Authors: Emma Briar
33
LIAM CLAMS UP when I prod for information about Roman’s mysterious enemy.
“This is the holy mother-fucker of shit he’s involved in, Kee,” he says, head in hands. “It goes over my head, your head, probably the law’s head. I don’t want to keep you in the dark, but if Roman says it’s safer, I’m going with that because if I don’t and he’s right, if anything happens to you, I’ll never forgive myself. But I can tell you this... You know that expert team Roman had investigating the Lamborghini?”
I nod.
“The brakes and steering system had been tampered with, Kee.”
My heart rams into my throat. “It’s a miracle you managed to bring the car back under control. We should have died.”
Oh God.
“Roman was meant to die.”
“When these people want someone dead, they don’t mess around,” Liam says. “Do you see now? You have to just let this go. You don’t want to know, and it’s safer if you don’t.”
I do see, and my heart is thumping erratically, but I disagree. I do want to know. I have a right to know.
Seeing how worried Liam is, though, I let it go.
We linger over supper, chatting and catching up, and I do as Roman suggested, I rant and rave about all my frustrations and I curse Roman, a lot, but I say nothing about my sore bottom. Partly because I suspect Liam might take Roman’s side, especially if it came out that I’d threatened to run again, to go to the police. Mostly because Liam seems more worn out than me about this situation and maybe it’s time to just move on, one day at a time until I can leave Roman and my bad addiction far behind.
Hours later, when Liam yawns and mentions the long drive home, an idea is planted and takes root. I can’t let it go. I’ve spent most of the day in tears. I’m exhausted, broken, drowning, and whichever way I look, I see Roman Rocchi as the cause. I think I’m doing this for survival, not for spite, but I’m so lost right now that I’m not sure I could even tell the difference.
I’m desperate.
When I put the suggestion forward to Liam, he gives me a
what-the-fuck
look. “I don’t know how you can still have a problem saying no, after the way he’s treated you.”
“I have issues,” I admit. “That’s why I need help. Will you?”
“Of course,” he shrugs, as if that’s a given.
Which it probably is. We’ve fallen asleep in the same bed often enough before. But this time there are implications, even if I’m not in a relationship with Roman, even if I’m free to do exactly as I like.
“Roman may not be happy about it,” I warn him, although I’m not entirely sure Roman will care. He’s trying to seduce me to take my mind off all the reasons I have to be so miserable. Maybe he’ll be ecstatic that Liam’s doing the job for him.
“Hey, Kee, I’m
your
friend, always and forever. Whatever you need from me, you have it. Nothing else matters.” He reaches across the table to fold his hand over mine, a smile lit behind those warm brown eyes. “If you want to tell him we had sex, go right ahead.”
“Just sharing a bed is enough to turn Roman off cold,” I say with a small, tight laugh.
This isn’t just another of Roman’s ground rules. I’m about to break the Cardinal Rule. Or maybe I should call it the
Carnal Rule.
“There’s only one rule you have to remember. If you want me to fuck you, you stay out of other men’s beds.”
It’s edging toward midnight and we’re on the verge of retiring upstairs when Roman comes across us in the conservatory. We’re sprawled on a blanket on the floor, star gazing while we finish the bottle of wine we opened at the table.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” he drawls. “It’s getting late. Liam, if you’d like to spend the night, Mrs. Lowellyn usually keeps a couple of the guest rooms made up.”
I’d planned to ensure Bold witnessed Liam leaving my room in the morning, but this is even better.
“That’s not necessary.” I roll over onto my elbows and as I push to my knees, as my eyes fall on Roman, my throat constricts with sudden doubts. His sleeves are rubbed up. His hair is a mess. A half grin tucks one corner of his gorgeous mouth.
I give myself a mental shake and swallow past the lump. “Liam can share with me.”
Roman’s grin fades. “We have eight bedrooms here, Keegan. I’m sure he’ll be more comfortable in his own bed.”
“I’ll be very comfortable with Keegan,” Liam says, jumping to the rescue. “We share a bed all the time.”
I paste on a bright smile. “Settled then.”
Roman looks from me to Liam, then back to me. “Keegan, could I have a word?”
He withdraws from the conservatory without bothering to wait for my response.
“Do you want me to talk to him?” Liam says.
“No.” I wave him back down as he starts to rise with me. “I’ve got this.”
Roman has retreated a few steps along the passage. He’s shoved a hand through his hair, holds it there, watching me approach with a hawk-like gaze.
Silence thickens the air as I stop in front of him, a tangible tension that grabs my throat again.
Is this really what you want?
“What game are you playing?” Roman says, his voice gravel hard but wrapped in silk.
His gaze dips to my mouth, lingers so long I swear I taste his kisses. My pulse quickens and it’s not just because he’s eye-fucking my mouth. He doesn’t want Liam in my bed. Which means he’s serious about seducing me into his.
His gaze lifts, heating into mine.
I have a flogger in my bedroom I could introduce you to.
Knots of apprehension knot low in my abdomen. I can’t even begin to imagine how that introduction would go, but this is Roman. It would most definitely end with a screaming orgasm. Warm shivers cover my skin and sink deep, melting between my legs.
Damn it all.
“I’m not the one playing games, Roman.” I step back and cross my arms. This is so not what I want. All the more reason to do it.
Cold turkey, Keegan.
“I’ve had a rough day and I want Liam to stay with me tonight. That’s all.”
Roman drags that hand through his hair, over his jaw.
“Thanks to you,” I push on, “I’m on extended vacation and let’s not forget my resignation. I’m no longer on your company dime and Liam and I aren’t colleagues.”
A hardness slates his eyes, but his voice is silken. “Does Liam know he’ll be scratching an itch I put there?”
Condescending bastard.
“Do you want to know why Liam will be sleeping in my bed tonight instead of you?” I say, infusing my tone with that same silken softness. “Because to him, I’m more than just an itch to be scratched.”
“And what is he to you? Lie to yourself all you want, but we both know you’re using—” he cuts offs, falling back against the wall.
He scrubs a hand over his brow, and when he looks at me again, there’s a subtle shift in his demeanour. A single layer shaved off his iron control. The tiniest glimmer of a crumbling.
“Keegan,” he says quietly, “don’t do this.”
A tremble kicks in behind my knees. The sobering intensity of his gaze pours into me. No shutters. It’s a plea, a warning, a promise.
I already knew this.
If I cross this line, there’s no going back.
Ever.
And I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I’m strong enough. But then I close my eyes on a ragged sigh and I see myself standing in Roman’s study, glaring at the belt fisted in his hand, my heart in my throat…
“Don’t do this.”
The hard edges of his mouth, his face a harsh wasteland. “It will go worse for you the longer you make me wait, Keegan. We’re already up to ten strokes.”
And more…
I see myself choking on anger and hurt and disbelief in Kleighnorm’s library…
“And now it’s over? Just like that? You pack me up and send me home with an escort?”
“Bold will accompany you to attend to any arrangements required along the way.” His voice so cold, his gaze so hard and always, always so easily shuttered.
I take another step back, out of Roman’s impact, and flash my eyes open on him.
“You said you’d do anything, everything, to make this situation more tolerable for me. This is what I want.” I barely recognise my voice. The words are coming from a cold, dark place inside me. “I want Liam.”
34
LIAM LEAVES STRAIGHT after breakfast and then I’m left to my own devices and a shit load of misgivings. I’m jittery with nervous tension that rolls through me in a continuous wave throughout the day.
I’m torn apart, down the middle. One half of me mourns the sudden loss, as if Roman has physically been ripped out of my body. The other half rejoices in the control I’ve taken over my life, my future.
And when the regret stacks up too high, I have my permanent shadow for balance. The only place I’m safe from Bold is in my bedroom. The damn man even follows me into the pool room, watches from the edge while I attempt to swim my nervous energy into oblivion.
As much as I crave Roman Rocchi and melt beneath his domination in the bedroom, I would be crushed in this world of his. He is just too…too ruthlessly determined in everything he does. If he needs me set aside, he doesn’t hesitate to toss me away. If he needs to keep me close, he chains me. If he needs me brought to heel, he disciplines me. If he needs me in his bed, he seduces without mercy.
I’m not immune to Roman. I haven’t even started the process of getting over him. But I am enormously proud of the wall I’ve slammed up to protect me from both Roman and myself.
When the supper hour approaches, I yank open my bedroom door with a charming smile for Bold. “How did Roman save your life?”
He cocks a brow at me. “Mr. Rocchi hasn’t requested your attendance this evening, Ms. Lynch.”
“Imagine that,” I say flippantly, although my stomach pings with disappointment.
I soon discover Roman isn’t in residence at all.
“Oh, Mr. Rocchi doesn’t spend much time here at the Surrey estate,” Mrs. Lowellyn informs me when I enquire after him. “He prefers the town apartment.”
“How nice for him,” I mumble beneath my breath.
I should know better than to ask Bold anything, but there’s still no sign of Roman the following day and I can’t help myself.
Bold smirks. Instead of answering my question, he says, “But I’ll be sure to let Mr. Rocchi know you were asking after him.”
Great.
Another two days pass before Bold knocks on my bedroom door to deliver the news of Roman’s return in the form of, “Mr. Rocchi requests your attendance at dinner, Ms. Lynch.”
An undeniable thrill rolls down my spine and curls into my toes. I could tell myself I’m just bored out of my mind, anything for a bit of excitement, but I try not to do that, lie to myself.
My body is gripped in a thrall of hot anticipation at the prospect of an encounter with Roman.
“Tell me how Roman saved your life,” I challenge Bold, “and I won’t put up a fight.”
His mouth hitches in amusement. “Or I could toss you over my shoulder. You could put up all the fight you want and I’d barely notice.”
I arch a brow at his barbaric tactics. “Do you really think Roman would approve?”
His amusement deepens into a fully-fledged smile, a first so far. “Mr. Rocchi pulled me off the streets of Barcelona and into an honest job. I was fifteen and already running drugs, Ms. Lynch. I doubt I would have seen my sixteenth birthday if he hadn’t come along.”
“You’re serious,” I gasp when he doesn’t burst out laughing. I study his face, searching for signs of extreme youth. See none. “You can’t be that much younger than Roman. He must have been a teenager himself at the time. What about the second time? You said he saved your life twice?”
Bold steps outside into the passage and waves me along. Question time is over. I can’t wrap my head around a teenage Roman cruising the streets of Barcelona, recruiting drug runners and offering them an honest job. And then I recall that Roman is only twenty-six now. I keep forgetting that. And I realise Roman was never a carefree child, never a reckless teenager. He probably bought out his first company before he could legally drink.
Roman has his back to me when I enter the dining room. He turns, his phone pressed to his ear, his gravel baritone rumbling beneath my skin as he cuts the conversation short and says goodbye.
As always, he wears the exhaustion of his long day knee-meltingly well. His tie is tugged loose, his sleeves rubbed up, his hair deliciously messed.
He’s across the table from me, but even from here I note the foreboding darkness that stains his expression.
I may or may not be the cause, given the way I last left things between us.
My defensive shield goes up.
I’m not the one in the wrong here.
I lift my chin, my hands fisting at my sides. “You summoned me?”
“Pull in your claws,” he says. “You’re going to like this.”
He doesn’t sound angry. He sounds tired, worn-out. And there’s not a hint of seduction in his tone or in his eyes.
Job well done, Keegan.
I try to not dwell on the bitter edge that laces that thought.
“Please.” Roman gestures toward the chair across from him and waits until I’m seated before he sits.
I lean back in my chair. “What’s going on?”
But just then Mrs. Lowellyn rolls the dinner trolley in and I have to bide my curiosity while she transfers dishes from the heating tray to the table. Roman pours two glasses of wine, his eyes meeting mine as he passes one over. Our fingers brush, and he’s not seducing me, he’s not talking about floggers or about burying his cock deep inside me, he’s not raking me in with his special talent for eye-fucking, but a swell of want and longing festers in my blood.
“What’s going on, Roman?” I ask again once we’re alone.
“We’ve managed to contain the threat sooner than I’d expected.” He raises his glass to me in a salute, a semblance of a smile straining his jaw. “It’s over. Bold will take you home in the morning.”
The conflicting emotions I’ve been fighting for days collide in my chest.
Relief. I can go home.
Why not tonight?
The protest refuses to leave my lips. Because it’s over. Roman and I are done. I doubt I’ll ever see him again, and I need this. One more night.
Just to be here with Roman, to memorise every nuance of his face, to look into his eyes while memories of his touch sink into me, peeling back the layers until I’m tingling all over with exposed desire.
Because we’re done. This is all I’ll ever have of him again and it hurts and I’m safe. I see it in his stone-cold eyes. I slammed up this wall, but he is reinforcing it with unyielding iron.
We eat in silence for a long while until Roman puts his fork down and clears his throat.
“I owe you an explanation.” He drags his glass closer, cradling it in front of him as his gaze settles on me. “I know I’ve put you through hell, Keegan, but now that it’s over, I can tell you some of it. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but maybe you’ll understand a little better.”
Surprise hiccups through me. I push my plate aside, not saying a word, afraid to break the spell that’s loosening his tongue.
“My father was second in command to the head of a powerful mafia family,” he says, flooring me at the get-go and my mouth just grows slacker and slacker as he continues.
“When my mother fell pregnant with me, he decided to retire from the business, to start over here. He changed his identity, took all the necessary steps, but you don’t just retire from the family business and his past caught up to him.”
“The accident?” I say, my voice so small, I barely hear it myself. “Your parents and your sister were murdered?”
Roman nods. “I wasn’t with them that day. They’d attended a recital at Madeline’s school and were on their way home. I didn’t know these details, of course, until I was much older. From the contents of a safety deposit box released to me along with control of my trust fund when I turned eighteen. My father had kept documents, photos, signatures, irrefutable proof that both tied him to this mafia family and condemned them. As a security measure only, he never meant to use any of it. In fact, he left a letter in the safety deposit box in the event of his death and he made it quite clear that whomever inherited his secrets should hold them close.”
“Roman, I’m so sorry.” My heart pains for him. I can’t imagine losing my family in one foul scoop, then finding out they were murdered. His father had been tied to the mob? Oh, God, how the hell did one deal with that?
“No,” he says. “I’m sorry, Keegan. You see, I didn’t abide by my father’s wishes. I went to Barcelona. I wanted the truth. I wanted revenge. I was wet behind the ears and hell bent on my damned mission no matter how desperately Connor pleaded with me to let it be. Before I knew what I’d done, I’d stirred up a hornet’s nest and brought the wrath of a very powerful family down over my head.”
“And these people, they’re still after you?”
“We thought it was over,” Roman says. “Connor insisted on getting the law involved and I had enough proof to bring the family down. It was an international police operation and went on for years, but two years ago they finally convicted the last branch of the family. But we’d missed someone. I’m not going to go into further details, Keegan. When it comes to these Italian families, knowing a name is enough to get a hit put out on you even if that name is now only a ghost.”
I sip on my wine as I digest Roman’s revelation. The darkness of his family history and the resulting tragedy is almost too much to process. It’s a big screen movie, not real life, and yet this is the life Roman had to live, maybe still lives.
“Is it really over?” I ask him.
“The man who kidnapped you was working for the grandson of the family who’d gone into hiding. The grandson’s gone, Keegan. Shot dead while the police tried to apprehend him.”
He shoves a hand through his hair with a sigh. “It’s over, Keegan, and I’m sorry for the hell I put you through. I was terrified. These people wiped my family out and if they’d gotten to you…”
“It’s okay,” I tell him when he falls into silence.
“Is it?” He sips on his wine, his gaze burying into me. “My actions were deplorable. I stripped you of your privacy, I locked up, I meant to break your will when you ran. That’s not the man I am. And yet…” His voice breaks. “I hate myself for what I did, I am sorry, Keegan, but I don’t regret it. I had to ensure your safety by any means. That, too, is the man I am.”
I look into his eyes, those stone-cold eyes burying into me like a grave of frost. Once, not too long ago, Roman put a crack in my heart. Now it feels as if my heart is breaking. Because I hear it in his voice. In his words. How much I mean to him.
How much you meant to him.
“I wish you’d told me,” I say, my voice breaking worse than his, breaking along with the rest of me.
“I couldn’t.”
“I understand, now, but Roman, I wish I had known.”
Before I’d done the one thing he’d never forgive.
“Would you have done anything different?”
I give a shaky, forlorn laugh. “I would have done everything different.”
“Then I’d wish you’d known, too,” he says softly, but that silken tone wraps around pure grit and his jaw is as hard as the stone grey in his eyes.