“But I’ll still be locked up.” I’ve never been claustrophobic, but the walls feel like they are pushing against me. Gilded or not, a cage is a cage. “I can’t. I can’t stay here all the time. I have a job, Rem. I have to go to work.”
Our faces are only a foot apart. Rem’s eyes narrow just a fraction, but I catch it. And the emotion buried in them. Suspicion.
“No,” he says.
“Yes. It’s my job. I can’t just never go back.”
“What about your job is so important you need to risk your life for it?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Irritated, I push at his shoulders. He doesn’t budge. “How about the main reason why people do their jobs? Because they need money. I need to make money, Rem. That’s why I work.”
“I’ll give you money.”
“What—?” I push against his shoulders harder and Rem steps back. His expression is troubled, like he’s trying to figure out a puzzle with a piece missing. “You can’t just give me money.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s, that’s—” I flounder, not knowing which answer to pick. That it’s weird? Inappropriate? Not something I want between us? “Just, no. I’m not taking your money.”
Rem’s frown deepens. “Many women would just say yes, take the cash, and go online shopping.”
I get up from the chair, tired of being loomed over. “I don’t know what other women would or wouldn’t do. And it doesn’t matter, becauseIam not taking your money. I’m working.”
Even though I’m standing, Rem still towers over me. He uses his body as a weapon in conversation, a physical force to drive home his point. And he’s not backing off this one. “Whythatjob, Lena?” His voice has taken on a rougher edge, snagging on this specific part of our conversation. “What aboutthatjob is so special you won’t give it up?”
Because it was my way into a new life.Working at the symphony put me in the path of the people I needed to know, the ones that only the wealthy and privileged music students from my college were invited to meet, never us lowly scholarship kids.
That job was how I got my name on the audition list, how I finally managed to get a chance to show them I’m good enoughto join the orchestra. It was how I was going to finally, finally have a real shot at starting a career as a professional violinist.
Except, I missed the audition because I was watching my aunt’s house burn to the ground.
And I can’t even think about playing, not since my violin was destroyed by whoever turned over my apartment.
That dream, like everything else in my life, has gone up in smoke and gunfire.
I don’t say any of that to Rem. Instead, I confess something that feels even more secret. “Because right now that job is the last part of my normal life still standing. It’s the one way I have to earn money. And money is freedom. And because this”—I wave my arm in the tight space between us— “isn’t forever. You might want to keep me safe and in your life for now, but I have to be able to look out for myself when I’m back to being all alone. Money in my bank account is the best way I can think of to do that. So, I’m keeping my job, Rem. It’s that simple.”
Rem captures my hand, the one wearing his ring, and uses it to pull me closer. He doesn’t touch me anywhere else, but it feels like he’s anchoring me to the earth when my nerves are strung so tight I might spin away. “I won’t abandon you, Lena. I’mnotgoing to abandon you. I won’t leave you alone with nothing. But…”
He pauses, taking my concerns into consideration. “I understand what you’re saying. If you need to work, you can work. But until we can eliminate the threat to your life, you need to do it from here. I’ll talk to Bianca. I’m sure there’s something you can help her with, something you can do on a computer from here. If that’s what’s really important?” He tips my face up with his free hand, watching me intensely as I consider his offer.
He’s giving an inch, yet it feels like a mile. And it makes me even more unsettled than before. Even more suspicious about the circumstances that have brought us together.
I can’t not ask again: “Why were you in my apartment that night? What are you even doing in my life?”
“Lena—”
“No.” I retreat across the bedroom until there’s enough space between us I can breathe without inhaling his scent. “No. You want me to do all these things, you’reorderingto do all these things—to stay locked in your house, to leave my job, to follow your rules, totrustyou, but you won’t answer my question. There’s no reason for us to know each other. No reason for our paths to have ever crossed.”
Standing a safe distance away, I let the full force of Rem Cosenza hit me, and have to force my knees not to crumble under the impact.
It isn’t just his height or the muscular build of his body. It isn’t the way his dark hair curls so temptingly at the base of his neck, or the flash of fire in his equally dark eyes, or the play of ink that flutters across his forearms as he digs his wickedly talented fingers into his hips.
To me, this hard-edged man has been like a guardian angel but, seeing him in his natural habitat, I’m acutely aware everything about him screams danger.
He reigns over a dark, violent world, capable of unleashing great violence himself. He handled the sniper riffle like it was a kid’s toy. Almost stabbed the Russian with a standard-issue cocktail pick, bar accessories lethal weapons in his hands. I’d be a fool to think those talented hands aren’t just as skilled at doling out torture as pleasure.
Add that to all the fancy clothes, fancier cars, and fanciest penthouse, and it’s painstakingly clear that Rem and I are from entirely different worlds. Yet somehow,somehow, this dark king has decided, for no reason I can see, to keep little, insignificant me safe in his heavily fortified castle? With some bonus bone-melting orgasms on the side? I don’t think so.
