I shift, fidgeting with the hem of my dress. Liam’s hand tightens on my waist instantly. He breaks off his sentence about the cliffs of Moher and turns to me.
“What is it?” he wonders.
“Nothing,” I mumble, looking down at my lap. “Just…sounds nice. Traveling.”
His intensity ignites my nerve endings. He leans in, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “Don’t worry your pretty head, Luv. I’ll be takin’ ye to Ireland someday. I’ll show ye the world.”
I beam at him. “Promise?”
He kisses my nose. “I promise.”
Breakfast ends, and Nana excuses herself to head to her B&B, declining Liam’s offer of a driver. Maybe she has a stealth helicopter waiting on the lawn.
As soon as the heavy oak doors close behind her, the air in the foyer shifts. The coziness evaporates, replaced by the questions scratching at my throat.
When Liam rises, I quickly stand and step before him. “So,” I start, crossing my arms over my chest. “A ‘wee bit of conversation,’ was it?”
Liam stops, his hands sliding into his pockets. God, why does he have to be so roguishly handsome? It’s disarming. Especially with a few of his curls falling along one cheek. He stares at me with that maddeningly calm expression. And half-predator. “It was, aye. Just getting to know the family.”
“You were sharing inside jokes about guns and security and the freaking Da Vinci Code,” I point out, stepping closer. “And she threatened you, didn’t she? What did you say to her before I came in? And don’t tell me it was nothing.”
“It was nothing you need to worry about, Luv.”
I pinch my lips together. “The overprotective, secretive trope where you have all the answers? Really, Liam? We’re doing that one?”
His gaze is sinful, the kind that signals danger. “Is that a complaint, Lexie?”
“It’s a critique of your character development.”
“Is it now?”
Before I can blink, he moves and forces me backward. I stumble, but he guides me, backing me out of the foyer and into a shadowed alcove tucked behind a tapestry. It’s a small, intimate space, dim and smelling of stone and dust.
My back hits the cool stone wall, and Liam is there, pressing his body against mine. He doesn’t stop. He grips my waist and lifts, effortlessly hoisting me up until my feet dangle and I have no choice but to wrap my legs around his hips. A gasp catches in my throat.
“Well then, Luv,” he murmurs, his face inches from mine. “To avoid the dreaded controlling mafia boss dynamic, would it surprise you to know I’ve been burning up the chaff of my business? Gleaning the good things, cutting away the bad?”
I blink, breathless from the sudden shift. “What?”
“I haven’t lost me money, Lexie.” His unflinching voice sets my heart pounding. “I’veevolved. I stopped moving drugs and started moving semiconductors. I stopped selling weapons to cartels and started investing in cybersecurity and global logistics. I turned a smuggling empire into the most efficient, untouchable shipping network in the hemisphere.”
He tilts his head, his eyes smoldering into mine. “I’m still rich as a god. But criminals…they don’t like change. That’s why they came for me. Not because I failed, but because I succeeded in leaving them behind.”
I stare at him, processing. He didn’t just inherit the darkness. He’s transforming it into something strictly…gray.
Arousal ransacks my insides. “Why would that surprise me? You’re you.”
He searches my face for doubt, but he’ll find none. “Disappointed I’m not the bad boy criminal in your books?”
I lean in, brushing my lips against his. “Maybe one of my favorite tropes is theredemptionarc.”
“Hmm…” He trails his lips along the sensitive column of my neck, sending shivers racing down my spine. “What other tropes do you love, Elexia Carter?”
“Um…” I mumble, my brain short-circuiting.
He slides his hands down from my waist, skating over the silk of my dress. “Oh, you can do better than ‘um’, Luv. Wait…”
He pauses. His hands have moved beneath the hem of my skirt, expecting to find lace or cotton. Instead, they find…bare skin.
