A small smile formed. He was truly curious. About her. “I normally don’t talk to people about it. I’ve certainly never shown anyone my work.” She fingered the collar, playing with the small tag…wait…what was that? She rubbed her thumb on a dangling circle hidden beneath it.
Was that a ring?
“Why,
draga
?” He took her hands and kissed her knuckles before placing them in her lap. His palms came to rest on her shoulders.
“Uh, because then they’d know a very private part of me and they would judge me.” Did he plan on attaching a lead to that ring? A leash? Would he control her with it? Her pulse kicked into a trot.
“And? I sense there is more.”
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, uh, I just don’t have what it takes to show someone a product I’ve poured my heart and soul into just to have them turn their nose up at it. Or worse, cut it up with a few cruel words. I see it every day at the gallery. An artist stands off to the side, sick with nerves as their babies are put on display. Some guy who’s had a bad day at work trudges in because his wife insisted he accompany her, and rather than take his frustration out on the pushy wife, he shits on a color scheme or the size of the canvas on display. He goes home, forgets about the evening, while the artist hovers over his beautiful creation, devastated by what was said. One woman told me, every time she puts brush to canvas, she remembers every meaningless criticism she’s ever gotten about her art.” She shook her head, her stomach turning over as she pictured the pain in the eyes of her artists. “I admire them for pursuing their dream despite the cruelty out there. I’ll probably always paint for myself. So?” She patted his hand on her shoulder. “How about you? Got any secrets you wanna get off your gorgeous chest?”
She held her breath and prayed he would allow for the change in topic. She didn’t want to talk about how her cowardice made her feel.
He was silent for a moment, and then his strong hands began kneading her shoulders. He must have felt her growing tension. When he began sifting his fingers through her hair, she knew he’d read her reluctance and was going to give her a pass.
“Your hair is the same color as the dining room table I sat around with my family growing up. Mahogany. The streaks of honey give it depth and warmth. Your eyes have them, too.”
She sighed with something very close to happiness as she hooked her hands around his ankles. He combed his fingers from the front of her scalp to the back a few times, and then he gathered her hair and…started braiding it?
“I used to braid my horse’s mane,” he floored her by saying. “I was gifted him on my eleventh birthday. By my father. He was a gentle man. A university professor who taught economics.”
That was unexpected. “Really? So that’s where you got your business acumen from.”
“I like to think so.” When he reached the end, he undid the braid and started again. “My mother hated him. My father, not the horse. She had him killed. Again, him, not the horse. So I had her killed.”
Shock had her turning, but before she could get far, he gripped the half-made braid hard to hold her in place.
“I have no qualms about stopping my story here and sending you up to our room alone. If you move again, that is where you will find yourself.”
She shut her mouth, replaced her hands on his ankles, and waited with baited breath. He tortured her by stroking her collar and murmuring quietly in his own language for a moment before continuing. She could tell she’d pleased him.
“My grandfather was a powerful man, feared by many. His daughter was spoiled. A disloyal
curvă
. I learned this about my mother when I was eight, and I entered the master bedroom without knocking because I was in a hurry to tell her Markus had fallen. She was in hers and my father’s bed, getting fucked by my grandfather’s best friend.” He came to the end of her hair. Unraveled the braid. Began again. “She instructed me to wait outside until she was finished. Later that night, when I saw her kiss my father with the mouth another man had shoved his tongue into only hours before, something changed. I never looked at her the same.”
Yasmeen bit the inside of her cheek to stay quiet, sure he’d never looked at
any
woman the same after that.
“I took Markus riding one afternoon while she serviced a man I later found out was my grandfather’s enemy.” He paused, and she felt him wrap her hair around his fist. He held it for a moment, then released it. He went back to his braid after rubbing his chin on the crown of her head. “When we returned to the stables, there was a message waiting for me from my sister asking me to let my mother know Miruna would be arriving home for break earlier than expected—she had been studying in Rome. Leaving Markus with our men, I went up to the house, but before I rounded the corner onto the back veranda, I heard voices. My mother’s lover was congratulating her on her newly acquired widow status. I remember being very confused by the comment. Until she spoke. I had never heard fear in her voice before, but it was there when she asked if he was sure they had made it look like an accident.”
Finish. Unravel. Begin.
“I ran as fast as I could around to the front of the house and raced into my father’s study. I called the car phone, but it rang and rang. The police arrived thirty minutes later, and I stood there with my arms around Markus as he went wild at hearing our father and sister had just been killed in a terrible accident. They said it appeared the brakes had failed, and the car flipped on the motorway. Six other lives were lost in the accident.”
“I so enjoyed watching my mother fall to pieces when she realized she had murdered her beautiful girl.” There was a smile in his voice. “Miruna was quiet. Like my father. But our mother loved her anyway. She was eighteen.” His fingers slowed. “I used to think if I’d stayed in the house during my mother’s sessions, I might have heard her discussing her plan, and I could have warned my father. But I always took Markus away to prevent him from stumbling into a room and seeing something that would hurt him. That was a job I loved. Keeping him safe and happy was not the chore many older siblings would have considered it. It was a pleasure. Until he began refusing my aid. Resenting it. I did not take it well at first, and we had some fierce shouting matches. But even those were enjoyable. I was always so proud when he made his point with a passion that made me stop and listen. Not that I ever pointed that out. He would have been insulted.”
Hearing that note of true love in his voice had Yasmeen bringing her fist up to press it against her mouth. She was crushed by his story. Flattened.
“I was fourteen when I became the man of our house. Fifteen when I made Markus an orphan.” He finished the braid without unraveling it and used it to turn her head. “You may ask one question, and I will answer it.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. She just sat there with her profile to him and tried to control the emotions he wanted no part of.
“Come here, pet.”
She moved into him, going on her knees so he could pull her up into his lap. She curled around him, hugging him with so much compassion in her heart she didn’t think it was possible for him not to feel it. She felt closer to him just then, and sorrier for him than ever.
“You have confused me. Why am I not hearing a question?”
“Don’t have one.” And she didn’t. She understood now. After losing his father and sister, he’d held his one remaining sibling as close as he could. He loved and sheltered Markus to the point where she was sure they’d gotten into more than just a few shouting matches.
She kissed his jaw and hugged him harder, so proud of him for opening up to her. So grateful that he’d finally allowed her some insight into what this obsessive need to keep her hidden away from life was about. He liked her, and he was worried something might happen to her. That had to be it. He must have been terrified he would lose his brother, and he did.
“Life is such a bitch,” she said when she was sure she wouldn’t choke. “She never really gives us what we want, does she? Just dangles it in our faces for a while before yanking it away.” She laid her head on his shoulder, murmuring, “You just wanted to keep him safe, and she didn’t let you. How fucking unfair.”
As he held her, accepting her comfort, Yasmeen resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t voluntarily cause him more pain by leaving him alone. If he wanted to keep her for a while, she would stay. When he was better, who knew? But for now? She was his.
She felt the weight of her collar and knew by accepting all of this, any pain waiting on the horizon was going to be hers.
Lucian held his pet close, feeling no ill feelings toward her for this need she felt to coddle him. He’d asked for it by sharing that particular story. Couldn’t deny he was relieved she hadn’t taken him up on his offer. He wasn’t up for answering even the one question he’d given her, let alone the many she, of all people, must have.
“The wine made me sleepy.”
He peered down at her but could only see her chin because her head was tilted. Such a good girl, knowing to move things along so as not to linger in a place he hated visiting. Her generosity made their quiet time a relaxing place to be.
“I don’t know why you have such an aversion to cuddling, Mr. Fane,” she murmured a long while later. “You’re very good at it.”
Come, boys, Miruna. Get up here and cuddle with Papa before I head to school. Nothing brightens my day more than hugs from my clan.
Lucian waited to finally feel the need to shove her to the floor. He waited for that suffocating urge to flee from the tenderness she was inflicting on him, forcing the shit into their dynamic that was supposed to have been dirty, hardcore sex with minimal personal interaction.
Nothing came.
Until the sound of voices reached his ears. His head swiveled, and he glared at the door. “Gheorghe,” he said under his breath, recognizing his cousin’s voice. He should be back in New York by now, not Romania.
Yasmeen sat up. “That’s your cousin, right?” She went to slide off his lap, but he held her in place.
“Yes. Stay. I want them to see they are interrupting.”
She tried harder to move as footsteps came closer. “No. Finding us like this will make everyone uncomfortable.”
“They should be uncomfortable. They know better than to invade my private time.”
Sorin was the first to appear in the doorway. His beard twitched when he saw Lucian and Yasmeen’s intimate position at the table. But when his sharp gaze passed over and then shot back to Yasmeen’s choker, his mouth became a tight slash. Censure dripped from his words. “Please forgive the interruption—that clearly should have come sooner—but you have company. One of which has some interest in your guest.”
Lucian was finding the language barrier more and more convenient. Yasmeen even seemed to be getting used to being excluded from certain conversations.
Gheorghe shoved by Sorin, his eyes dark with annoyance. He was Lucian’s height and shared his coloring, but where Lucian generally kept his appearance neat, Gheorghe was the opposite. He forever looked as if he was a day late for a shave, and a few months late for a haircut. The dark mass currently reached the collar of his black suit jacket. His black shirt was open at the throat, and he looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping well lately. He still had a blood-red pocket square over his heart. Lucian knew it would remain there for the traditional forty-day mourning period.
When Gheorghe moved to reveal who he’d brought as protection on this trip, Lucian couldn’t have been more surprised. Claude Moraux. Markus’s partner. Markus’s lover. Secret lover. Claude stood at a rock-solid six-foot-four, had a steely gray stare, and was as French as they came. He’d worked for Lucian for a lot of years and was one of his best shadows. Deadly. Just the way Lucian like them.
“So you
do
have her here,” Gheorghe said without greeting them.
When Yasmeen moved, Lucian allowed it. Though his need to protect his private sanctum was growing by the second. He got to his feet and didn’t care in the least how strange it appeared when he tucked his pet behind him so the others couldn’t see her. He briefly savored the moment when her hands settled on his waist and her cheek pressed into his spine. What did they call people like her? Touchy-feely? Another surprise; he was coming to appreciate the character trait more and more.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he greeted as a proper host should. His gaze settled on his cousin. “Give me one reason why I should not have you both taken from this room and brought back to the airport at gunpoint?” Unless Markus had taught Claude his language, the Frenchman wouldn’t know what was being said any more than Yasmeen would.
Gheorghe’s mouth twitched. “Since Vex couldn’t get through to Sorin anymore, he’s taken to calling me. Said Melinda is on him again about you kidnapping the beauty you’re trying to hide. Yasmeen, right? Isn’t that her name?” He craned his neck as if trying to catch a glimpse.
The hair on Lucian’s nape sprang up in the same way his Dobermans’ did when they heard an unfamiliar voice in the Hampton’s house. “Her friend’s name is Miranda. And my beauty is a touchy subject we should avoid discussing.” At hearing the name, Yasmeen lifted her head and came around.
“Are you talking about my Miranda?” There was a sleepy note in her voice, the raspy threads much too intimate a sound for Lucian to be okay with other men hearing them.