Page 36 of Greed: The Savage (Seven Deadly Sins #7)
A tremor skated along her skin.
The duke lounged there in the doorway. Unmoving. Unthreatening. Not closing in on her. Not stalking her.
Not like Malric.
Oh God, how she preferred Malric’s stalking. She craved it. The brutal honesty of it.
The unbearable ache of missing him hollowed her out; it left her raw and aching.
It was that longing for him, sharp as pain, that drove her choice: one danger over another.
“You know who I am,” she remarked.
“Miss Killoran, I know everything.” The handsome duke flashed the same smile that had led Eve to sin. “Now,” he said, “why don’t you tell me exactly why it is you’ve come to my modest club and how I may be of service to you?”
Addien hesitated. There was a difference between her and Eve here after all. Certainly, Eve hadn’t felt this level of reservation in that doomed paradise.
Nor did she fear Argyll’s charm and herself around it.
It’s what running to Argyll would mean to Malric.
He’d see her actions this day as an unforgivable betrayal.
A hollow laugh pressed against her chest. No, that would have to mean the Marquess of Thornwick cared in some way about Addien. He didn’t.
In fact, it was more likely he’d admire Addien’s savvy move, distancing herself from him—and then he’d hold her with the same disdain he did the Duke of Argyll.
She had no choice. She’d drawn her blade and now had to bleed for it.
“Your Grace, I have come in search of employment.”
The Duke of Argyll’s smile—as blindingly bright as the rest of him—widened.
“I was hoping you would say that, Addien,” he said, laying deliberate possessiveness and ownership of her name.
Addien lifted her chin. She’d still not surrender any part of herself to this man or anyone. No, not even to keep herself safe from being emotionally wrecked anymore by Malric. “My name is Snap.”
“No, it’s not,” he said with a gentle, seductive sway in his voice. “That is merely the name Lord Dynevor assigned you. That isn’t a name.”
At long last, the duke stepped away from the door and began his way over to her. His steps as sleek and sensual as the rest of him, he moved with both graceful elegance and strength, a grand juxtaposition that somehow, with this man, made sense.
Addien kept her features even. So the Duke of Argyll would stalk her too. But Malric? He was a wild king of the jungle, bent on possession and clear in his intent.
As if he’d sensed her disinterest, the duke stopped in his tracks. He gave her a mysterious look, and then, with a more honest reaction, disinterestedly, he moved past her and over to the same painting she’d been studying upon his arrival.
Swiftly, unexpectedly, he put a heated gaze upon her.
“My name is Snap,” she said again. “Snap Killoran.”
Something about this man made it important for her to keep up a barrier between them. Malric referred to her by the name she’d given herself. She, who’d been so inconsequential that Mac Diggory, who’d named all his street rats, hadn’t even bothered with one for Addien because of how homely she was.
“You chose a different name for yourself. An apt one, perfectly suited you, Addien.” His rogue’s eyes gleamed with dangerous mirth, dazzling as every inch of him. “Do you know why that is?”
Addien hesitated. She didn’t. She wasn’t sure why she was curious, only that she was.
“You are a proud thing,” he murmured. “I will not make you beg…for an answer, that is.” The duke brushed his knuckles along her cheek—a whisper of a caress, so fleeting she might have imagined it. Delicate. Gentle. Nothing like Malric’s hard, possessive hold.
And yet the gentleness was its own kind of mastery, no less claiming for its softness.
“You chose a Welsh name to define you, and oh, how it does. It is mesmerizing, magnificent.” His murmur had a trance-like effect, one that she didn’t succumb to, but she could certainly see why other women did. “Like the Welsh hills from which you belong.”
His gaze held hers, magnetic and merciless, until she forgot how to look elsewhere.
“That’s why you stared so long at this painting,” he said, voice low and rough. “Because it called to you—because you long to go where it leads. Your name, Addien, means beauty. Fair. Fine. Which is why you are perfect for…”
She hadn’t realized she’d gone still, breath caught, waiting—until he finished.
“My club .”
The rakish glint in his eyes, the rogue’s grin curving his mouth, told her he knew exactly where her thoughts had strayed—and how close she’d come to believing him.
What he didn’t know, what he could never know or believe, was that his light touch might stir warmth, his silky tones might enthrall…
but he was watered-down whiskey beside the Marquess of Thornwick’s finest French brandy.
Malric, velvet at the edges, a deep burn beneath, tempting a woman to drink too much. Too long. Too deep.
“Oh, Addien. I am very much going to enjoy having you in my employ. Now, to determine just what work you are best suited for here,” he purred. “If you will join me for…refreshments, we’ll discuss my plans for you.”
Addien alternated her gaze between the doorway and the pretty tea table he gestured to.
With wooden movements, she took up a seat at the head of the Duke of Argyll’s table.
He settled himself across from her, his figure imposing and impressive.
In taking a seat at Satan’s table, she’d done it—she’d crossed a point of no return, a place she could never come back from. The Devil’s Den entered its final chapter in her life.
And Malric was forever outside her reach.
Why did that not bring the relief it ought?