“No,” I said outrightly, and he jumped to his feet, eyes narrowing down at me.
“What do you mean,no?”
“I don’t know, maybe because we can’t fly out of the jet in motion.” I said in a rather snarky tone. “Otherwise, we might not make it from jumping fifty thousand feet off the surface of the earth.”
This was probably not a good time for sarcasm to be thrown around. This was alarming and indeed, I should be gone.
‘He was just angry,’avoice in my head said. ‘He would never hurt you.’
“I told you.” Kenzo sat back down. “I told you I didn’t trust him. I told you I had a bad feeling. Now look, he almost threw a woman off a plane.” He looked at me for validation of his point. “Beth, he almost killed a woman. You are aware, right?”
“You were here,” I said instead, ignoring his question without meaning to. “What happened?”
“Are you for real?” he deadpanned. “Does it matter what she did?”
“Just tell me what she did,” I pressed, almost desperately.
“She touched him,” he answered, while keeping a skeptical eye on me. “He had dozed off, she came with wine, poured it in his glass and then she started touching him. Popped his first button and then his eyes snapped open, and before I could even blink, she was dangling off the jet.”
“What?” My mouth hung open, my mind reeling. “Just like that?”
“Yes.” He gave an affirmative nod. “Just like that, Beth.”
“That’s…“ I couldn’t put my thoughts together. “That’s insane, right?”
He wanted to throw a woman off the jet just because she touched him? I mean, touching someone without their permission was inappropriate and weird but giving the person instant death sentence was just too much?
He was going to kill someone? Would he have actually killed her? Zaghan had the capacity to kill a human without blinking?
Should I be scared of this man more than I already was?
???
“You are really going to wear it?” Kenzo’s voice was tight, unsettled and slightly irritated.
I shrugged, hooking the gold chain around my neck, admiring how the tiny, ruby-green pendant caught the light. “It’s just a necklace.”
“What?” he whispered, perturbed. I could feel his stare on me, sharp as a blade, heavy with questions he hadn’t asked yet. I had been avoiding this conversation since we arrived, but the weight of it loomed between us, thickening the air.
The private jet had landed on the rooftop of Right Angle Hotel and Suites, a place that, judging by the way the staff bowed and scrambled to accommodate him, the Raskovs likely owned.
Hedidn’t speak a word to me during the ride to my house. His eyes had been locked on his iPad, fingers flying over the keys like nothing else in the world mattered.
And yet, less than an hour later, one of his men had shown up at my door, silent and unreadable. He had handed me the small, pristine box without a word, his expression cold enough to freeze the air between us.
Even when I muttered a thank you, he didn’t answer. He only turned and strode back to the car, disappearing as quickly as he had come.
Unwrapping the box, I found a necklace inside it. I had never received a gift from a guy before, not even Rowan. This was the first time. It made my heart warm. It made me feel…special. And maybe stupid, it made me nearly forget how he wrapped his fingers around my throat barely an hour ago.
Now, Kenzo was watching me with something close to exasperation. And I hated that I knew what was coming.
“We need to talk.” His voice was soft, but no less firm.
I kept my eyes locked on the mirror as I braided my hair into two. “If I already know what you are going say, can you like, not say it? Let’s pretend everything is fine?”
He scoffed. “Obviously, you can’t be serious, right?”
I didn’t respond.
