was waiting for me along with my mail. I grabbed it and sifted through it, opening each piece and glancing through it before tossing it into a pile on my desk.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
With an open letter in my hand, I turned around to see her.
Melanie took a seat on the couch and got comfortable with a book in her hands.
I stared.
When she felt my look, she turned to meet my gaze. “I’ll be quiet.”
My eyebrows furrowed, and I lowered the letter to my side.
Her body became more rigid under my gaze because she knew I was pissed.
I approached the couch and stared down at her. “Get. Out.”
She got to her feet. “I said I’ll be quiet. I just don’t want to be alone—”
“Too fucking bad. Take the car and go into the city.”
“How do you know I won’t run away—”
“Try, and see what happens.”
She gripped the book to her chest, her breathing elevated.
“The only way you leave me is if I let you leave.” My hand shook at my side the longer she didn’t cooperate, when my men would have fled. “Go.”
She stayed. “Why do you want me here if you don’t—”
“That’s my business.”
She turned away, her eyes starting to water.
Tears didn’t affect me. Empathy was something I’d never learned. The pain and suffering of others was white noise, because no one cared about my suffering. But watching her struggle to combat tears made me feel inadequate, like I’d allowed my trophy to rust over instead of taking care of it. “Chérie.”
She wouldn’t look at me, her lips tightly pressed together in restraint.
I set the letter on one of the tables and came closer to her, my hand moving to her waist, my thumb over her belly button while my fingers stretched across her back. My thumb squeezed her stomach slightly as I moved farther into her vision. “I need my space. I need to work.”
“I’ll be quiet…”
“My men stop by throughout the day. It’s not a place for you.”
She still didn’t look at me, but she eventually gave a nod in agreement.
I could read her pretty well, but in this instance, I struggled. “Why is it hard for you to be alone?”
“I…I don’t know,” she whispered. “When I’m with you…it drowns out the thoughts I don’t want to have. You see me so infrequently that I’m just left to my own voice, my regrets, my pain. I live in a palace with beautiful clothes, while my sister is—” She couldn’t bring herself to finish. “It’s just hard.”
My hand cupped her face, and my thumb caught a tear that slid down her cheek. Her eyes were subdued, as if she were scared, and the sheen on the surface of her eyes reflected the brilliant chandelier above. Whether she cried or smiled, her beauty was the same, but this was a sad beauty. Her words from last week came back to me, an echo. You’re all I have. Her father left. Her mother left. And then her sister left, and Melanie crossed the ocean to chase her, hurt that she was left behind. Every single person had come and gone. My fingers moved to her chin, and I forced her to look at me. “I will never abandon you, chérie.”
Her eyes started to water more.
As if that was exactly what she needed to hear.
When I didn’t hear from Liam by that evening, I texted him. Is it done? I shouldn’t even have to ask, and I was tempted to order his execution next.
There was no response. No dots. No activity.
I sat at my desk, staring at the dark screen of my phone, growing more furious by every passing second.
Then it rang.
It was Magnus, using the satellite phone at the camp.
I answered but didn’t speak, my mood too foul for a conversation.
He was used to my silence, so he knew I was there. “I’ve agreed to give Charles forty-eight hours to get the money.”
My body immediately tightened when I heard what he said, and without a second thought, I was on my feet. I moved to the windows, looking out into the darkness like I could somehow see him hundreds of miles away. My anger was so fucking loud through the phone that I didn’t need to say a goddamn word.
“He lost over half his men in the hit. The money was taken. But he will have it for us in forty-eight hours.”
I could see my own reflection in the glass, see the fire in my dark eyes. “I will slit