Page 40 of Sweetest Sin

“Well, I might smell the same”—she snaps her body up and glares down at me—“but nothing else about me is the same. So, before you get any ideas, don’t.”

She turns to stalk away, but before she can, I grab ahold of her wrist, forcing her to fall back into my lap. She scrambles to get off me, and I let her.

“Stop it!” she hisses. “This is beyond inappropriate. I am working, and you’re … you’re … just leave me alone!”

“Peyton!” Sonia squeaks out when she finds Peyton sitting on the sofa and yelling at me. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Antonov,” Sonia apologizes, the tone in her voice telling me, unlike Peyton, she knows exactly who I am.

“It’s okay, Sonia,” I tell her. “Ms. …” I glance at Peyton and leave my sentence hanging, hoping I’ll get her last name, and Sonia doesn’t disappoint.

“Wright,” Sonia answers, earning a glare from Peyton.

“Ms. Wright and I were just chatting. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d actually like to finish our conversation.”

Sonia’s eyes go wide, bouncing between Peyton and me, but then she nods and makes herself scarce.

“Now, where were we?” I say, turning my attention back to the beautiful, fiery woman glaring daggers my way.

“I was telling you to leave me the hell alone, and you were about to oblige.”

I bark out a laugh.

Fuck, I’ve missed this woman.

Nobody, aside from my family, would ever speak to me the way she does.

“How have you been?” I ask, trying to keep our conversation surface level when the truth is that I want to know everything about this woman.

I let her go once, but it’s like fate intervened, and now that she’s back in my life, I have no intention of letting her go again.

“I’ve been fine,” she says in a short tone, her gaze hard.

“And your mom?”

This time, her eyes soften. “She died … a couple of years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, reaching out and squeezing her hand, shocked when she lets me.

“I got two more years with her,” she says with a sad smile. “And Damien—” She cuts herself off and scrambles off the couch. “I really need to get to work. If you need anything, please let?—”

“Who’s Damien?” I ask.

Her eyes widen, and I could be wrong, but it looks like they’re filled with fear. “I-I don’t?—”

“Don’t lie to me,” I tell her. “You’ve said that name twice since getting on this plane. So, if you try to tell me he’s nobody, I’ll hunt him down and make that statement true.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but before she gets a word out, I add, “Before you consider lying, just know that people who lie to me are always punished.” I smirk. “And I’m not talking about the spankings you enjoyed while I was fucking you from behind in the DR.”

I wasn’t planning on showing my cards this quickly, but she’ll learn who I am soon enough.

“You want to talk truths?” She nails me with a glare. “How about you start with what really happened to Dale? You killed him, didn’t you?”

“No.”

Her shoulders visibly sag, and I wait a few seconds before I rock her world.

“My brother did.”

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