A door sat to our left, and I was too busy eyeing up the man in front of me to pay much attention to anything else.
The man was cute, around Jacob’s age, if I had to guess, maybe a few years younger. Light brown hair cut short to his head, with a pair of bright hazel eyes that seemed to stare at me a bit too hard. Unsettling, to say the least. Square jaw, a bit of muscle. No tattoos anywhere to be seen under his tight black clothes. Black seemed to be a staple around here. He looked like he belonged here, and yet he bore absolutely no resemblance to Vaughn.
“I take it you’re Jaz,” he said, sounding both interested and disinterested at the same time, quite a feat.
“Yes,” I said, feeling a bit awkward. I knew this guy wasn’t Markus; who the hell was he? Was I going to meet all of Vaughn’s brothers or something before I’d be able to see him? This guy didn’t look related to him, but I guess you never knew…
The man’s mouth pursed, and he turned away from me, saying, “Follow me.” He walked with a purpose to the door just before the left staircase, pushing inside and holding it open with his feet, allowing me to follow him in.
An office greeted me, an office filled with dark mahogany wood, bookcases that were built into the walls and a desk that looked like it’d take five people to move. If this office didn’t scream rich, I didn’t know what would. Old, sophisticated, refined. This was nothing at all like the Fitzpatrick house.
Two leather seats sat before the desk, and I slowly met the dark, soulless stare of the man sitting behind it. Wearing a black suit that hugged the muscles underneath, a red undershirt and an equally black tie, Markus sat, almost unblinking as he stared at me. His hair was black, an inch or so long, styled to the side. His wide frame was leaning back, but when he knew he had my attention, he leaned forward and gestured to one of the seats opposite him.
I gulped, taking the seat, because what the hell else was I supposed to do? God, I already wanted to run out of this room and never look back. I might like Vaughn, and I might like Dante, but there was just something about Markus that made me want to crawl inside my own skin. Like, somehow, he was the devil himself, made man, evil incarnate.
That was probably an exaggeration, because he was, in the end, just a man, but I couldn’t help it. Markus unnerved me in the worst way, and I felt myself wanting to squirm in my seat, uneasy as he stared at me with eyes that were darker than black. Absolutely colorless.
“Thank you, William,” Markus spoke, folding his hands across his desk. It was not a messy desk, no papers or pens lying haphazardly around; everything in this office was neat and orderly. “Go fetch Vaughn. By the time you come back, I assume we’ll be done here.”
The hazel-eyed man who’d brought me into the room nodded and said nothing as he left, leaving me alone with Markus, the exact thing I did not want to be. I mean, look at the guy. Who would want to be alone with him?
You’d have to be really serious about the tall, dark, and handsome thing—and add in dangerous to that equation, too.
Once the door closed, and I was officially alone with him, I felt my palms getting a little clammy. I had to calm down. This man could probably smell my fear from a mile away.
“So,” Markus spoke, slowly getting up. “You’re the one who’s caught Vaughn’s attention.”
It wasn’t a question, and yet I felt myself starting to say, “I guess?” That was stupid. I sounded like I wanted to piss myself and run away. Silly me. If ever there was a time to man up and act like I had a set of steel cajones, it was now.
Markus moved around his desk, stopping when he stood in front of me. He crossed his arms and leaned his backside against the edge of the desk, eyeing me up all the while. “He’s asked me for many favors to help you,” he said, his expression too intense. “You should know I don’t allow just anyone to stroll onto this property. We have twenty-four-hour security and cameras everywhere for a reason.”