this?” Logan asks as I flip through his proposal for some additions to the next estate open day he’s running.
“Yeah. You and Jasmin have both run more of these days than me, I know you’ve got it covered.”
Logan tips his head to the side with a grin. “We couldn’t just sit on our asses while you were away in Her Majesty’s finest five-star luxury now, could we?”
I smirk. “Bastard.”
Logan and Jasmin are the only ones who can make jokes about me getting sent down. It’s a dark humor we all share sometimes. We started doing it because the alternative of getting all depressed and shit when we talk about it isn’t top of anyone’s wish list.
Especially mine. Two and a half fucking years of my life… gone.
They both stuck by me through everything, keeping the business afloat. I owe everything to them. And I intend to pay them back. I know Jasmin wouldn’t be okay with my methods if she knew just how I intend to do it. But she will understand when it’s done. And so will Logan. But right now, it’s better for everyone the less they know.
Especially Rose.
Rose.
I grit my teeth as I hand the proposal back to Logan. Rose has no idea what she’s getting into by pushing to get to know me. She wouldn’t want to know me if I told her what I do. Maybe I should tell her. At least that way, she might leave. Go back to New York where she’s safe from it all. Safe from me. But I can’t… I’m a selfish bastard. Because as much as I am no good for her, I can’t let her go, either.
I want her. I want her so much it fucking hurts to breathe when I see her.
Especially when she looks at me with that fire in her eyes. I knew she had it. It’s coming back, brighter every day. And I’m a moth to the fucking flame.
My phone starts ringing.
“Great. I’m going to find Jasmin to go over some things. Catch you later.”
“Yep.” I nod at Logan as he leaves and pull my phone from my suit pants, checking the caller ID.
What the fuck now?
“What?” I bark.
“You’re ready, right? You’re coming down now?”
My jaw ticks. Fucking Marcus. He couldn’t organize his way out of a wet paper bag.
“You can handle this. It’ll be good practice for the big shipment.”
“I know, it’s just… with Mr. Young—”
“Forget about him,” I snarl. “Or are you pissing yourself just hearing his name?”
“Fuck off—”
“Listen to me.” I drop my voice. “Don’t worry about him. Just do your damn job.”
Marcus sniffs down the line. “You coming to gimme a hand or what?”
Jesus. How this guy hasn’t been killed already, I have no idea. It’s a miracle he makes it out of bed, let alone survives with the company we keep.
“I can be there in—”
“You’re liars!” Rose’s voice cuts through the air like a knife, forcing all the hairs on the back of my neck to stand to attention. “Is it true?”
The pain in her voice as she screams and bangs about in her office down the hallway makes my stomach roll.
“Marcus. You’ll have to wait. Something’s come up.”
“What? Come on—”
“I said, you’ll have to fucking wait.” I throw my phone down on the desk and fly out of the room, my jacket flapping behind me as I run to Rose’s office.
Empty.
Something’s happened. She shouldn’t sound like that. Her voice…
Where is she?
“Rose?” I yell, racing down the stairs to the ground floor. Someone points to the front door.
I tear through it.
Gravel and dust kick up into a giant cloud, engulfing the air in front of the main house as one of the estate’s Range Rovers speeds off down the driveway.
Rose? What the fuck happened?
Her blonde hair cascades down her back where she’s sitting slumped over her drink at the bar. If I didn’t sense the hurt radiating from her in waves, pulling me to her, then I could stay here and watch her. Stay here all fucking night. Admire the way her hair shines, the platinum highlights in it glistening. Watch the way her lips part as she takes a sip of the clear liquid in the glass she’s gripping so hard, her knuckles are turning white.
No matter what she does, Rose Jacobs is fucking beautiful.
And I would cut out anyone’s tongue who dared say otherwise.
“Aunt Iris on the rocks.” I nod at the bartender as I slide onto the bar stool next to her.
“How did you know I was here?” She sniffs, keeping her eyes on her glass as she turns it side to side in her hand, watching the light catch on the rim.
“The car has a tracker.”
She turns to me, her eyes dull, and it’s like someone just ripped open my chest with their bare hands and poured salt inside.
“Oh.” Her mouth flattens into a grim line as she turns back to her drink, sighing heavily. “You know how you said that your life was fucked up?”
“Yeah?”
She tips the glass again and then downs the remainder of it. The bartender places my drink down, and I signal to him to get another for Rose.
“Mine definitely out-fucks yours as of today.”
“What’s happened?” I lean closer to her, my body turned to her, tuned in to her every movement. To the pinch in the fine lines by her eyes as she screws them up and drags in an uneven breath. To the small shake in her fingers as she wraps them around the fresh glass that is placed down. To the forced swallow before she speaks.
“She’s been lying to me for years. She’s the only person I trusted.”
“Who has? Rose?”
She turns to me. “Casey. It was her all along. She knows what that man did to our family. She’s the reason he was speeding down that road. He was having an affair with her.”
“Brett’s accident?”
“She’s my best friend, Dax. How could she do that? How can you lie to someone every single day? Look them in the eye and know you played a part in them losing everything?”
“How did you—?”
“She admitted it. Said she’s sorry. She hasn’t stopped texting me.” Rose reaches to her phone on the bar and hands it to me. “I’ve switched it off. Don’t let me have it back yet. I’m afraid of what I might do if I turn it on and see her name again.”
I slide it into my jacket pocket, then take her hand in mine.
“What do you need?” I place my thumb over her wrist and stroke her vein as it pulses against my skin.
She looks up at me and her eyes pinch at the corners, and tension lines form a V between her brows. “I need to get wasted.”
I frown and shake my head, rubbing my thumb back and forth over her pulse as it beats faster. “That’s not going to help. Trust me.”
She rips her hand from mine, her eyes flashing.
“Trust you?” She leans forward until we are almost nose to nose. “I’m done with trusting anyone,” she spits. “Look where it’s gotten me.”
She leaps up from her stool in a flash and begins fighting her way through the bar toward the exit. It’s late afternoon, but the space is packed with people who’ve left work early for the weekend. Many are standing and watching a giant screen with a wrestling match on.
“Rose!” I chase after her, shouldering past a throng of bodies and getting dirty looks as I force my way through.
“Watch it, mate.”
“You fucking watch it,” I hiss, glaring at a guy in a wrinkled suit and a pint in his hand. He scowls and steps back near his mates.
Yeah, thought so, fucker.
That’s one thing jail taught me. How to give someone a look that means they won’t want to mess with you. Not unless they’re a crazy fucker with a death wish.
“Rose!”
She squeezes in front of a group of men and their eyes follow her. One reaches out and curls his fat fingers around her forearm.
“What’s the rush, love? Stay and have a drink with us.”
His eyes drop over her body, stopping on her legs in her short skirt and heels as he licks his lips.
“You want to lose your fucking fingers?” I hiss in his ear as I come up behind him and grab the back of his neck with one hand.
He stiffens but can’t turn his head as I have him in a vise-like grip. I squeeze harder.
“I said, do you want to lose those filthy fucking fingers?”
“What the hell?” he gasps as his mates just stare at the both of us. Pussies.
“If you don’t want me to rip them the fuck off”—squeeze—“then I suggest you take them off my girl. Right. Now.” Squeeze.
He drops Rose’s arm like it’s a grenade.
“Now, apologize,” I snarl.
“Sorry. No harm meant,” he chokes out as I give him one final squeeze and then throw him away from me and into his mates who are staring with their mouths open like fucking idiots.
“Let’s go, Rose.” I grab her hand and pull her outside.
“What was that?” She turns to me, eyes wild the moment we step through the door, yanking her hand from mine.
“He’s lucky he still has his hand. He was touching you without your permission.” I inhale slowly to ease the wild thumping in my chest.
Her mouth drops open and her eyes go round. “I mean the ‘my girl’ crap? I’m not your girl.”
“You sure as fuck aren’t anyone else’s.” I step forward into her space until our chests almost touch. She glares up at me but doesn’t move away.
“Throw that in my face as well while you’re at it, huh? Poor pathetic Rose who’s only ever gotten laid once in her life.”
“Don’t.” I shake my head, my eyes holding hers as I suck air in through my nose. Forget trying to ease the thumping in my chest. There’s a full-on herd of wild buffalo in there now, stampeding against my ribs.
“Don’t what?” She screws her face up, jabbing a finger into my chest. “Did I say something you don’t like, Boss?”
I grab her hand in mine and pull her hard against me.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that. Why are you even thinking about him?”
She snorts, her eyes glittering. “Gareth. Casey. They’re both liars. And what does that make me? The stupid idiot that listened to them.”
“You’re not,” I whisper, lifting my other hand and snaking it around the back of her neck, pressing my thumb over the hammering pulse beating next to her windpipe.
She leans closer until her lips are almost touching mine, and I breathe in vanilla and petals. One more inch and I will be kissing her. Feeling her soft lips against mine again, just like in the alleyway. Blood races to my dick as her eyelids fall closed.
My beautiful Sunbeam.
I apply pressure to the back of her neck to bring her to me. She’s so close that our lips dust together.
“Don’t worry,” she breathes as I part mine, ready to close the final miniscule space keeping us apart. “You don’t have to fake-kiss me tonight.”
Then she shoves hard against my chest and spins out from my grasp, storming off up the street.
“Rose!”
“Leave me alone, Dax,” she cries over her shoulder as I catch up with her.
“Will you stop, please? You’re upset. I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
“Like you care!”
“Of course I fucking care! The town is full of pricks like that guy back there who wouldn’t think twice about putting his hands all over you.”
“So what?” She wraps her arms around herself as she rushes down the street with me by her side. “Maybe that’s exactly what I need tonight. A distraction with a man like that. In fact”—she turns suddenly and marches back in the direction we came from—“I’m going to go back there now and talk to him.”
“The fuck you are.” I grab her arm and pull her to me. Her eyes are shining with undisguised pain, thinly masked by two drinks and a whole lot of anger.
She fists my shirt as she glares at me, then narrows her eyes with a grimace. “I think he’s exactly what I need tonight, Dax. He can help me erase the memories. Replace Gareth’s fingerprints as the last ones on my skin.” Her eyes drop to my mouth as I grind my teeth so fucking hard my brain throbs in my skull.
“That’s what you want? To hide away with someone like that?” I spit. “Separate your body from your soul and be a hole to fuck? Get on your knees and suck that prick’s tiny cock?”
She gasps quietly as I hold her close and bring my lips to her ear to whisper.
“We both know you won’t, Sunbeam. Because as much as you lie to yourself about dopamine and love being just a chemical, you still want it all. There’s a tiny part of Rose Jacobs that still believes.”
“Stop.” She pushes against me, but I don’t let go.
“You know how I know?” I dust my lips down the silky skin of her neck to her collarbone and back up, fighting to stay in control as she shivers from my touch. “Because all those men you told me about, that you’d flirt with when you went out. You never went home with any. Not a single one. And I’m not about to let you start tonight.”
“What are you going to do, Dax? Break every man’s hand in town tonight that I speak to? Go back to jail?” Her words are sharp and jagged, aimed to hurt me. But I would rather she fight with me than do anything else with another man.
“No. I’m going to do this.”
I bend at the knee and hoist her over my shoulder, wrapping an arm around her legs to secure her in place.
She bangs her fists against my back. “Put me down. Dax! Put me down.”
“I’ll put you down when we get to my car,” I growl.
“You’re a bastard! The worst boss ever!” she screams, drawing attention from some guys that have spilled out from one of the bars on the opposite side of the street.
“What’s going on?” one yells.
Rose’s attack on my back ceases.
“You want them to call the cops and send me back to jail. Now’s your chance. Tell them I’m taking you against your will.” I slow my pace as we draw level with the group of men, and she lifts her upper body away from my back.
“Nothing. Mind our own business,” she shouts at them, flopping herself back down again with a cross between a frustrated scream and a sigh.
I stroke her thighs with one hand. “Thought not. Now let’s get you home.”
