Page 61 of Arranged Wolf's Nanny

Her blood froze over. “What about him?”

His jaw worked. “I think you know what.”

She pushed off the desk, turning to look into the fire, her eyes narrowing as she watched the dancing flames.

“It’s what you imagine,” she said, her voice tight. “He was never much of a father to me. My mother died when I was very little, and he raised me to be…well…What I am. And if I wasn’t what he wanted me to be, he made no secret of his displeasure.”

Rick’s voice was hard. “You seem very forgiving about it.”

“I wish he were dead,” she said viciously, before clapping her hands over her mouth in horror, turning to him with wide eyes. “I…I didn’t mean…”

Rick placed his pen down carefully, his expression unchanging from a sort of stern intensity that made her stomach swoop in an unfamiliar sort of way. “I would understand if you did.”

She swallowed, taking a few steadying breaths. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds, the weight of her words stretching out between them. He didn’t laugh, didn’t play it off as a joke. In fact, he didn’t seem disturbed at all. She might as well have just been expressing an opinion on wine or the weather.

He cocked his head. “Do you want me to?”

She blinked at him. “Do I want you to what?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to kill him?”

Her breath caught in her throat. It was as if the floor had fallen out beneath her, leaving her suspended in thin air, unable to move. To react.

He’d said it so simply. As if it was nothing to him.Becauseit was nothing to him.

And yet…it waseverythingto her.

“Don’t ask me that,” she whispered, a tremor in her voice.

He leant back in his chair, regarding her with all the ease of a reclining leopard ready for its next hunt. “Why not?”

“Because…” her fists clenched at her sides as she fought to keep her wolf at bay, fought to keep her emotions dampened down. “Because if you ask me that, then I’ll have to answer. And I…I…I know what my answer would be.”

His eyes glittered.

In the silence, a thousand scenarios played out behind Rosalia’s eyelids as she screwed them shut, pressing the heels of her palms against them to try and calm the roaring tempest.

“I could just do it,” Rick said, leaning back. “I’d like to see him dead. I don’t need your permission.”

Rosalia looked at him, her jaw set. “You won’t.”

He bared his teeth, ever so slightly. “If he threatens you again, I might.”

“Wait,” she said, “promise me you’ll wait.”

He considered her, removing his glasses, his eyes oddly catlike in the low light of the fire. “I’m not a temperate male, Rosalia. Ask Carter.”

She sucked in a breath.

He was right. He didn’t need her permission. He may pretend to be tame when it suited him, but he was a wild animal. Vicious and ruthless and utterly uncompromising.

But lately, she was learning that she was, too.

“If you kill him without my permission,” she said, her voice quiet and sharp, “you’ll be taking away my satisfaction atgrantingyou permission.”

Oh, helikedthat.

His chest rumbled in appreciation, and he slowly rose to his feet, his gaze dark and hungry. Her breathing hitched, and she half-thought he would close the distance between them, take her in his arms.