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He was staring at her, his expression somber, his eyes that odd color once more, as though something lived inside him that he wasn’t always aware of.
“I won’t tolerate it,” he suddenly bit out.
“Tolerate what?” she retorted. “My refusal to do as you order?”
If he turned arrogant Breed on her now, she was going to get violent herself.
“Your refusal to do as you wish,” he snapped. “That dress. Those shoes. I didn’t even have to see your face to feel how much you hated those damned things. Where are the pretty clothes, Ria?” He stalked to the closet and looked in, growling at the sight of more of the same. Simple clothes. Dowdy skirts. “Where are the clothes you want to wear?”
“In the stores.” Her voice was clipped, her own anger rising now. “Where they belong. If they’re here, I’ll wear them. That simple. I told you, Mercury, I can’t risk the people I investigate suspecting that there’s more to me than they’ve always believed. The Vanderales’ poor orphan employee could never afford those clothes. A paper pusher? Really! How long do you think they would believe that if they saw me dressed in the clothes you’re talking about?”
“Who put that in your head?” He raged, stalking from the closet, stomping from it actually. “Dane? The Leo? I’ll be damned if it will continue. You’re a beautiful woman and you love pretty things. Why shouldn’t you have them?”
“Because it’s detrimental to my job,” she pointed out, her voice rising. “My job, Mercury. Remember? Would you have believed I was no more than a paper pusher researching your damned accounts if I had arrived dressed in silk and heels?”
He stared back at her, the blue lights in his eyes firing deeper, darker. “I wouldn’t have had the brainpower to think,” he finally muttered. “I’d have been too busy fucking you before you ever arrived at Sanctuary.”
She wanted to roll her eyes at him. “Neither you nor Jonas would have ever taken me seriously.”
He pushed his fingers through his hair, his gaze raking over her. “That’s a cop-out,” he informed her. “One look at you, Ria, and anyone knows better than that. Do you think the reason the companies you investigate aren’t suspicious of you is your clothes? That’s not true, Ria. They’re not suspicious of you because they’re arrogant and too certain of their own intelligence to believe anyone could be smarter than they are.”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to hear this. It wasn’t true. It was the job, and it was t
hat simple. She owed the Vanderales. They had kept her safe until she was grown, they had given her a job, they had given her a life when she was alone, deserted.
“You hide, Ria,” he stated. “Those clothes aren’t because of your job. Those clothes, your demeanor, the way you dress—it’s so you can hide.”
She shot him a scathing glare before pulling away from him and jerking her wrap from the end of the bed.
“Are you ready to go?” She pulled the heavy cape over the dress and latched the closure at her throat.
“It didn’t keep me away, did it, Ria?” he asked her as he continued to watch her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The dowdy clothes. Your hair twisted into that perfect, tight little bun. It keeps everyone at a distance. It shouts Go away. But I didn’t go away.”
Not yet he hadn’t.
“No, you haven’t gone away,” she finally whispered. And she wondered what she would do when he did.
That small warning instinct inside her wouldn’t stop. It continued to echo caution, and she continued to ignore it.
But she hated the dress and the shoes more than she had when she put them on. His arguments had made her remember the few dresses she owned that made her feel alive. The ones she longed to dress in, the ones that fit the makeup she preferred, the heels she loved. And she was reminded each time she “dressed up” that she was alone. There was no one to see her. Because she had always been safer alone.
She couldn’t be broken, if no one knew her well enough to break her.
Until now.
Through the ride back to Sanctuary, and their entrance into the secured glittering beauty of the mansion, Mercury’s accusations played within her mind.
She glimpsed Dane across the ballroom, immersed in talks with several of the high-level corporate shareholders she had investigated in the past. Dane moved among the crowd, his silver eyes watching everything, the blond lawyer he was rumored to be involved with at his side.
Breeds filled the mansion in dress uniform, as did Kane Tyler’s personal security force, the men he had brought with him when he came to Sanctuary in those first steps the Breeds had taken into the world.
She moved through the room with Mercury, watching the gazes that slid over her, dismissing her. They always dismissed her, and until now she had never realized how much she hated dressing down to allow for it.
Mercury saw something completely different. As they moved around the room and he introduced her to the men and women present for the party, he saw how many recognized her name or her.
