Page 49 of Final Installment

“You spend a lot of time traveling in Asia.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I go where I’m told.”I frowned at him.“Why are you interrogating me like this?”

“I need to understand the risks you bring to the family.We have interests in many different areas of the world, sensitive arrangements, and I can’t have you blundering into them.”

“I hardly think I’m the one you need to worry about blundering and making mistakes in business.I doubt your business interests and mine intersect.”

“What’s your relationship status?”He jumped to another topic, this one even more unwelcome.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you dating?If so, what do they do?Where do they work?”

Bristling at the intrusion, I said, “My private life is none of your business.”

“Everything about your private life is my business.You’re going to be one step removed Luka.You could be used to blackmail your sister.”

I scoffed.“You clearly have not done your research if you think my sister would ever give in to emotional blackmail for me.”

“What if she wanted to keep something embarrassing about you from coming out?Something shocking?A secret that even she doesn’t know?Maybe a big secret that you’d like to keep hidden—.”

“Shut up!”I hissed, suddenly overwhelmed by panic.Staring into his black eyes, into the fathomless darkness, I saw the truth.Heknew.Somehow, some way, he had uncovered my deepest, darkest, most shameful secret.Something so much worse than falling for the manipulation and lies of a grown man I trusted and respected.

“Don’t.”The word left me in a whispered rush, half pleading, half threat.“Please.”

Zec’s obsidian gaze bore into me, chilling me to the marrow.He knew all my secrets, every last one of them, and now he was sitting there, inches away, judging me.What was he thinking?That I was a liar?A pathetic slut?A whore?

All the words that I used to describe myself when I was at my lowest points.The words that came to mind when I was alone in bed, unable to sleep, unable to stop thinking about a decision I had made when I was too young to fully understand the ramifications.

“How much?”There had to be a price.A man like this wasn’t going to keep my secret for free.

His eyes narrowed.“Are you trying to bribe me?”

“You blackmailed me first.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Really?”I didn’t believe him.Not for one second.

“I wasn’t,” he repeated.“I was simply making a point.”

“That you can hurt me?”My stomach soured and twisted.“Like you’re the first man who has ever threatened me?”

“I’m not threatening you.I’m communicating to you that your situation puts the family at risk.”

“Which is exactly why I live hours away from my family,” I pointed out.“I didn’t even want to come here.I didn’t want to come home for that fiasco of a dinner party, either.I’m here because I wasorderedto be here by my grandfather and my mother.I’m here because I will not leave my sister alone to face this farce of a wedding.As soon as it’s over, I’m going back to Dallas and then I'm moving to Shanghai.You won’t have to worry about me again.”

Zec regarded me for an uncomfortably long moment.“I doubt that very much.”

My heart was still racing.My throat was dry.I didn’t want to talk about any of this anymore.“Are you taking me to my hotel?”

“You aren’t going to a hotel.You’re staying with your mother and sister in one of our properties.”

“No, I’m not.”The very idea of being stuck with my mother made me want to claw my eyes out.As if this day wasn’t traumatic enough!“I booked a hotel, and I will be staying there.”