit?
“Funny, isn’t it? You claimed to have changed. You claimed that, and I believe these were your exact words, ‘you are invaluable. I intend to show you how you are invaluable. How you are priceless.’ Lovely words. Lovely enough for me to go to bed with you last night. Yet I guess something in your world came up that youcouldput a price on. I guess your empire, King of Diamonds, was more valuable. And you couldn’t even make a phone call, let alone a fucking text.”
That was… a lot. Too much, even. I didn’t cry often, and I was not about to cry here. But the last words I spoke came out a bit choked up, and it was too plausible to think if I’d talked another half-minute, they’d come out tearful.
Adrian took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and exhaled. When he opened them, they were… fiery. Focused.
Ruthless.
The last thing I needed to see. In a different time, I might have found the intensity of those eyes almost intoxicating. But just as wine for dinner and wine at four in the morning produced very different feelings, this wasn’t intoxicating so much as it was sickening.
“Something came up with the Morrils, Delilah,” Adrian said.Of course. The fucking Morrils. You care more about them than you do me.“I had to take care of them for the sake of us.”
“Who’s us? You and me? Or your family?”
“I—” Adrian took in another deep breath, obviously stung by what I said. “I must protect everything, Delilah. I must protect everything we have.”
A non-answer, spoken by the self-proclaimed King of Diamonds. Well, at least I wasn’t on the verge of tears anymore; now I was on the verge of shouting so loud, someone in a nearby office might come and make sure everything was alright.
“Must you?” I said. “No, don’t answer that. I know youmust.Youmustdo what youmust.But we? There’s no we in this, Adrian.”
I paused. Was I sure this was the path I wanted to take? Was I sure I wanted to go scorched earth here?
Yes, yes, I fucking was. I’d been left out to dry all day long. I’d given Adrian what was most vulnerable about me, most intimate about me last night; I’d given up a great deal of ethical ground; and I’d let myself go down a path I swore I’d never go down before. And what had been the response?
There had been none.
If that didn’t deserve torching, then I didn’t deserve to be the firebrand of a journalist I claimed to be.
