brain all morning. I’d been tickling her in a desperate attempt to relieve the desire to touch her while still keeping it platonic. We’d been a tangle of limbs as we’d rolled off the couch, and she’d hit her elbow on the coffee table on the way down. It had been barely a touch, but it had left a mark the size of a golf ball on her skin as if fate was punishing her for my touch when it should have been the other way around.
“An accident. Promise me it was an accident,” I croaked out, wanting to believe her, and yet still wanting to bash Silas’s head in.
“It was,” she said, confident, sure. Truthful. My tension eased slightly.
“Violet?” Silas’s voice in the kitchen entryway drew both our eyes.
I was surprised by the continued wave of hatred flying through me, now for a different reason. He’d been the one to catch her. It was ridiculous to be angry that he’d been the one who’d saved her from falling. How many times had he been there for her when I hadn’t been? How many guys had been there for her over the last five years? I loathed the idea of all of them.
The power of those emotions made me realize I had to escape. Just like I’d always escaped when Violet and I got too close. I had to move away before she tipped me upside down.
“You okay?” Silas asked, shoving his hands into his perfectly pressed dress pants.
I wanted to laugh. He was protecting her from me, and I was protecting her from him. This distraction was the last thing I needed.
As if to prove it, one of my phones buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out, stepping away from Violet as I answered it, watching Silas and Violet’s silent exchange.
“Langley,” I growled into the phone without really looking to see which one it was.
“I need you to go to the Crab Shack,” Ken’Ichi commanded.
With one last glance at Silas and Violet, I turned and walked out the back door.
“I’m not your delivery boy. Isn’t that more Hosa-san’s job?” My rejection of his directive was as disrespectful as the disdain I put into the name Ken’Ichi used for Saito-san. I could see his face darken even when I wasn’t with him.
“Trust isn’t just handed over,” he said coldly.
A fucking test.
“I’m not here to play games,” I challenged. “I’m not your new inside man. I gave you a legitimate solution to an increasingly difficult problem. One businessman to another.”
I got in the Aston Martin, slamming the door.
“You have something better to do with your time?” he asked dryly.
I didn’t. He knew it. I knew it.
Before I could respond, he added, “It’s already in your car.”
My heart thudded to a stop. I glanced in the back seat. Nothing. That meant it was in the trunk. It pissed me off that he’d had someone break into my car parked at the B&B. Feet away from Violet. Feet away from where Mandy and Leena normally were.
“You don’t need to pull this kind of shit with me,” I snarled.
“This shit is how you prove you’re a worthy partner.” He returned my snarl with icy calm.
“If this blows up on me, Ken’Ichi, we both lose. The long-term opportunity I’m trying to put in place for you is bigger than this kind of stunt.”
Silence.
Instead of just agreeing to whatever the hell he wanted me to do, I changed the subject, reminding him of what was really at play.
“Dax called,” I said. “We’re making the first run across the Atlantic on Monday. That’s the real test. The yacht is ready for the delivery. Better yet, I can have four more ready to go for you in less than six months.”
“Go to the Crab Shack, Langley,” he repeated his command and then hung up.
I tore out of the driveway with gravel skidding across the pavement.
When I got to the Crab Shack, the back door was open. A man in yellow fisherman gear was unloading crates from a truck into the restaurant. His dungarees and the crates left a watery trail across the pavement.
In the cab of his truck was a man hidden in shadows, but as I pulled in, he opened the door and slid out. By the time I got to the rear of my car, he was at my side. A rough character. Dark hair, black eyes, and a nose that appeared to have been broken more times than a hockey player’s.