Page 9 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Eight

“You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.”

― Pat Monahan

Scarlett

I winced as Victoria yanked the black sequin corset tighter, the laces cutting into my ribs. My breath vanished. I gripped the makeup table, nails biting into the wood.

Excited screams bled through the walls. Still, somehow, they found their way under my skin.

Victoria tied the final knot. The makeup artist swooped in, brushing over whatever soul I had left. The hairstylist scorched every strand straight.

“God, you look perfect,” Victoria chirped.

On the outside, maybe I did. But inside, I was a husk. No sleep, no strength—just the ache for a drink.

Or ten.

It’s funny how thrilling it used to be having all these people at my beck and call, running around like circus monkeys, ensuring everything was flawless. A flick of my finger, a murmur of my voice, and I had my own army, ready to obey.

But now? The power felt more like a game that had grown stale, like I was trapped in a never-ending loop of demands, with no one daring to say no.

I used to test them just for fun. I’d once asked for a blueberry muffin from Bagels & Jo in Manhattan?…?while shooting with Vogue in Brooklyn. It was ridiculous. Yet, they still did it.

Every. Single. Time.

It was almost too easy. The world was my playground, and I didn’t even have to be awake for it. That was the trick. But now? Everything just felt empty.

It wasn’t about the power of getting whatever I wanted with the snap of my fingers. All those little demands that once made me feel like I was in control now just reminded me how little I actually had left in me.

“Okay, remember, this is a Gala for global warming. Support, awareness, and a lot of kids running around. No middle fingers, no cursing, and definitely no explicit stuff, got it?”

I rolled my eyes as someone attached the in-ear monitor around my waist, adjusting the wires before popping the small earpiece into my ear.

“Vic, I got it,” I said, tugging on the hem of my dress. “Alexsei already gave me the kindergarten talk. Besides, I’m only doing two songs, and they’re the very good girl ones.”

The Gregs, America’s favorite hypocrites, were hosting tonight’s glitter-drenched guilt trip. One of the richest families in the West, thanks to their charming little oil empire, had decided to pretend they gave a damn about global warming.

Cute, coming from a dynasty whose fortune was slowly roasting the planet.

Tonight, an army of international artists were performing for free. Not because they cared, but because the Gala tickets were going for a small fortune, and rich people loved paying obscene amounts of money to feel morally superior in silk and champagne.

A private concert. The illusion of philanthropy with front-row seats.

Meanwhile, real fans camped outside the building, pressed up against barricades in the cold, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone who might sing for them someday.

I was slotted for two ballads. The first: “Hate the Way I Live.”

I had written that one alone in a Tokyo hotel room on New Year’s Eve, drunk on overpriced whiskey and the kind of silence that makes your ribs ache. It was a song about wanting another version of yourself.

The second: “Butterfly.”

That one was for the ghosts. The ones who’d left too fast, too soon, too goddamn permanently. It was about hoping you’d rise high enough one day to touch where they were, even if it was just for a second.

That song was for Luke.

Victoria raised an eyebrow. “I know, babe, but knowing you, if some idiot in the crowd even looks at you the wrong way, you’ll leap off the stage like a spider monkey and give them a master class in humiliation. So, for once in your life, act like you have a filter, yeah?”

A knock came before I could retort. “Yes?”

The door creaked open, just a few inches. Enough to feel the air shift, like the temperature had dropped by a few degrees. A chill crawled under my skin, making my spine stiffen.

Then came his voice, low, rough around the edges. “Ready, Miss Harper?”

Victoria froze, fingers still on my dress. Her eyes met mine in the mirror. She smirked, because she knew .

She knew how much I wanted to throttle that man with one of the belts he probably alphabetized by designer.

I knew exactly how Théo LeRoy had been made.

God hadn’t crafted him with love. He’d thrown him together with leftover arrogance, cold French sarcasm, and just enough muscle to make you hate how hot he looked while he was ruining your life.

My personal war with him really started two days ago when he’d changed the security passcode to my apartment without telling me.

Why? Because I’d invited an old flame over.

Yes, he’d dressed up as a plumber. Yes, we were going to fix a few things . And no, I hadn’t planned on being celibate that day.

Alexsei had said, verbatim, “No sex.”

But surely making out fell into a grey area, right?

Wrong.

So very, painfully wrong.

LeRoy, who apparently had the instincts of a bloodhound and the moral compass of a priest with a God complex, had decided to knock on my bedroom door just to remind me I had a meeting. Rookie mistake.

“Wait a second!” I shouted a little too loudly, a little too breathlessly.

He’d opened that door like it was a SWAT raid. I didn’t even have time to explain before his eyes darkened when they landed next to me.

“Close your eyes for me, sweetheart.”

For some unknown fucking reason, I obeyed him. My body moved before my brain could catch up.

One second, my fake plumber was next to me with his cheap cologne and false confidence. The next, LeRoy had painted me in his blood.

Gunshot.

Just one.

I opened my eyes and tried to gasp, but my lungs wouldn’t listen.

The body collapsed at my feet with a sickening thud, twitching once before going still. Blood was splashed in delicate arcs across my cheek, my neck, and the neckline of my shirt.

For a second, I thought maybe I was dreaming, or hallucinating.

Or having a psychotic break in the middle of a slutty afternoon.

But then I saw the brain matter staining the hem of my bed skirt, and I knew this was real.

“What the fuck, LeRoy?”

He calmly pulled out his phone, called Alexsei, and in that deep, dry, judgment-laced voice of his said, “You can call the Vatican. Miss Harper just tried to break her vow of celibacy. Spectacularly.”

Then he slipped the phone back into his pocket and slowly turned to me. His gaze locked on mine, like cold steel and something quieter, darker.

My mouth snapped shut. Every insult I had queued up shriveled and died at the back of my throat. I took a step back on instinct.

“Miss Harper,” he began, his voice soaked in lethal calm. “When I left the Navy, my generals begged me to stay. Men who’d seen war, death, and everything in between, on their fucking knees.”

A pause stretched between us.

“Do you know why?”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My mouth was too dry, my legs too busy trying not to tremble.

“Because I was the best. The kind they can’t replace. I could find anything, erase anyone, protect what mattered, no matter the price. I never failed. Never flinched. Never broke a vow.”

He took a slow step forward.

“There is nothing I don’t see. No lie I don’t hear. No secret I don’t feel crawling through the walls.”

Another step. Close enough now that I could smell his cologne—a mix of dark amber, cinnamon, and wrath .

“I have instincts sharper than most people’s reality. So whatever clever little games you think you’re playing behind my back?” He tilted his head slightly, the smallest smirk curling, if you could call it that.

It felt more like a death sentence.

“That was your last fucking one. Compris ?”

I nodded, thankful for the few French lessons my parents had forced me to follow in high school.

He then crouched and grabbed the dead man by the collar.

As he began dragging the body toward the hallway, blood leaving a dark smear across my cream carpet, he said, “I’ll let you clean your mess.”

And just like that, he was gone.

I had spent the next two hours on my knees, soaked in vinegar and shame, scrubbing until the floor stopped bleeding and my hands stopped shaking from my humiliation.

Asshole.

After that incident, I’d been trying to lay low and focus on more important things, like protecting my sanity from that terrifying, murderous monster.

Victoria pretended to check my dress one more time, leaning in to adjust a diamond that didn’t need fixing just to buy enough time to hear the insults I was whispering under my breath, all aimed at him.

But I wasn’t looking at her. I was looking past her.

At him .

He was half in shadow, dressed in black like sin dressed for war—cargo pants, combat boots, a long-sleeved shirt stretched across his chest, and a bulletproof vest stamped SECURITY.

He had that same expression: flat, unaffected, like the world could burn around him and he’d just exhale slower. An earpiece curled against his temple. His stance was effortless and military clean.

And worse than anything, he still looked good. No, not good. Infuriatingly attractive.

The kind of attractive that hit you in the gut. That tightened your spine before your brain could catch up. He was broad in the way that made doorframes seem too narrow.

I fucking hated that I noticed. But as Victoria had once said, you’d have to be legally blind not to find him attractive. And lucky me, my vision had always been crystal clear.

I should’ve looked away.

Instead, I tilted my chin and held his gaze like a dare. “No?—”

“She’s ready,” Victoria cut in at the exact same time. She then tried to smother her laugh behind a cough.

She failed. Miserably .

He mumbled something into his earpiece, eyes scanning the room with that practiced detachment, always alert, always the soldier.

I told myself I hated him, but my pulse hadn’t gotten the memo.

His gaze flicked once, and I felt it. A quick glance down to my dress. A beat. A breath I didn’t take. And then, slowly, his eyes were back on mine.

He pushed the door open wider, stepping aside with that same unreadable face, and gestured for me to go.

I sighed, rolled my shoulders, and took a breath. The mic buzzed in my ear. Applause crackled beyond the curtain. I walked past him, eyes on the floor.

He stepped to the right to let me pass, but his hand still brushed mine.

Just a graze. Fingertips against skin for half a second. But it shot through me like heat under my skin, low and electric, curling behind my knees.

I kept walking, but my cheeks burned. My heartbeat stuttered in my throat.

He didn’t say a word.

And I didn’t look back.

Okay, I can do this. Showtime, baby.