I frown, wanting to throw myself at him, but I can sense his discomfort. Instead, I help him put the food out. When we’re finished setting up, we both sit down. He pours himself a drink and then hands me a glass of wine.
“About last night,” I say, but he stops me with a shake of his head.
“Let’s eat.”
I frown and bite my lip then nod. I’m frustrated, but I’ll play along. I don’t want to spook him or anger him any more. I eat, and the food is good, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.
I can’t keep hanging on the edge of my seat like this. Ethan doesn’t seem particularly interested in broaching the subject. I watch him, barely picking at my food. He looks exhausted, like he didn’t sleep last night, and he eats like he hasn’t touched food in days. He doesn’t even glance at me once.
Finally, we both finish. He leans back in his seat and sips his whisky, watching me for a second.
“I’m going to ask you something,” he says. “If you lie to me, I’ll know.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” I say. “Ethan, what’s going on? What happened?”
“Did Richard Taylor send you here?”
I sit back, stunned. “My father?” I ask, genuinely surprised.
He nods. “Answer the question, Aria.”
“No,” I say softly. “I haven’t spoken with him in years.”
He watches me for a second, his face tense, before finally relaxing a little bit. He sighs and leans back in his chair. “You’re telling the truth,” he says.
“I swear. He didn’t send me here.” I shake my head. “I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“He knows you’re with me,” Ethan says, and I feel a jolt of panic in my core.
“How?” I ask softly.
“He’s been watching me for a while now.”
I narrow my eyes, confusion washing over me. “What are you talking about, Ethan?”
“Your father is Richard Taylor, real estate magnate. And I’ve been working on a deal with him to buy one of his buildings for nearly four months now.”
I suck in a breath, surprised as hell, but I shouldn’t be. This is just my luck. This is just how things work for me. My luck is horrible and never lasts no matter how much I think things are going to turn around.
It’s not that impossible. My father is one of the richest and most powerful men in the city, or at least he used to be. I’ve heard that he’s a shadow of his former self, riddled with debt and liens on his assets, but that wouldn’t stop him.
Men like my father and Ethan run in the same circles. They do deals with each other all the time. I should have guessed that Ethan at least knew my father personally, or was possibly working directly with him.
“He’s been watching me,” Ethan says softly. “Apparently he always does this. And when you threw your tantrum, I think he got pictures of you. And from there, he figured it all out.”
“Shit,” I say softly. “Ethan. Shit.
“I know.” He sighs, shaking his head. “Are you sure you’re not involved with him?”
“Yes,” I say. “I swear. I hate that man.”
“Good.” He sighs and closes his eyes before opening them and smiling slightly. I get a glimpse of the old Ethan in that moment and my heart swells. “I was worried.”
“Why?”
“Your father is currently blackmailing me with pictures of you. I was worried if he could pull off something like that, then maybe he could pull off something like...” He trails off, shrugging.
“Like planting me in your house,” I finish for him.
“Exactly.”
“He’s not a genius. He’s just a ruthless bastard.”
“I’m beginning to see that.” He stands and walks over toward the bedroom window. “I’m in a tough spot, Aria. If I don’t give in to what he wants, he’ll release those photographs.”
“So what? Let him. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know that.” He looks back at me, a rueful smile on his face. “But the public won’t care. I’m in the middle of a high profile merger and things are dicey at best right now. Any whiff of failure and things can go belly up.”
I stand and moved toward him. “I’m so sorry, Ethan. I had no clue.”
“People depend on me. A lot of people. They’re not just my employees. I’m responsible for their jobs, their livelihoods. I feed their children. I can’t just fail them.”
“But if you give in to my father, what then?”
“I don’t know. But he wants you back. That’s what he told The Syndicate, at least.”
I stop a few feet away from him, and I finally understand what he did for me last night. He refused to give me back to my father, saving me from more torture, but in doing so he defied the man with power to destroy him.
More than that, he feels like he risked his entire company for me. He thought I might have been a plant by my father, he didn’t trust me at the time, but he did it anyway.
I feel torn in half by conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I’m incredibly happy that he was willing to stand up to my father for me. It says a lot about the bond that’s building between us, and I know for a fact that it’s real. He must feel the same way, or else he wouldn’t have stepped up the way that he did.
But it also means that I’m a liability. I’m the reason he’s even in this mess. Without me, he’d be better off, and now he knows it. He can’t think about just me and him, he has to think about all of the people that depend on him, and it’s clearly tearing him apart.
I’m a liability. I’m his Achilles heel, at least where my father’s concerned. If he goes down, it’s going to be because of me.
I hate that thought. It almost makes me want to gag and throw up. It send chills down my spine and lodges a huge rock in my gut.
He looks away from me, back out the window. “So now you understand,” he says softly. “Your father is probably watching us right now. Or at least someone that works for your father is waiting for us to slip up so he can get more pictures.”
“I should go back,” I say suddenly, blurting the words out before I can think about them.
He whirls on me. “What?”
“I should go back,” I say. “It’s the best solution. My father can’t keep me, so even if The Syndicate gives me back to him, I’ll just run away again. And right now, I’m a liability for you.”
“No,” he says forcefully. He steps toward me and takes me by the shoulders. “Do you hear me, Aria? I’m never going to give you back to that man.”
I bite my lip. “You can’t keep me from them if they want me,” I say. “They’ll come for me.”
“Let them come,” he says fiercely. “You’re mine, Aria. Do you hear me? You’re mine. They can try to take you.”
I stare into his gorgeous eyes and want to cry. For the first time in my life, I feel like someone values me above other people, and it’s an intense and strange feeling. I don’t know what to say to him, but that doesn’t matter.
Because he pulls me against him and kisses me deeply.