“No? I remember a night when you were grateful for it.”
She goes quiet, shifts her gaze away. Her cheeks flush and she takes a deep breath in. “Just tell me why you’re doing this.”
“It wouldn’t change things.”
“Tell me. I deserve to know.”
“Deserve,” I snort. “Does Nora deserve to be in the ground?”
“What?”
I swallow my drink, let it burn. “You couldn’t handle the why, Persephone,” I say more harshly than I intend. I pick up her glass and refill both. I set hers back down on the table before her.
“What does that mean? What you said about Nora?”
“Let me give you some advice. Trust me when I tell you to leave it alone.”
“But I don’t trust you.”
Her words make me flinch. I watch her drink a sip of vodka and tell myself I’m right. That learning the truth would destroy her.
But isn’t that what I want? The destruction of the Abbot family just like Quincy Abbot destroyed the only good in mine?
“Why did you break off the engagement to my brother?” I ask because I need to know.
She glances at the glass in her hands and when she looks back at me, her eyes are darker. Sadder. She puts the drink down and picks up the contract which looks abused now.
“You said you’d give me back the house,” she says, not answering my question. I’m not the only one keeping secrets.
“I don’t think I ever said those words.”
“You inferred them.”
“I disagree. The house belongs to me. Period. But I’m not unreasonable. I have my own home. You sign the contract and you’ll be allowed to carry on with your life in the house like you always have.”
“But it will still be in your name. You will own it.”
“Correct.”
“As you said, you have your own house. What do you want with ours?”
“I haven’t decided yet. We were discussing the contract itself.”
“You’re the one who brought up my engagement to Jonas.”
“Which you don’t want to talk about.”
“Fine.” She looks down at the contract. “I’m not going to give you, how did you put it, my person,” she reads. “And make myself available for your pleasure so I can continue to live in my house with you as what? My landlord?”
“Rent-free,” I add with a grin, and watch her eyes burn as she grows angrier.
“I want the house back in my father’s name.”
“No pussy is worth that much.”
“You’re crude.”
“You’re arrogant.”
“What’s the difference? I mean, you don’t want the house to live in it.”
“But I do want the house.”
“And what happens if you tire of me?”
“Don’t let me tire of you.”
“Are you just going to dangle that in front of me as I…” she looks at the contract again. “Submit to your commands.”
I grin. “I do like that language.”
“It reads like something you’d say. Did you write it up yourself?”
“I did.”
“That wasn’t meant as a compliment.”
“No, I didn’t think it was. What’s your decision?”
She exhales, her shoulders slumping a little. “What about the company?”
“I want fifty-one percent. Non-negotiable if you don’t want a hostile takeover on your hands.”
“I hate this.”
“You’re in debt up to your ears. I saw your house. I saw the state of things. You’re having the furniture you have left auctioned off to pay your creditors and even if you got top dollar on every single piece, you wouldn’t have enough to do it. Take my offer. It’s a good one. A fair one.”
“And what do I tell my dad when he wakes up? I sold him out to his enemies?”
I don’t reply. Thing is, he isn’t going to wake up, and if by some miracle he does, he won’t be the same. Not with an injury like he sustained.
Karma’s finally paying him back. I do wish I were the one who dealt the blow, though.
“The name of the company stays the same,” she says.
I nod.
“And whoever you hire to take my father’s place has to consult me on any major decisions.”
I snort. “I don’t think so.”
She grits her teeth. “What about my job?”
“You want to keep your job?”
She nods.
“Fine.”
She quiets. “Fine?”
“You’ll report to me.”
She’s hesitant. “I don’t like this.”
I shrug a shoulder. The odds are stacked against her. She’ll agree. “This is entirely up to you. You can walk away. Right now.”
“And pack my bags? Tell Lizzie we have nowhere to go?”
“I told you once before not to play the victim card. It’s not who you are. Not someone I’d offer a deal like this to.”
She quiets and I listen to her breathe, watch her think. “So, you just expect me to sign this?”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t right.”
“Right and wrong, like luck, are a matter of perspective. I’m making a concession. You get to keep your job.”
She takes a moment then gets up, walks past me to my desk. She bends to pick up a pen and my gaze shifts to her ass in those tight pants. She amends the contract to state her position at the company then scratches her signature on the contract and something feels different. Not better. Not worse. Just different.
Taking her family down has been the thing that’s driven me for the last five years. I’m half-way done.
But with her, there’s something else.
I want her. She and I, there’s always been something between us. But it’s not just some romantic bullshit.
Persephone Abbot belongs to me. She always has. And now, she belongs in my bed, too. And I’ll make sure she stays there no matter what I have to do.
She closes the lid on the pen, sets it on top of the contract and turns to me. “What happens now?”
“What happens now?”
She nods.
“You take off your clothes.”
6
Persephone
“What?”
“Take off your clothes,” he says more slowly, as if I’m hard of hearing or slow to follow.
I stare at him while he moves to sit down on the leather armchair.
He raises his eyebrows and crosses one ankle over the opposite knee.
“We’re doing this here?” I hear the slight tremor in my voice. Does he? “Now?”
He gives me a slow nod while his gaze slides over me. “You insisted, remember?”
Okay. Well. It’s going to happen sooner or later. What did I expect? A date? Dinner? I guess he did give me lunch.
But it’s hard. Harder than it should be, maybe. At least harder than I thought it would be with him.
I pull the sleeves of my hoodie into my palms and shift my gaze out the window. Snow is coming down hard, melting as soon as it hits the window, leaving wet streaks on the glass.