Page 69 of Pretty Pink Poison

He was texting something to someone as he languidly got up to open the door to my penthouse and let two more men rush in with their water bottles and a bucket.

The fire was out before it even really got started.

I wasn’t done though. I walked over my landline phone and dialed the number for the spa. I waited as I stared at Bane staring at me. When a receptionist picked up, I said, “Yes, thanksfor doing my hair. Bane was just here… the owner of the resort, yes. He said I could work there?” I waited as the woman put me on hold and just a minute later Bane got a call.

“Pick it up.” My words were pointed. “Be a good boy and say yes, Bane.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll really go wild and you won’t like the result.” I put a hand on my hip and gave him a look. “I need more in my life. More friends. More activities. More love. More freaking chaos. You need the opposite. You would love more isolation. More silence. More violence. And more order.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Your point?”

“Just let me live how I want.”

He growled but he picked up and confirmed with his hotel management that I’d have free rein to work where I wanted within the resort. “Anywhere but the Vault.”

Only a minute later, she was back on the phone telling me to come in.

I should have taken that as a win, but now I was laser focused on the one place he didn’t want me.

When I hung up with her, I put a hand on a hip. “I’m going to find out. You know I’ll bother every single person including every guest of this place to figure it out.”

He sucked on his teeth and stood like he needed to leave. “You’re being impossible.”

“Just the way you like me.” I poked his shoulder. “Tell me.”

“The resort has been expanded. On the lower level, specific tastes are satisfied.”

“Like…” I dragged out the word.

“Like fantasies.”

“What? Like a sex club?” I chuckled but when he didn’t smile back, my jaw dropped. “Like where all my romantic fantasies could be fulfilled?”

“No,” he retorted angrily. “You try going in there for anything without me, Pink, and I’ll drag you right back to the place you called a dollhouse.”

My mouth snapped shut at that. “That’s low even for you, Bane.”

“I’ve got skulls lining the lower level room of a restaurant and my office, Pink. You think me throwing you back in there is low? I’ll take you to hell if I have to.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Let’s compromise. Take me with you next time you go.”

“I don’t go.”

“Because?”

“Because my fantasies aren’t in the Vault.” His stare was heated and suddenly I wanted to be in there with him, with what we had between us now, with me being Pink rather than Bianca.

“One day though?”

His jaw moved three times before he nodded.

And with that agreement, that was how we became reluctant friends over the next year.

He said no and I said yes and our push and pull drove everyone insane, but it worked…

Well, it worked until it didn’t.