a mile a minute.
“Mum?” he asks. “Will she be worried about you?”
“No,” I answer truthfully.
He spends a few moments going through my phone, glancing up at me every now and then. My face remains straight. I’m not worried. He won’t find anything. Then he slips it into his pocket, and I’m suddenly very worried.
“You’re taking my phone?” Shit. No, he can’t. “Am I your prisoner?”
He moves in closer, breathing down on me, and my stomach cartwheels like crazy. I swallow. I move back. And he closes the distance I’ve gained, his face coming closer and closer and closer.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head.
Black immediately halts his advancement, eyeing me with . . . I’m not sure what. Then he turns and walks away, and I exhale, my usually stable nerves shot. “Let’s call you my guest.” He takes the handle of the door and strolls out. “Sounds more humane.”
The second he’s out of sight, I flop down onto the bed.
Fucking hell. What on earth happens now?
Chapter 5
DANNY
* * *
Fuck, this wasn’t part of the plan. No second chances, and taking his lover is a second chance. I’m blaming it on grief. And the fact that I need that marina and Adams in power. Good God, Adams has had more chances than all the men who have wronged me put together. But I need that marina.
I sink back into the chair on the terrace, trying to focus on business and not her. I don’t even know her fucking name. The moment I sat at that card table, I felt eyes on me. It’s not unusual for many eyes to be on me, but this time I didn’t sense fear in a stare. My skin wasn’t cold. It was blazing. I sensed something other than fear. I sensed fascination. And that only fascinated me, more so when I found the source of the stare.
Her.
“Business,” I growl to myself. Perry Adams is trying to worm his way out of my clutches, and something tells me it isn’t because he wants to go legit. And the stupid fuck thought I’d just let this go? I should have shot him across that fucking card table. Probably would have, had something else not got my attention.
Her.
She moved gracefully. She glided. Her legs go on for days and carry her body with a beautiful elegance. Not forced. Not practiced. It was natural and spellbinding. She could have been floating, and it’s ironic since she’s so obviously weighed down by something. Her face, however impassive, radiated a cruel beauty that made me pause what I was doing for a moment and try to absorb it. Forcing my eyes back to the table took an inner strength I’ve never had to call on before. And then Perry’s man fucked up and grabbed her violently, and she didn’t move a whisper. I saw the brutal hold from meters away, saw his fat fingertips puncturing her delicate flesh. She was completely unmoved by it. Untouched and unbothered.
And I know it wasn’t only because her attention was rooted on me. I started that card game knowing I was going to lose. I started knowing what I was going to take when I lost. Perry’s wife. I had men lined up to fetch her from her charity trail in Cambodia, just to help her stupid husband along the path to sense. Things changed the second I saw how he looked at her. Perry’s in love with another woman. The feeling isn’t mutual, that’s very clear from her complete lack of reaction to Perry denying he knew her. Ice princess. Regardless, she’d be useful. A pawn to me. A means to get what I want.
I toast my conclusions on another swig of my drink.
When the door on the terrace slides open, I look up and find Brad. He closes it behind him and joins me, handing me a cigarette. “At the risk of you shooting me, what the fuck?”
I smile, only because Brad is the only man on this planet who I would hesitate to kill. “We need the marina, and I want that twat in power.”
“But the woman? You know the rules, Danny. We don’t deal in anything that clouds our judgment. Drugs and beautiful women cloud our judgment.”
“Only if you develop an attachment or addiction.”
Brad glances at me, not saying anything but saying everything. “So, what now?” he asks.
“Now we watch Adams. No one suddenly decides they want to go legit, especially when they’ve taken my money.” I light the cigarette and