“Okay, hold up.” Closing her eyes, Aria pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off the coming headache. “You’re trying to convince me that Killian is a good guy by telling me the story of how he bought your virginity and then sold you to my father?”
“Well, when you say it like that, it loses some of the romance,” Lottie said with a pout.
“Because there is no fucking romance there, Lottie! Do you really think a guy who goes around buying women off the internet so he can take their virginities is a good man?”
Oh, god. Did he have some secret virgin fetish? Had he known somehow that she was a virgin?
No. Impossible. It wasn’t like women came with a stamp to certify they’d never been fucked before.
Still. The thought that she’d inadvertently fed into some mob boss’s weird obsession…
“It’s not like that,” Lottie insisted. “He told me later he never intended to sleep with me. He’d just been ‘buying’ women because he figured they needed the money and he wanted to help. I promise, Ari, he really is?—”
“I swear to god, if you say he’s a good guy one more fucking time, I’m going to scream.”
“All right.” Her father’s voice, low but firm, cut through her internal turmoil. “Clearly, this was neither the time nor the place for this conversation. Aria, I understand your concerns, but I am asking you to trust that I would never endanger my club or the people in it by inviting someone with truly questionable morals into my space.”
She knew that tone. It was the one he employed when he was done talking about something, regardless of whether she was done talking about it.
“Fine. I’m going to go mingle.”
Stomach churning with a mixture of hurt and rage, she turned on her heel and strode away, doing her best to ignore the prickles of guilt at Lottie’s tearful, “I’m sorry, Braden.”
What the hell was she apologizing for? Telling the truth?
Fuck. What if her dad was pissed at Lottie for telling the truth? Would he punish her? The thought of Lottie enduring any of those painful looking implements she’d found in his office last night because of something she’d done made her want to puke.
But before she could turn back around and demand that Braden leave Lottie alone, a hand clamped down around her upper arm.
“We need to talk.”
It took every bit of self-control she possessed to stop herself from turning around and slapping him right across his stupidly chiseled face as he guided her out of the ballroom to a secluded little alcove well away from prying eyes. The second they were out of view, he spun her toward a wall, his arms like a cage on either side, trapping her. Killian O’Rourke, one of the most dangerous men in the city, had her up against a wall, caged and helpless.
And she hated herself, more than a little, for finding that so fucking hot.
“You lied to me.” Fury burned in his eyes, turning the green to blazing emeralds.
Insult jabbed at her, stoking the fires of her own anger. “I did not.”
“Last night. You wouldn’t tell me your name, because you knew I wouldn’t touch you if I knew who you were.”
There was some truth to that, not that she was about to admit it to him. Instead she jerked her chin up, refusing to be cowed. “You didn’t give me your name, either.”
“That’s different. I wasn’t hiding.”
“Weren’t you? Because I never would have locked myself in a room with you if I’d known you were a fucking mob boss.”
Amusement flickered in his eyes, and it did nothing to cool the flames of her fury. “I wouldn’t have expected Braden’s daughter to be so… pious. Desmond, yes, but I thought Braden would have raised you better than that.”
“I suppose it’s a good thing my mother raised me, then.” Even as she said the words, guilt twisted in her stomach. Her father had been as present as humanly possible in her life, and here she was, painting him as some deadbeat absentee dad.
“Maybe it is a good thing,” he murmured, pulling one of his hands away from the wall to trace a finger down her cheek. “If you didn’t hate me, I’m not sure I could keep my hands off you. And I very, very much need to keep my hands off you.”
“Why?”
Why the fuck do you care?
“Because. There aren’t many people in this world I can call a true friend, and Braden Elliott is one of them. And defiling his daughter on a regular basis would put something of a strain on our relationship.”
