is simple.” He released his hold on her and stepped back. “But we will survive it. As will Aden. If we do it right, he will thrive. This is about him. Not about us.”
Her heart was thundering in her temples, her head spinning. She put her hand over the place where his fingers had been. Her skin was hot, not to the touch, but beneath the flesh. Inside of her. She’d never felt anything like it before. Didn’t understand how it was possible.
“On that we can agree,” she said, aware, painfully, that she sounded breathless. That she was breathless.
“Then perhaps we can put a halt on the dramatics?”
“When you put a halt to your douche-baggery.”
Dark brows locked together. “What is this word?”
“It means you’re being a jerk. But more than a jerk even,” she said. “Worse.”
“No one talks to me like this,” he said, his tone firm, not imperious. He was simply stating a fact, and she wasn’t all that surprised by it. She didn’t know why she felt empowered to speak to him like that. Maybe it wasn’t empowerment so much as a need to push him away. Anger was safer than the pull she felt toward him. Much safer.
“No one who has any idea of how to act in polite company talks to people the way you do,” she said.
“I spend a lot of time outside of polite company.”
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Clearly.”
“Our discussion is through.”
“What about dinner?”
“Suddenly, I am thinking I might take it in my room. Or an enemy prison. Either is preferable.”
“You... You...”
“I will set up an account in your name. You will be paid a generous salary. I will be meeting with the press tomorrow.” A sudden rigidity came over him, his body tensing, his jaw tightening. “Aden will not be brought outside, but he will be in the smaller meeting room with the members of the media who possess special passes. You will hold him for the duration of the interview, but you will not speak.”
“I will not speak?” she repeated, incredulous.
“No one will be asking questions about string theory which means it will not be necessary for you to do so. Now, you are dismissed.”
“I am dismissed?”
“You keep repeating me. It wastes time.”
“I’m...I can’t believe you’re...dismissing me.”
“You didn’t want to come and eat with me in the first place and now you’re complaining that you don’t have to?”
“Unbelievable.”
“I concur.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Not on the same thing, I don’t think.”
“Very likely not.”
“Do I at least get dinner in my room?”
The look he gave her was almost comical in its seriousness. “No. It’s bread and water for you, or nothing. Same as the rest of my staff. Didn’t you know we’re barbarians out here in the desert?”
“Be serious.”
“I am. Be careful or you might wake up to find yourself leg-shackled to my bed.”
It was as if a conduit had powered up between them, sparking to life and sending heat and energy on an invisible path between them. It held her in its thrall, forcing her to look into his eyes, dark, fathomless and magnetic. Completely and utterly compelling. And then it was as though the electricity had found a way beneath her skin, traveling along her veins, wrapping itself around each fiber in her body.
She couldn’t look away, even though she wanted to—needed to.
And then the image he’d evoked suddenly hit her, clear as day. Her, tied to the bed, with his large, muscular body looking over her. Absolute strength. Absolute power. With her completely helpless, at the mercy of a man who possessed no tenderness.
A surge of fear overrode the strange electricity in her blood, snapped her out of her trance.
“You are...despicable,” she spat.
“Perhaps I am,” he said, dark eyes unchanging, unflinching. “I have been called a great many things, it’s not inconceivable that some of them are true. It’s very likely most of them are.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Why should I care what anyone thinks? I was created to get results, no matter the consequence. I was not designed to win public favor, but to keep my people safe. By any means necessary. The grit to do that does not come from a beautiful place. Damn my image. It is worth nothing.”
“But you...you’re the leader now. Your job isn’t the same as it was.”
Black eyes turned to ice. “I am only the stop gap. I’m only here until Aden can step into his position. Not a moment longer.”
“And what about Aden? You’ll be his closest family.