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“I’m not here for that.”
Color rushed into her cheeks.
“You kissed me back.”
“Aye. I did.” The admission scraped going out. “And now I’m stopping.”
Her head quirked to the side as her brows knitted in confusion.
“You don’t owe me your body because I offered help,” I said. “You don’t owe me a kiss, sex, gratitude, or anything else. You stay out of trouble. You keep pretending you’re doing Delgado’s business while I figure out how to get you out of this mess.”
She stared at me as if she didn’t know what to do with that.
Maybe no man had given her the choice before.
Maybe she’d expected me to take what she offered.
Maybe she was just very, very good at manipulating men.
I didn’t wait to find out.
I turned for the door.
“Lachlan,” she called out.
I stopped with my hand on the knob.
When I looked back, she was still sitting on the desk, skirt twisted, palms braced beside her hips, looking like a woman caught between shame and relief.
That image would not help me sleep.
“Stay away from Xyst,” I said. “If Delgado asks, tell him we’re rattled. Tell him whatever keeps you breathing. But do not come to my club again.”
She nodded once.
I opened the door and stepped into the hall before I changed my mind about any of it.
Nothing about that meeting had gone the way I expected.
I’d come to threaten a liar.
I’d left with a hard-on, a headache, and a woman I might have to save.
It would’ve been easier if she’d kept her claws out and her eyes dry.
But no.
Nothing in my life was ever that simple.
Chapter three
Istayed exactly where Lachlan Byrnes had dropped me, listening as he walked down the hall.
Even after everything I’d said and done, the man hadn’t backed down one bit. He’d walked in and owned me.
The nerve of him.
The fucking nerve.
