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A nticipation tightened around my chest, and each breath felt strained as I struggled to pull in oxygen.

Unfortunately, it seemed like my entire supply had headed straight to my cock as I walked away from her. I adjusted myself unobtrusively as I headed to the door, stopping to congratulate Liam and his wife once more before I left.

The bite of cold air did nothing to stave off the inferno building inside me at the thought of finally having her right where I wanted her.

With me.

I’ve spent the better part of the last year surveilling Clementine Aziz.

She was my mark.

The means to which I was going to achieve my goal. The woman I planned to use to get what I wanted most in the world—to return my family to its place in the world.

For months, I’d laid all my plans out carefully. I’d catalogued her comings and goings, compiled documents on her routine and schedules.

Hell, I knew what she liked to eat, what she wore to bed, and when she got her period.

Hacking her medical files proved easy compared to accessing her personal laptop. Sigma International, the security firm her father ran, where Clementine worked, wasn’t the best in the business for nothing.

No, breaking into her computer was something I needed to do in person.

So, I switched tactics. The focus of my reconnaissance moved from the periphery of her life to the insides and outsides of this woman.

In my experience, the easiest way to get something from a woman was to fuck it out of her. But I needed to know her before I could seduce her.

To say I was happy as a fucking clam there was no man I needed to compete with was an understatement.

No relationships that stood out in her past except one when she was in college, but she’d kicked his ass to the curb.

Still, it had been nice to fuck with little Stevie. Of course, he probably didn’t understand why his car seemed to get towed once a week or the fact he’d been pulled over for outstanding warrants that weren’t his six times in the last eight months.

His lawyer said he was a victim of identity theft, but that wasn’t exactly true. I wasn’t trying to be the little prick.

I was just fucking his shit up a little bit.

Like when I had Balor hack his phone, and he shared the latest dick pic the asshole had sent to his secretary, who was not the woman he married two years ago.

What the fuck was wrong with men? I mean, if you were going to send someone a picture of your cock maybe try to make it look more impressive than four inches of flaccid flesh?

Fucking pig.

Clementine was better off without that cheating loser. But I was curious why there’d been no one serious since.

I watched her closely over the course of the past year. I saw her shoot down every man with the balls to even approach her. Even the ones who’d managed to score a date.

Believe me, I had to hold myself back during those infrequent outings. Even going so far as to enter the restaurant or bar where she met her dates.

I’d been ready to step in any number of times, but Clementine was either the biggest fucking tease on God’s green earth, or she was just very particular.

Now, I’d punch anyone in the mouth who dared to call her the former. But I was dying to know for myself.

Was she really a little ice queen? Or was it simply the fact she’d never met her match that kept her frosty?

Either way, when I did finally take her out, I was not going to back down like these pansy ass boys she’d been dating.

None of them were good enough for her.

They were fucking babies playing at being men.

She didn’t need that.

Clementine was a proper woman. She had brains and grit. A woman like her needed someone who could meet her on even ground.

Fire needed fire.

That’s what she needed. Someone who matched her passion. And her dedication.

She was loyal. To her family, her friends. Her job.

Oh, I watched her when she traveled from her Jersey City apartment to the building her father’s associates owned in Manhattan. Volkov Towers.

Sigma International held several floors there, and Clementine went there for work.

Granted, she only went in a couple of times a month, and I’d wondered about that, but what really struck me was she rode in alone, a detail on her ass, of course.

But she never rode with them.

I still wasn’t sure what she did for Sigma International. Her name was listed on the site as an employee, but she spent a lot more time at this construction site near her home.

I tried every trick I knew to get the permits for the place, but they were all classified and buried beneath phony corporations and a dozen aliases.

I assumed it had to do with her father’s company, and I wasn’t really worried about it. Sigma International was huge.

If Josef Aziz needed a new building that was not my concern.

After all, I didn’t want to put the guy out of business. I just needed to launch mine to the next level by taking out some of his.

Nothing personal.

Okay, well, fucking his daughter might seem a little personal.

But with any luck, she wasn’t the type of woman to go crying to her daddy about her boyfriend issues.

Boyfriend? What the fuck?

Y es, I had some of my team, the ones I trusted, to do some of the tracking when I needed to see to other things. But most of it, I did myself.

I knew it was unhealthy. Dangerous for me to get so attached. But what could I say?

There was something about the redheaded beauty that drew me in and held me captive. The idea of any other man studying her this closely sent me into a fucking rage, so why bother?

Clementine Aziz was too young for me. Too damn pretty and sweet. But she held a key piece to the puzzle, and I planned to take it, without her knowledge, of course.

Tonight, I was finally going to take the next step. And as it turned out, I didn’t have to do a thing.

Imagine that?

The little beauty shocked the shit out of me when she approached me at her family’s reception for Liam’s son’s baptism.

She’d invited me to text her for a drink.

Just left the door open for me to stroll on through. Bringing me one step closer to what I needed to get done.

Finally. So close.