My stomach hollows out. I shouldn’t have asked. “What happens if this uncle finds out you’ve been fooling him? Isn’t that dangerous? Would he hurt you?”
He shifts in his seat. “Not if all goes to plan,” he says. He notices me wince and actually smiles. I think he’s just glad to have proof that I can still care about him. “It’s going to work out fine. I’m just helping Katarina start a new life where she can’t be exploited. I hope you see now why I’m doing this.”
I’m already shaking my head. “No, I don’t see. I don’t see at all,” I say, still angry but not necessarily at Duke. “How could your so-called friends get you involved in something so… so damn reckless. They’ve put you in danger.”
“It was my choice and I have my reasons,” he says stubbornly. “I’ll admit it’s gone on far too long and become far too complicated, but I wanted to help Katarina. I still do.” He closes his hands into fists then forces them open again. “She’s just being a little uncooperative right now.”
My jaw drops. “Oh, this gets better. The woman you’re trying to rescue is refusing to cooperate? Make that make sense, Duke.”
“It’s just her way. It’s how she’s been brought up by her uncle,” he tries to explain. “You’d know what I mean if you met her.”
“And will I meet her?” It’s the last thing I’d want, but I have to ask, “Does she know about me?”
“God, no,” Duke says quickly. Too quickly.
When I stare at him for too long, the hulk of a man in front of me bows his head and stares into his coffee.
I lean forward. “Given your relationship is supposed to be a charade, I can think of only two reasons why you’d want to keep us apart. Either you’re lying to me…”
His head snaps up. “I appreciate I’m a long way from winning back your trust, but fuck you, Grace. I’m not spinning you some story to get into your bed.” His thick neck cords. “Katarina and I arenotinvolved beyond what I’ve already told you.”
I don’t cower from his searing gaze. “In that case, you’re keeping us apart because you think I need protecting. Would I be in danger if Katarina’s uncle thought you were cheating on his niece?”
Duke moves his mug to the side and reaches across the table. He doesn’t try to grab me. He splays out his hand, inviting me to meet him halfway if I dare. “I do want to protect you,” he admits. “But only because I don’t want Katarina knowing I have feelings for you, and if she saw the way I look at you, she’d know.”
I blink hard. He’s just admitted he has feelings for me. And OK, maybe that should be obvious by now, but still. He said it out loud. This should be some warm, fuzzy moment between us, but it isn’t. Not when we’re talking about Duke’s fiancée. “She’d be jealous?”
“She’d be cruel and vindictive just to see how we’d react. She likes drama,” he says, making me wonder again why the hell he’s helping her. “But if I thought you were in any real danger, I would have let you leave yesterday. Hell, I would havemadeyou leave. The greatest threat is Vasili, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care who I fuck. Only who I marry. And I’m guessing you and I aren’t at that stage yet.”
It’s hard to tell If the rush of heat sweeping up throughmy body is fueled by fear or the implication that at some point, we might want to talk about marriage. I can’t allow that thought to take hold. This man might have taken up residence in my soul for the last year, but we’ve known each other for what amounts to only a few days.
“I will clean up this mess,” Duke promises. “Vasili has given Katarina a deadline of getting married before her twenty-first birthday. That’s the six-week deadline.”
Damn, she’s even younger than I thought.
“I don’t…” I don’t know how to process what he’s telling me. “What the hell did you expect to happen yesterday?” I ask. When his features scrunch and he fights a smirk, I know exactly where his thoughts have slipped. He has his own damn list. I try again. “What do you expect of me now?”
“I thought we could do what we did in Philadelphia.” He waits for my cheeks to heat up before he adds, “I thought we could contain what this is within these four walls,” he adds, then deflates with a sigh. “But that was unfair of me. Fake fiancée or not, I should have known better than to put you in this situation after what Cameron did to you, so I promise here and now that I won’t hit on you. All I ask is that you don’t write me off just yet. Can you do that? Will you stay? Please.”
The tears welling in my eyes make my vision shimmer. I have a choice. I can end this nightmare now, or I can hold out for the dream ending. With Duke. For my sins, I still want the possibility of him.
My voice is barely a whisper. “OK.”
“Good.” Duke turns his outstretched hand over, palm facing upwards, waiting for mine. A smile I know I shouldn’t trust pulls at the corners of his mouth. “I miss you, Angel.”
“Duke…” I warn, holding myself tense in case my body overrides my good sense.
“It’s just holding hands,” he reassures me.
The last time our hands were entwined, Duke was inside me. He knows that. My pussy knows it too and clenches around a memory.
“I promise I won’t fuck you. I won’t even try to kiss you, not until Katarina takes that rock off her finger,” Duke says, using the same tone of voice he used when he invited me up to his room and told me to take what I needed. “But the very second she takes it off, we start ticking things off our lists.”
My fingers tingle and an electric charge runs the length of my arm. For my sins, I want to take what I need right now, but the fates stage another intervention when Duke’s office door swings open abruptly.
“I knew I should have locked the fucking door,” Duke mutters under his breath.
I’m ready for him to yell more expletives at Ed, but when I turn, there are two men behind me. They’re built like warriors, not quite to Duke’s scale, but just as devastatingly handsome. Their suits are sharp and tailored, although the younger of the two looks like he slept in his. His flame-licked hair is unruly and he has noticeable stubble along his chiseled jaw. The other man is perfectly groomed.
