Page 27 of Vicious Kingdom (Dynasty of Queens #3)

D riving into the den of thieves was the last thing I wanted to do.

As the McLaren’s purr softened, I looked over the Hertz’s mansion.

After striking the initial deal, I had several long, heated conversations with my brother.

Sandro was of the opinion that we tell some strategic individuals about the situation.

They would force Hertz into a precise defeat.

Granted, the don had a point. It would be easier to pluck Hertz Media from the ashes and do what my acquisition company did best: chop it for parts and sell the company.

But if I took that option, if we destroyed the media mogul via any traditional course of action, I wouldn’t be able to capture Annaliese. And that part of the revenge was personal.

So here I was. Using blackmail to marry the object of my obsession. I couldn’t bring myself to hate the whole situation, and that made me even madder.

While I lingered in the sportscar, wishing I didn’t have to go inside and face the music, a ghostly vision whispered over the lawn.

It was her.

That beautiful woman who’d been a constant presence in my mind these last five years now manifested in front of me.

“She’s going to be mine.” The words were a breath, a prayer of disbelief.

Dammit, why didn’t I hate that idea?

Annaliese walked toward the front door, barefoot and looking a bit disheveled. Her shoes dangled by their straps from her fingers. She wasn’t smiling.

I launched from the car. My steps clipped across the pavement. She heard my approach, tensed, then looked.

I frowned.

But her smile of recognition nearly sent me to my knees. “You’re here!”

Heaven damn me, she was happy to see me.

“Where else would I be?” I snapped.

She winced slightly, and I mentally kicked myself.

“Oh, I don’t know, I figured you were trying to find a way out of this.” She waved her hand at the house.

She didn’t realize I was the force behind this? Odd. How had her parents broken the news to her? And another thing, why was she excited at the prospect?

I focused on the grass stains on her dress. “What have you been doing?”

Startled, she looked down. There was a flash of panic on her pretty face before she laughed it off.

“The game of tag with some of the kids was epic.”

There were children here tonight? “On your bad ankle?”

“It’s feeling much better,” she insisted, doing a little dance to show me.

I sensed a lie.

“Let me run upstairs and change, then we can meet everyone,” she offered, reaching for the door.

I followed.

“Wait here or go ahead if you want,” she said.

Not happening. I continued to dog her up the grand staircase and to her room. She was moving better on that ankle. Maybe she had been playing outside.

Fuck. I wished I could believe her.

She paused, looking unsure. I pushed inside, invading her inner sanctum. I expected a grand suite, trimmed for a princess, especially after seeing the opulent guest room the night I brought her home.

This space was nothing like the rest of the mansion.

Instead, I blinked hard at the library.

“I like to read,” she explained, sensing my astonishment.

She wandered to a door that I guessed was a closet. I moved closer but paused to glance over the titles. There was a wide array. Every wall was concealed behind floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

“Leonard? Can you, um, help me?” Annaliese called.

I found her in the closet, struggling with her dress. Her arm was bent as she tugged and twisted.

“The zipper’s caught.” Her eyes lifted, and I found myself falling into the pools of blue.

Drawn by her presence, I inched forward. “Turn around.” The words were gravel, sticking to my throat.

The zipper was stuck.

Deciding the thing was beyond saving, I gripped both sides and pulled. The teeth ripped. Bare skin showed beneath.

I let out a staggered rasp—so beautiful.

A man possessed, I couldn’t stop myself. I brushed the tips of my fingers down her spine.

Her shiver was delicious. My groin tightened painfully.

“So, um, I found out tonight that we’re getting married,” she whispered.

That was one way to put it.

“They said you’ve known all week?” she pressed, turning and clutching the material to her chest.

I frowned at the protective gesture. “You’re saying you didn’t know?”

Annaliese shook her head, strands of hair shifting where they’d escaped her styling. “Dad thought it would be a surprise this way, but my guess is he didn’t want to give me time to escape.”

A powerful emotion flared at the suggestion. I decided right then and there that this was, in fact, happening. Any lingering doubt vanished. She was going to be mine. I took two steps forward, pressing our bodies together.

“There’s no escaping this, Anna.”

She smiled—she fucking smiled. “I have no intentions of running away.”

“You should. You should run far away.” I slid my hand up her arm, feeling the gooseflesh prickling on her skin.

“And break whatever deal you have with Dad? That would be cruel.”

Fuck him. I hated that he was part of whatever this thing was. I bent over her, and she tipped her face up to me. So trusting, so sweet.

“I’m sorry for the way things ended at the lake,” I murmured.

Annaliese nodded. “Thank you, but I understand.”

No, you don’t. Because I didn’t understand it myself.

“Take it off.” At my command, she dropped the remains of the dress.

I stifled a groan.

Annaliese stood there, in my arms, with nothing on save the white, lacy panties.

“Why did you agree to this, Leo—Leonard?” She fumbled over my name.

Too distracted, I didn’t catch it right away. “Keep your enemies close.”

“I’m your enemy?” She arched a brow.

“You’re not my friend,” I countered.

“Well, however are we going to survive this marriage if we aren’t at least friendly?” she scoffed.

“Easy. I’ll show you.” I bent and kissed her.

Her lips were soft, yielding beneath mine.

She made a small sound in her throat—half surrender, half demand—and pressed against me, her nearly naked body molding to mine.

I tangled my fingers in her hair, destroying what remained of her elegant style as I angled her head to deepen the kiss.

The pins scattered across the floor like forgotten promises.

Mine.

She was going to be mine—and I didn’t hate that thought.

Her lips parted on a gasp, and I seized the opportunity, claiming her mouth with a hunger that surprised even me. This wasn’t the calculated kiss of a business arrangement. This was primal, desperate. My tongue swept inside, tasting her. The promise of something more made my blood burn hotter.

My other hand slid down her bare back, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hip. I wanted to mark her, claim her, erase any memory of anything but this moment between us.

“Leonard,” she breathed against my mouth, the word vibrating between us like a confession.

It was too sweet, too pure.

I pulled back. In my struggle to regain my composure, the words came out harder than I meant. “I didn’t want this. And I don’t forgive you for what you did.”

Annaliese gasped, body going taut beneath my touch.

“But now that you’ve left me no choice,” I added, “I’m not letting you make a fool of me.”

“Don’t worry, Baldwin, that was never my intention,” she said with a bite. “Thank you for your help with the zipper. I can take it from here.”

I stepped away. Not because she asked, but because otherwise I would take her right here, right now in this closet.

Leaning against the doorframe, I watched as she tugged on another dress.

“We should get our story straight,” she said, tone businesslike. “There’s been a thousand questions already, and I’ve been as evasive as possible.”

This dress wasn’t as supportive. Her full breasts moved under the material, but I could still see her pert nipples.

My mouth watered for a taste.

“Baldwin?” she demanded, freeing her hair and giving it a fluff before she captured it high in a ponytail.

“What story?” The one where you lied? Your father prevented me from taking his company, and now the best option is to marry you?

But I didn’t say any of those things. I didn’t enjoy seeing her hurt, and my words had already done enough damage tonight.

“Where did we meet? When and how did you propose? What’s the wedding going to be like?” She rattled off an inane list of inconsequential details.

“I proposed at dinner, we’ve been secretly dating, and now we’re having a wedding. Everything else isn’t up for discussion.”

Annaliese snorted. The sound was cute.

“Clearly you’ve never been engaged before,” she said.

We went downstairs and began society’s song and dance.

I shadowed her through the throng, unwilling to let the pack of scavengers pull her away and sink their claws into her.

The whisper of the engagement was enough to stir intrigue, and I could see the curiosity sparking in their eyes.

Everyone wanted confirmation. Her father was investing heavily in this affair, ensuring all the right people were in attendance.

Every trust fund brat with an Ivy League education and designer suit inched closer to hear the details themselves—then took a healthy step back as I approached.

Every Wall Street tycoon with a reputation appeared eager to ask the question on everyone’s mind—then withered under my scowl.

Annaliese was forced to answer the inquiries with little more than a few words and a nod, as the rest of the crowd lost its nerve and scattered when I cut in.

She glanced my way, an amused edge to her expression as if she found all this entertaining.

I wasn’t about to surrender her to this brood of vultures, no matter how light she made of it.

As self-interested as any stock she’d shorted, they were here to collect details, inside information on the biggest merger of the year, and I wasn’t about to give them a tip.

“You could try to be nice to people,” Annaliese scolded after I scared yet another vulture away.

“I have you now, Anna. Just because I didn’t want you doesn’t mean I’ll let another man think he can take you from me.”

That shouldn’t have made her smile.

She should hate me.

But instead, the look of trust and devotion in her eyes was enough to make me kick myself for the callous comment.

Another group approached. Jon Hertz, I knew, but the younger man, whispering with two women, was a stranger to me. Kevin, the guy from pizza night, bounded after them a moment later, sidling up to one of the women, who squeezed his cheek.

As though he was a child.

“Annaliese, look how happy you are?” her uncle beamed.

“Uncle Jon, have you met Baldwin?” she asked breezily.

“I have.” He shook my hand, fingers chubby and soft. “But he hasn’t met your cousin. Baldwin, this strapping lad is my son, going to take over for us someday.”

The slim man was anything but strapping.

“A pleasure to meet you,” I said robotically.

One light brown brow flicked in amusement. The cousin bent and whispered to one of the women, and she giggled.

“Jonatan, say hello to Mr. Baldwin,” his father coaxed.

“I don’t have to.” He tossed his head with a sneer of disgust. “He tried to buy our company. I don’t have anything nice to say, and as the adage goes, I should just keep my mouth shut, right?”

The girls on his arms cooed. Kevin looked bewildered but sided with the popular energy vibrating through his group.

Annaliese shot them an annoyed look. “Really, Callah?”

One of the women shrugged. “He’s not wrong.”

“He’s calling it like he sees it,” the other woman added. “He’s going to make a great CEO one day!”

Mio dio, this kid? Really? He was the heir when they had a capable, clever alternative?

I pulled Annaliese into my body.

Her cousin looked between us, grumbled something under his breath, and drug the others away.

Kevin at least had the decency to give us a half-hearted finger wave before he loped after the group.

Annaliese shifted against me, her body warm and supple where it pressed to mine. I could feel tension in her frame.

“You’ll have to forgive Jonatan; he’s having a hard time with the situation,” his father explained. “The turn of events was a difficult thing for someone so young in the business world to understand.”

And yet at his age, I’d already clawed my way out of the streets and begun to lay the bricks that would become my kingdom.

“I understand,” I said, not understanding at all. The young man's behavior seemed more like jealousy than anxiety.

Jon nodded appreciatively. “Well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone. Plenty of other guests to greet.” He patted my shoulder and waddled away.

Annaliese’s body relaxed the moment her uncle disappeared into the crowd. My arm instinctively tightened around her waist.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“Being civil. Uncle Jon can be a bit much, but he’s a good egg.”

I scanned the room. “I need to speak with your father.”

“Business already?” She frowned. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“This can’t wait.” Our arrangement required clarification. I needed to establish boundaries. There would be no more of these events. I wasn’t a trophy to be trotted around Hertz’s friends.

Annaliese let out a small sigh.

“You okay?” I asked, surprised by my own concern.

“Fine,” she said too quickly, then looked up at me with those blue eyes. “Just tired of all this.”

I understood completely. The party felt interminable, with each introduction more tedious than the last.

“It will be over soon,” I promised, ignoring my own confusion at why I was trying to be nice to her.

But that trusting smile on her lips probably had something to do with it.