“Um, yes. And the fact that he threatened to have my father killed if he tried to take me home with him.”
Sighing, Reagan shook her head as the air fryer beeped to let them know the food was ready. Plating their snacks, she carried them over to the island and slid onto a tall stool. Aria took the seat next to her and reached for a mozzarella stick.
“I know it’s hard for you to understand, but Killian really does have your best interests at heart. And, well, he did give you and your father a whole business week to prove you could protect yourselves. Honestly, he showed more restraint than I would have under the circumstances.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t have waited, for starters, and if I did give you the chance to prove you were taking your safety seriously and you failed to… Well, let’s just say you wouldn’t want to be sitting on that hard wooden stool.”
Heat crept into Aria’s cheeks. “So you’re a Domme?”
“I am. A Daddy to the core, like my brother. And like my brother, I take my loved ones’ safety very seriously.”
“Killian doesn’t love me.”
Reagan snorted. “You keep telling yourself that, honey.”
“Men don’t kidnap the women they love, beat them, hold them hostage, and threaten their family members.”
“Maybe not in your circles. But in ours, that’s basically a marriage proposal.”
“We had one night together. You can’t fall in love with someone after one night.”
But even as she said the words, they rang hollow. Hadn’t she been thinking how easy it would be to fall in love with him after that first time, when she’d been snuggled in his arms after having been fucked so thoroughly and perfectly she couldn’t even think straight?
That was before you knew the truth about him. And it just proves that love at first sight is a ridiculous fairytale.
The mini internal lecture did nothing to settle her jumping nerves. Or her sneaking suspicion that there might be more truth to Reagan’s words than she wanted there to be.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Killian
Aria refused to come down for breakfast. Which was fine, he told himself as he stared out the window of his office for the fiftieth time that morning. If she wanted to be stubborn, he could wait her out.
Probably.
Annoyed with himself for moping about like a lovesick teenager, he forced his attention back to the spreadsheets in front of him. Something wasn’t lining up, but he couldn’t pinpoint the fuck-up. There was a time he would have just called Braden to come look things over with him, but for obvious reasons that was no longer an option.
Perhaps Murphy could find the discrepancy. He was good at that kind of thing, almost as good as he was at telling him exactly where everything could possibly go wrong in any given plan. If Killian couldn’t figure out the problem by lunch, he’d call his cousin.
He’d just gone through another column of numbers when his phone buzzed. The guard stationed at the front gate. Frowning, he hit the button to answer. “Yes?”
“Ah, sir? There’s a very angry blonde woman here demanding to speak with you.”
Curiosity nudged annoyance to the side as he brought up the cameras on his computer and grinned at the sight of Cordelia Summers with her hair pulled up in her usual high ponytail glaring up at the camera.
“Let her in. She’s not a risk.” Or she might be, but likely in a way that would be more amusing than actually harmful.
Hanging up the phone, Killian buzzed for fresh coffee to be brought into his office and closed out all his spreadsheets and locked his computer. By the time he had everything secured, Cordelia was there, bursting into his office like some sort of avenging fury.
“Ah, Delia.” Picking up a fresh cup of coffee from the silver tray on his desk, he held it out to her. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“You used my boy.”
Guilt, an emotion he was becoming uncomfortably familiar with these days, washed away his amusement. Because it wasn’t just anger in her tone, but hurt and betrayal as well. “I did. And I regret that it was necessary.”
“So you don’t regret putting him in the middle of this shitstorm between you and Braden?”
