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Chapter Eight

JOSHUA

Skyla looks between me and the knife like she’s calculating her chances of ripping it from me before I use it to slice her throat.

Not that I would. I still need her alive.

Besides, for some reason, the thought of her dead is very unappealing to me.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t make her pay for her disrespect. That I won’t trace patterns into that glassy skin of hers, watching the blood bead for me.

Marking her in a way that she’ll always remember who owns her body. Who she belongs to.

I bet I could make her beg for more.

“You’re going to want to think about what you do.” I round the kitchen island, knife still in my hand, the tip still pointed at the ground. “I’ve been patient with you so far, but the patience is wearing thin.”

“You haven’t been patient with fuck all.” Skyla takes a step closer to me, challenging me in a way that has my cock swelling, straining against my jeans. “You’ve been domineering and a pain in my ass.”

“And you’ve been nothing but difficult.” I move quick, grabbing her by the throat and shoving her back against the wall, bringing the knife up to the pulse point in her neck.

“I’m going to kill Logan if I have to. Whether you like it or not.

You and your family want my help in that little fucking war you all started, you’re going to play my game. ”

She swallows hard, and for the first time there’s a flash of fear in her eyes.

It’s gone as soon as it appears, but for just a moment, it was there.

Good.

I drag the tip of the blade against her skin, just beneath her jaw, watching the droplets of blood pool. “Remember who the fuck you belong to.”

I slam the knife into the wall beside her head, smiling down at her while she scowls.

She says nothing, her mouth pressing into a thin line.

After a moment, I let her go, allowing that fire to keep blazing in her eyes.

It might be wrong, but the constant push and pull between us is exciting.

And eventually, she’ll learn when she’s expected to submit.

Skyla steps through her front door the next day.

I smirk. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

She grabs the vase on the table just inside the door, throwing it at me without a second thought.

I dive to the side, and the vase collides with the wall behind me, dirt smearing on the dark floral wallpaper.

Standing straight, I grin. “You know, that’s twice in the last week that a vase has been thrown at me. I’m starting to get a complex.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t break into my house, I wouldn’t throw a fucking vase at you.” Skyla tosses her keys into the bowl on the entryway table before kicking off her shoes.

The tight dress she wears climbs a little higher up her toned thighs. The slit on her right one shows off even more of her sun-kissed skin, and all I want to do is run my tongue through it.

She looks dressed to kill as she pads into the room and straight through to the kitchen.

She comes back with a broom. “What are you doing here, and why didn’t you just call me like a normal person? You have my number.”

“This is feeling very this conversation could’ve been an email of you.

” I reach for the broom, taking it from her and sweeping up the dirt and the shattered ceramics.

“I thought it would be a good idea to have this conversation in person. You’re hot when you’re pissed, and how could I pass up the chance to see that? ”

The corner of her mouth twitches. “You’re ridiculous.”

I sweep the debris into the pan. “You’re right. You’re beautiful all the time.”

Even more so when you were pinned to my wall with a knife to your throat yesterday.

She snorts and goes to the desk in the corner, pulling open the bottle drawer and taking out a thick file. “I don’t know what this is, but I do know that I don’t have time for it right now. I have a million other things on the go.”

“Money laundering does take a toll on people.” I finish cleaning the mess and dump it into the trash.

Skyla gives me an exasperated look before opening the folder and searching through some of the papers.

“Since the laundromat is still shut down, I have millions of dollars in dirty money that I need to run through the construction company instead. Which presents an entirely new challenge of cleaning the money without screwing over the people who work for us or the contractors who give us supplies.”

“You’re going to figure it out. You’re a smart woman.”

“Flattery is going to get you nowhere with me. I hope you know that.”

Smirking, I put the broom away and sit down on the forest-green couch. “I didn’t think it would, but I still had to try. Can’t blame me for that.”

“I can.” She takes a couple of papers out of the folder before stashing it back in the drawer. “Now, are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”

“We’re married. We should be living together. I don’t know if Grady is going to have me followed or not, but I think it’s a rather safe assumption that he is.”

She stiffens. “I’m not moving in with you. I work hard to keep a life that’s my own. It’s not going to come to an end because you think it’s a good idea to live together. Plenty of married couples don’t.”

“Not ones who are being watched by a sadistic bastard. He’s dangerous, Skyla. And I don’t want to think about what could happen to either of us if he figures out that we’re lying.”

“Yeah, and I don’t want to kill you because we live together.”

“You’re not going to kill me.” I lean forward and look at the books on her coffee table.

Most of them are about old architecture, but there are a couple of names of clothing designers on the spines as well.

I take her in, slowly. “You know, if you wanted to be a model, you could.”

She scrapes her hair back into a messy bun at the base of her neck, tendrils of hair falling around her face. “I’m not going to do that. I like what I do.”

“A criminal after my own heart.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Skyla, it’s that she’s far easier to deal with when she’s in a good mood. If that means dancing back and forth, teasing and taunting her until she can’t help but smile, then that’s what I’m going to do.

“I think we need to think about moving in together today. I have a meeting with Grady in a couple of days, and I’m sure by then, he’s going to have someone watching me, if he doesn’t already.”

“And you think this is the only way he’s going to believe we’re together? What if we just rotate between whose house we stay at?”

“Why don’t you want to move in with me?” I get comfortable on her couch, leaning back into the cushions and kicking my feet up on the wooden coffee table. “I think I’m a joy to live with, and you liked my cooking well enough the last time.”

Playing nice with her isn’t always the way to deal with Skyla, but right now it is. If this partnership is going to work—if she’s not going to make my life hell with Grady—then I need to give her room to feel like she’s the one in control.

Even when she’s not.

She sighs and strides over to me, dropping down to the couch. “I spent most of my life living with my siblings. My dad died when most of them were still little. I had to step in and be the mother because mine was gone too. I’ve spent too much time living with other people. And for other people.”

“It’s only temporary, and I travel a lot for work. You don’t have to worry about losing your independence.”

Her feet rest on the edge of the table. “I’m going to lose some of it. There’s no way around that.”

“How so?”

“You live with another person and suddenly you have to answer to them. They want to know when you’re leaving and when you plan on being home. They want to do things with you and spend time with you when all you want to do is be alone.”

Everything about her is tense when she speaks. There’s a hardness to her voice and a touch of disgust, like having to answer to another person gets in the way of how she lives her life.

Like she wants everything I have to offer—drugs and help with the war—without giving anything in return.

She gets up and goes back to the front hall, pulling her heels back on and scooping up her keys from the bowl.

I get up and follow her, hurrying to get in front of her and standing in the way of the door. “You don’t get to just run away because we have a disagreement.”

“I’m not running away. I have things that I need to get done, and you think it’s better to sit here and have a conversation about our living situation.

You stated your opinion, I stated mine. We’re at an impasse, so sounds like we’ll get nowhere soon, and I need to get back to all the other things I have to do. ”

“You’re always so pleasant.” I open the door for her before stepping into my own shoes and following her out.

Skyla gives me an icy glare over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I have nothing else to do today, and I would like to see how my wife’s business runs.”

“How is it that you deal in billions of dollars, but you have nothing to do?”

“Andrew runs things for me. He’s overseas right now, meeting with an importer.”

“Who the hell is Andrew?”

“You’ll meet him later, but chances are he would try to steal you from me, and we can’t have that.” I smirk and jog past her to her car, opening the door for her.

She glowers at me before sliding in.

I shut the door and rush around the back of the car, preventing her from throwing it in reverse and leaving. I’m banking on her not having the time to clean blood off her bumper today.

I get into the passenger seat with a grin. “I thought you might try to run me over.”

“It was a consideration.” The irritation in her voice is a thin veil for her amusement. “I would hate to ruin that pretty face of yours, though. It really is the only thing you have going for you.”

Snorting, I lean over and turn up the music. “You know, sooner or later, I’m going to make you like me.”

“I never said I didn’t like you.” She turns onto the street and heads down the road. “I agreed to pretend to marry you, didn’t I?”