Page 78 of Brutal Heir

If I thought I could lie and get away with it, I would. But she could call that preening twat Édouard and hear the truth herself.

“No,” I admitted with a smirk.

“You’re impossible,” she huffed. Snatching the suitcase handle, she wheeled it toward me. “Please get out of my way.”

I wasn’t moving. And she wasn’t getting past.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Her lips thinned as she pushed her chin out. “To the airport. My mother was right. It was a mistake to come to Paris.”

“I’ll take you,” I offered.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust you.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

She adjusted her bracelets. “Yes, the very least.”

I grasped her arms gently. “Please, let me do this for you.”

With a resigned sigh, she nodded. “Fine, but only because your driver has my bag, and it’ll take forever to get a taxi in this weather.”

She had said yes…but why?

She was finally being quiet and obedient.

Perhaps too much so.

I nodded, slipping my phone from my pocket as she turned to collect her purse. I texted my staff, instructing them to prepare my private plane.

New York was out of the question.

Sabrina’s fate was sealed.

She was coming to Italy with me, and that was final.

CHAPTER 21

SABRINA

The moment the car door shut behind me, regret clawed at my chest.

This was just a ride to the airport. No more dangerous than stepping into an Uber. If only I believed that.

The air turned colder as Sebastian slipped in from the other side. A gust of misty rain followed him before the door closed with a soft thud. He rapped his knuckles against the roof, and the car rolled forward.

I stared out the rain-streaked window, which blurred the usually vibrant city into a dreary watercolor.

It was hard not to find Paris a little depressing when it rained.

Outside the usually bustling cafes, the iron bistro tables were empty, their plastic wicker chairs stacked under the pulled-in awnings. Parisians with umbrellas and tourists caught without one hurried past one another with hunched shoulders, mindful of the slick pavement.

I pressed my fingertips to the cold glass, gazing at the city, a magical world I wasn’t ready to leave.