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It did not because I picked up on what was going on: she wasn’t relaxed and she was still trying to make sense of all of this. And I didn’t blame her for that.

If I was in her position, I would have done exactly what she was doing now.

I watched her pause in front of one of the wooden storage cabinets in the living room. Her fingertips skimmed the surface once and I noticed that she clocked the decorative bowl and two art books. What she might not have known was that I’d had my team remove the obvious objects before bringing her here.

Not because I feared for myself, but because I preferred not to test whether she would use them.

The kitchen feed rotated onto my screen and she appeared in there a second later. My chef, Marta, had already set out coffee, fruit, eggs, and toast under silver cloches that would have been appropriate in a too-expensive hotel.

She just stood there staring at the cloches as if something underneath it might bite her. With a slight shake of her head, she turned to coffee that Marta had also made several minutes ago and looked through my cabinets until she found a mug to drink from. She poured the coffee herself and, to no one’s surprise, she didn’t add any sugar or cream, even though Marta had set both within reach.

She held the mug in her hands as her eyes moved across the room. It was like she was mapping the place to probably figure out a way to escape, but she couldn’t. I’d made certain of that before she ever stepped foot in this place.

Sutton lifted the mug and turned it once in her hands before she drank. My first thought was that maybe she was weighing whether or not the coffee was poisoned, but decided that it didn’t matter anyway and took a sip. Her eyes immediately closed as the warm liquid traveled through her body and I saw a small smile form on her lips. I bet her favorite coffee tasted delicious after what she’d been through.

That smile lasted no longer than a millisecond. She killed it the way she shut down everything else I tried to give her, but that didn’t take away the fact that I’d seen it. I leaned back in my chair and let myself sit with that for a moment. The warmth of the coffee hitting her body and a small, involuntary admission that something in this place had reached her.

It was a small crack in the exterior of the walls she’d had around herself. And I was determined to take that as a small win in my favor. That was enough for now, but at the end of the day, my goal was to snatch every barrier she put between us, brick by brick.

Sutton set the mug down, lifted one of the cloches, and stared at the eggs like she’d done the coffee. Even while hungry, exhausted, and after days on the run, she would not simply accept what was offered from me. She ate eventually and I assumed it had more to do with the fact that she was starving versus willingly giving in to me. I watched her finish every bit on her plate.

When she was done, she moved to take her plate to the sink just as Marta entered the kitchen. I made sure to turn the volume up on my monitor so I could hear if anything was said between the two of them.

“I can take that for you, ma’am,” Marta said politely.

Sutton’s hand tightened on the plate for half a second before she released it. “Thank you,” she said. Two words, clipped, but not cruel. She handed the plate over and stepped back, putting distance between herself and Marta the way she’d put distance between herself and everything else in my home.

Marta did not press her any further because I’d instructed her not to. She washed and rinsed the plate, set it aside, and moved toward the refrigerator to begin her next task. Sutton watched her for exactly six seconds before she shifted her gaze. I wondered if she was going to strike up a conversation with the only other person in the room, but she didn’t. She simply turned on her heel and carried her coffee back toward the living area.

I was curious to see if she was planning on hanging out there, but that quickly changed when I saw her walk through the living room area and head toward the hallway once more. She wasted no time making her way back to her room and closed the door behind her.

I watched as she stepped into the room and closed it behind her, then I looked at the time. Sutton had spent about eighteen minutes outside of her room on the first morning inside of my home. In that entire time, she’d basically given me nothing to go on in the time she’d decided to grace the rest of my house with her presence. There was no emotional reaction, no questions to Marta and no acknowledgment that the coffee was the exact blend from her favorite coffee shop. She had eaten the food, drunk the coffee, and retreated to the room I had given her like it was any other day rather than all of this taking place in the most expensive penthouse in Manhattan.

I turned the volume back down and leaned forward to rest my elbows on the table. I replayed the last eighteen minutes over again in my head and I landed on the fact that I was irritated. It wasn’t that she’d done anything wrong; however, I’d been hoping for more to feed into my desires surrounding her.

I’d long ago accepted that this woman had gotten under my skin even before we’d officially met. Never in a million years would I have thought I would have had a woman stay over, let alone have her living with me. A personal rule of mine had been to never have “company” over. Every woman I’d ever been with had been taken to her own place or a hotel suite I’d booked for the evening and she had to sign an NDA to boot. But Sutton had forced me to change this rule because there was no way I was letting her completely out of my sight for the time being.

The speed in which she forced me to pivot a plan I’d spent years working on spoke to how adaptable I was. It also showcased my will to get what I wanted. Her movements and motives weren’t entirely predictable and I knew flexibility would help me in the long run.

I sat up and stretched, something my body desperately needed from staring at these feeds for so long. The movement felt great, but I winced slightly because of the tenderness I still felt from being struck with a paperweight. It annoyed me slightly because I didn’t need my body to remind me of the moment I hadn’t anticipated what she would do and, as a result, I was left surprised and on my office floor.

I needed to have Nancy, my assistant, schedule a follow-up appointment with my private doctor. As if summoned by the thought, my phone vibrated against the desk. I glanced at the screen and saw Declan’s name. The thought about my physician would have to wait.

“Declan,” I answered. “Tell me whatever this is is worth interrupting my morning.” I had more important things to do, like watch Sutton.

“There’s been a development with the Wold acquisition,” Declan said. “The numbers don’t make sense. Someone’s been moving money out of the subsidiary accounts before we close the deal.”

I leaned back in my chair, but my eyes were still on the screen even though Sutton’s door remained shut. “How much?”

“Eight figures, low end. But that’s not the problem.” He paused and if it wasn’t Declan, I would have thought it was for dramatic effect. “The problem is who. We traced the routing back through three shells, and the last one connects to Vincent Marsh.”

That name pulled all of my focus in a way Declan’s opening had not because now I was suddenly very interested. I should have known Vincent Marsh was sniffing around this deal. Vincent did nothing without a reason, and his reasons always cost someone else dearly. He was the kind of man who circled a deal the way vultures circled something that wasn’t quite dead yet. The fact that he was somehow involved in moving money out of accounts I was about to own meant he either knew something I didn’t or he wanted me to think he did.

Both possibilities required my attention and now I was fully engaged.

Vincent and I had a history that went back the better part of a decade. We didn’t interact regularly, but every so often, he would stick his head up and remind me that he still walked this planet. He was the kind of man who thought he was clever because he understood the mechanics of money but had never grasped the architecture of power. The best way I could describe how he tended to move was like a man who tried to check a king before he assessed the rest of the pieces on the board. His main motive was more money and he didn’t understand that money was a tool while he treated it as if it was the final destination.

“Where is he now?” I asked.