My jaw clenches as I eavesdrop at the door, listening to Yasmin and her father. I’m not surprised to hear Ali say she needs to marry, since I already knew it was coming, but it burns all the same.
Honestly, I’m a little insulted that he hasn’t thought of proposing I marry Yasmin. I assume it has to do with our age difference, or the fact that he “sees me like a son.” But there’s a thought that’s taken root ever since I learned that he was bringing in suitors, whispering that maybe, just like everyone else always has, he doesn’t think I’m good enough.
My chest smarts at the idea.
Doesn’t matter.
There’s still time to snip the strings and rearrange them until the marionettes move to my liking. Once Ali has passed away, I won’t have a need for a princess who thinks the blood that runs through her veins and the money she’s been fortunate enough to grow up with make her better than everyone else.
My heart jumps into my throat when coughing rings out from behind the heavy wood of the door, and at the same moment, my phone vibrates against my leg, causing me to jolt back.
Taking a deep breath, I shake my head and pull the cell from my pocket.
I spin around from where I was eavesdropping and make my way down the ornate marble hall, decorated with oversize paintings by Monet and van Gogh, and lit with dim thousand-dollar lights. It’s cliché to have them hanging here, but that’s kind of the purpose. Well- known art that even a layman would recognize. That’s all any of this is, really— the lavish furnishings and the flashes of money— a show.
But it’s one I enjoy starring in.
I dreamed about being in places like this since I was a kid, growing up with next to nothing.
It gets old fast, being powerless and penniless.
When my piece- of- shit father died, I stepped in and sold the dry cleaners, using the money to take night classes in business while I snagged a low-paying job in the mail room of Sultans as a fresh- faced eighteen- year- old.
It took five years to make my way into the executive offices after getting my degree and another five to become Ali’s righthand man. It was tedious killing all of the people who were in my way, but after the previous COO’s unfortunate demise, I finally made it.
They didn’t all die in vain though. They’re memorialized forever as artwork on my skin.
Trophies, if you will. A reminder of all I had to sacrifice in order to get where I am.
My phone vibrates again, and I glance down, Mamma flashing across the screen.
I clench my jaw, my body warring between the duty I feel to pick up and speak with her and the absolute dread of doing so. A heavy sensation settles in the center of my stomach and drops like a lead weight as I stop in the middle of the hall, watching it light up over and over.
At the last second, I silence it, the heavy burden immediately lifting off my shoulders when I send her to voicemail.
She’s a battle for another day. And until then, I lock her up tight in the recesses of my mind, where I don’t have to think about her at all.
I don’t put the phone back in my pocket, instead pressing the number one to speed dial my assistant Ian.
“Boss.” His voice is high, brash, and rough around the edges, the type of sound that makes me want to duct- tape his mouth shut and rip out his vocal cords until he’s a mute puppy that’s not allowed to bark.
If he weren’t so damn good at his job and so unfailingly loyal to me both personally and professionally, I probably would have. But it always serves to have someone in your back pocket when you need them, and I’ve worked hard over the past five years, ever since Ian came on board, to ensure that he’s mine. Nobody else in my life has ever been so faithful, and I reward loyalty regardless of the source.
“Are you at the office?” I ask him.
“Of course.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Excellent,” he squawks. “I’ll be here for anything you need.”
“I need— ”
“Hey!”
My voice cuts off at the sultry yell, and I pause, twisting around from where I’m making my way down the hall, my brows lifting as I see Yasmin speed walking, fire in her dark eyes as she catches up to me.
“I’ll be there soon,” I say, my gaze never leaving Yasmin as I hang up the phone and slip it back in my pants. My hands follow, sliding into my pockets as I rock back on my heels.
She stops in front of me, her arms crossed over her breasts, causing them to rise and fall with her heavy breathing. My gaze begins to flick down, remembering the way her nipples pebbled while she came on another man’s tongue, but I steel myself against the temporary lapse in control.
“I want to talk to you about last night,” she rushes out.
A smirk pulls at the corner of my mouth. I wasn’t sure she’d ever mention it. Surprisingly, I like that she is. “Don’t you have more important things to worry about?”
Her eyes narrow, those dark amber jewels spearing through me. “Did you have something to do with putting this ridiculous idea into my father’s head?” she hisses.
“You’ll need to be more specific,” I drawl.
“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.” Her finger reaches out and pokes my chest, her perfectly manicured red nail striking against the black of my dress shirt. “You’ve been whispering bullshit in my father’s ears for years. Don’t play dumb now.”
Removing my hand from my pocket, I reach up and brush her away like a piece of lint, adopting an air of boredom, even though my nerves are vibrating with discomfort. I don’t like to be touched unless I initiate the touching. “If he’s done something to upset you, I promise, gattina, it has nothing to do with me.” A dark cloud flashes through her features.
“What is it, Julian?” she purrs, her body a hairsbreadth away from mine. “Can’t handle a little competition from a woman? Afraid of what I’ll do when Sultans becomes mine and I take out the trash?”
A laugh bubbles from my throat even as annoyance pricks at my edges, her words stabbing at wounds I don’t want to acknowledge are there.
She must see the change in my demeanor and has realized she’s stepped too far, because her confidence drops when I move in close until our bodies are almost flush against each other, angry little breaths puffing out of her perfect little mouth. She gasps, stumbling back like she needs to get as far away as possible.
My hand reaches out and grasps her wrist tightly, pulling her in until my shadow towers over her ample frame, engulfing her in darkness. I’m not sure why I do it, other than the fact that I can’t not, as if something has suddenly tethered us together, urging me to touch her or fuck her or shut her the hell up so she never speaks about Sultans again.
She’s infuriating in a way that I can’t control, but touching her makes her uncomfortable. I can see it in the way she squirms. It makes me want to do it often, just so I can assert my power and make sure I keep the upper hand.
I glide my fingers slowly up the bare skin of her arm, across her shoulder, over her exposed collarbone, up the expanse of her neck.
She swallows, her throat moving beneath the pads of my thumb.
“If I wished for it,” I murmur, leaning in until our noses touch, “I could make you need nothing but me.”
She scoffs, turning her face away.
The urge is there to pull her back, to force her to stay still until I allow her to move, but I resist the temptation, releasing her and straightening as I run my palm down the front of my shirt. “I promise…” I pause, reaching out and tapping my fingers against her cheek. “I’m not someone you want on your bad side.”
“You’re not someone I want on any side,” she retorts.
“No?” I lift a brow. “Silly decision for such an educated girl.”
“You know, I think you might be the most arrogant man I’ve ever met.”
I laugh. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough,” she retorts. “I know that you’re a creep.”
“And you’re a spoiled brat.” I shrug. “But I’d still use you to my advantage if I could.”
Her head tilts to the side. “What?”
My heart speeds in my chest, making the cavity tighten as the thought that’s been itching my brain solidifies into a full- fledged idea. One that could solve everything.
Ali wants her to marry, not willing to leave anything to his perfect daughter unless she has a man to claim it, and I… I could be the one she marries.
I’ve thought of it before but brushed it off instead of allowing the plan to take root because while it wouldn’t be a hardship to have her in my bed, I’m afraid my ears would bleed from the annoyance of her voice, and my short fuse at putting up with her obnoxious attitude might not let her survive a single night.
But it would be a temporary annoyance and one that would solve almost all my problems. And now that she’s standing here in front of me, with my cock at half-mast and my mind whirling at the plan taking shape in my head, it sounds almost appealing.
Marry the girl, let the old man die, and then kill her and be done with it, inheriting everything without the bitch of a daughter attached to my side.
My spine straightens and I let my eyes drop down the length of her, looking at her for the first time as if she’s my prey and I’m ravenous to eat.
“Clearly, Ali’s done something to upset your fragile ego. And you said it yourself. He listens to me.”
“His biggest flaw, in my opinion.” She smirks.
“Cute.” I smile. “A smart woman would see me as an opportunity.”
“I…what do you mean? Are you saying you want to…help me?”
“I’m saying it seems advantageous to have me in your corner. Me, the one who holds sway with the most important man in your life.” I quirk a brow. “Assuming he is the most important man in your life?”
Her body folds in slightly. Clearly, she gets the insinuation of me bringing up her secret lover, and she doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Of course he is,” she murmurs.
Humming deep in my throat, I nod and reach in, pressing my thumb and forefinger against the bottom of her chin, pinching slightly. “Then I suggest you put away those claws, gattina. Why make me an enemy when I can be an ally?”
Fire rages behind her eyes and I spin around, a sick satisfaction at leaving her without the chance to respond spreading through every vein in my body.
