Page 26

CHAPTER 26

Maarja slapped her hand on the table hard enough to make the glasses jump. “No!”

Senor Alfonso, headed for their table with a plate of cream-filled miguelitos , made an abrupt turnabout.

She might have had too much wine. Or her frustration had boiled over. Or both, because the easiness caused by the good food turned to confrontation, and she made the accusation that haunted her. “Maybe you put the bottle in my drawer.”

Dante had the guts to look surprised. Then he followed her train of thought and nodded slowly. “Because I had all this —” he waved a hand around “—planned.”

“Yes!”

“I can see the logic, but I didn’t have the bottle, and I don’t know who did. You’ll have to take my word for it, because I can’t prove that.” He leaned closer again, blocked her in with his shoulders and his intensity. “I’m good at preplanning. I knew it might be necessary to get you out of your home in a hurry, so almost before you left the hospital with Alex, I handled it. I’m fast on my feet; the appearance of the bottle gave me the opportunity to mark you as mine. Not casual-lover mine, but this-is-serious-and-if-you-hurt-her-you’ll-be-sorry mine.”

“I’m not yours . I’m not a thing to be marked. Or possessed.”

“ They don’t think that way. A woman is definitely a thing to be possessed and a pawn to be used.”

She spotted it right away; he hadn’t addressed an important issue. “ They think of me as a possession. What do you think?”

One side of his mouth quirked up. “That you’re mine.”

He didn’t lie. She had to give him that. He stared her right in the eyes and told her what he thought…and felt.

She needed out from behind this table, away from this sense that fate, in the guise of Dante Arundel, had her trapped. “Time to go.” She pushed at his shoulder.

He slid backward off the bench, moved the table out to make it easy for her to stand, shook Senor Alfonso’s hand, and thanked him for the lovely meal. She did the same, then turned toward the back door.

Dante took her arm. “We have a room here.”

Somehow, she hadn’t seen that coming. She thought there’d be a car waiting to whisk them away somewhere…somewhere where she could explain to him where she stood. Where they stood.

As it was, she listened while Senor Alfonso assured her they would occupy the most secure suite in the house, on the third floor, that he had hosted celebrities who needed a time away from the limelight and she and Mr. Arundel would be completely private during their time at the Live Oak.

She thanked him again, for the fact of the matter was—she needed that security. She’d seen the faces at Mrs. Arundel’s funeral. She’d suffered under Connor’s fury and acrimony. She’d felt the malice that had invaded her home to place the bottle in her drawer. If she wanted to live tonight, she would stay where Dante had arranged.

Ludwig led them toward a coat closet, or what she thought was a coat closet. But no; he used a small key to open the lock, and handed it to Dante. “The other doors have been programmed as you requested.” He stepped back.

Dante gestured her into the dim space lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling.

Ludwig shut the door behind them.

The right hand wall was lined with shelves of canned goods; a camouflage, she supposed, as well as storage. The other two walls were flat and blank, and Maarja took a quick, frightened breath. Was this like the Haunted Mansion at Disney? Was the floor going to sink or rise or go sideways? Not that she was particularly claustrophobic, but this close, airless space with Dante Arundel made her feel trapped and wary.

Dante reached into the shelf at eye level and tapped in a code. “The same as the number you memorized,” he told her.

A door opened to the left.

Breathing a deep breath of relief, she stepped through into a small foyer lit by a glass and molded iron sconces on the walls.

With a soft click, the door closed behind her.

She looked back.

Dante ran his hands over the door, securing it against intrusion. She supposed she should appreciate the feeling of safety, but…he was on the side of the door with her. He laid claim to her. He believed she was his. To own? To do with as he wished?

Oh, hell no.

Two closed doors stood between them and the kitchen and here, in the space between real life and its consequences, existed the chance to make her position clear to Dante. She could not allow that moment in the restaurant control what happened between them.

She took one step up—the high ground—and turned to face him. In icy tones, she said, “I am not yours. I would not be even if this marriage —” because Maarja was really angry, and because she knew it would irritate him, she used air quotes “—were legitimate or legal. Such an idea, that you can own me, is insulting to me as a human being.”

He didn’t nod or acknowledge her words in any way. He watched her, narrow-eyed, unsmiling.

Which made her want to rush at him, make him afraid of her punches and kicks. Only the strong caution her martial arts master had instilled in her held her back. That, and the knowledge Dante probably had more experience, undoubtedly was more ruthless, and obviously had a longer reach.

She used her words, because before they shared a suite, he should by God acknowledge her dominion over herself. “Your mother could never have approved of such an outdated belief of human ownership. Would be ashamed of you for holding such a view.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“No, but especially your mother, who in her own marriage was nothing but an object and a possession. I’m convinced she taught you to be more enlightened.”

“She did try.” He barely seemed to move his lips.

“You can get over the idea I’m going to fall into your plans and sleep with you out of some misplaced sense of obligation.”

“Obligation.”

“Because you saved my life.” That sounded churlish. “Not that I’m unappreciative—”

“You appreciate that I didn’t leave you to be murdered.”

She hesitated. When he repeated her words, especially in that cold emotionless tone, they sounded insulting. “Are we sure someone was going to murder me? The bottle in my drawer… They were trying to frame me.”

As if seeking patience, he looked down, a slow motion, deliberate in its purpose, then up again. His eyes, dark fringed, faintly glowed as if the gold in their depths had grown molten with heat.

The heat of impatience? Or anger? Or…

He wasn’t listening to her. He was refusing to hear what she said, or believe that she meant it. Prickly with frustration, she turned her back on him and climbed the stairs.

She’d reached the first landing when he said, “Frame you? Yes, but who would they send to discover the bottle? Which of my relatives would strangle you with his bare hands, seize the reliquary, and use that to claim mastery over the Arundel organization?”

She turned. “You don’t have to be so—” She’d intended to say brutally frank .

The sconces lit him, the dark hair, the sculpted face, the body he’d created with the constant vigilance of training, and she couldn’t speak. He still stood, legs braced as if he stood on a deck in stormy weather, hands relaxed at his side. A long forgotten memory flashed through her, of Benoit Arundel on his throne, his cold green gaze resting on her, assessing her, weighing her worth and finding her nothing more than a burrowing tick to be eliminated. To Benoit, she had been the last of her family; he hoped to count her death as the ultimate Arundel victory.

Only her mother’s sacrifice had saved her.

She hadn’t realized it before, but while Dante’s hair and eyes were dark rather than light, he had the look of his father: ruthless, intent, a great dark beast, twitching with the need to…not hurt, but to dominate…her. She could object and deny, but together they had joined the bottle to the stopper, they had kissed and experienced the flash of heat and triumph, and Dante would now have his way…unless she got into the suite before him.

He remained on the ground floor.

She was up one flight. She had a head start.

He took a step toward her.

She turned and fled, around the corner, up another flight, around a corner, up another flight, to the waiting door with its electronic numbered lock. She heard the light thump of his footsteps as he loped the stairs after her. He didn’t race; no, of course not. The beast hunted, and never doubted his success.

All she had to do was key in the right number, and get inside the room. And shut it behind her.

Use the security bars.

Pile furniture in front of it.

The number. The one he’d insisted she memorize. She pushed each button firmly; she didn’t have time to flub it. The lock clicked.

She’d won! She pushed the door open, hurried inside, used her whole body to shove it closed…

Almost closed. He hit it at a run, knocking her backward.

She recovered, braced her feet, straining, leaned against it, heart thumping, teeth gritted with determination. Like any of that mattered. The door inched open until she gave up and leaped backward, and he crashed into the room. She darted around him. He caught her by the waist, swung her in a circle. Like they were dancing, and he would lead where he liked.

She caught a whirling impression of the suite; wide windows open to welcome the storm, golden hardwood floors, large rugs of neutral weaves, a tall gas fireplace, flames flicking, warm lighting, and a giant bed that dominated the room with its airy light pink curtains. Chocolates and two black silk sleep masks on the pillow. Romance and seduction and—he kicked the door closed.

She lifted both her feet and slithered out of his embrace, braced her hand on the ground, and kicked the legs out from underneath him.

She didn’t have time to exalt.

He flipped as he fell, a smooth acrobatic roll that brought him around to knock her flat on her back and bring her beneath him, beneath his weight. “Stop,” he said.

The shock of heat and muscle and man—and knowing he’d handled her all too easily—made her listen. Not to his command, but to her own good sense. He’d taken her down with a minimum amount of fuss. She wasn’t going to win that way. “You said you had never raped a woman. You said you wouldn’t rape me!”

“Never rape. Not between us.” Standing, he offered his hand.

She looked at it, longed to grab and twist, but she knew him; he was prepared.

She put her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet, close but not too close.

He performed that magic trick, the one where the stiletto appeared in his hand. Gripping the neckline of her T-shirt, he clicked the blade out and used it to slice the thin material from top to bottom.

Not that the T-shirt was anything to brag about, but…damn.

“Don’t move,” he advised. “That bra will take finesse, and the knife is very sharp.”

Resist? Oh, hell no. She barely breathed as he cut through her sports bra, then almost without pause he slipped the point under the elastic waistband of her shorts and removed her last chance to stay un-naked. Except for her panties…which were plain cotton, the kind she always worked in…

Fine. She hadn’t survived this long without craft and cunning. She took her time looking him over from his toes to his forehead. Intimidation was her goal, although she wasn’t entirely successful. In her strongest dealing-with-a-difficult-client voice, she said, “Give me the stiletto.”

His eyebrows lifted. He looked down at his white starched shirt, at the buttons that closed it, and presented the knife to her, bone handle first.

The ass. He had all the faith in the world she wouldn’t slit his throat. She could. She would. She’d do what she needed to do to make her point…as it were.

She gripped the stiletto with a Maleficent smile. Slipping the blade into his neckline, while he flinched, she pulled and jerked and cut the buttons.

When she put the point of the blade to the skin over his heart…he laughed in a kind of exaltation. “What a woman I’ve chosen!”

Which made her fingers clench on the bone. Did he not comprehend how much she longed to carve him into little pieces? “I cannot be chosen .”

“Yet here you are.” With another one of those sleight of hand gestures, he pulled la Bouteille de Flamme from somewhere up his sleeve. Stepping away from her and the blade, he set it on the dresser and turned on the lamp.

The glass caught the light, warming to a crimson glow.

When he returned to her, she tensed, preparing for him to grab her wrist, and thinking what countermove she would make.

Instead, hands relaxed at his side, he stepped right into the tip of the blade. “You have two choices now. Consummate our marriage. Or cut out my heart.”