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Without saying a word, he rounds the desk and hovers over my shoulder, filling my nostrils with his manly oak scent and filling my stomach with butterflies.
I swallow the lump in my throat and zone in on the papers in front of me. “Look,” I say, running my finger over the names highlighted in green. “These are the guys that haven’t paid you for three months or more. You know that, right?”
When I glance up for an answer, I’m thrown off at how close he is, so I turn back to the paper, heat rising in my cheeks. “And, uh—” I tap the names highlighted in yellow. “You collect ten percent from these guys, and they’ve been paying just fine. But all of their profits have increased by over one-hundred-and-thirty percent in the last three years. Yet you are only still taking ten percent based on their old earnings.”
“Meaning?” Lorcan repeats, his voice low and gruff in my ear.
I decide to put it bluntly. “Meaning you’re being ripped off.”
He slams his palms against the desk and the sudden noise makes me shriek.
“Sorry,” he growls, stalking towards the floor-to-ceiling window.
I watch his broad outline against the sunset, the golden rays skipping over the roofs of the city and illuminating his large silhouette. The king of Boston, looking down at all that he owns. All that his family has taken by force.
I should be reveling in the fact that he’s getting ripped off. So I don’t know why a pang of sadness streaks across my heart.
Before I can question myself, I join him at the window.
After a few moments, he speaks. “My brother controlled the finances.”
“The one who—”
“Yes.”
“And now it’s all up to you.”
“Numbers aren’t exactly my forte.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I take in the hard lines of his face. His ticking jaw. Maybe it’s the forgiving glow of the sun setting. Maybe I’m delirious from being let out of the Museum. But I don’t see the Devil, I see a broken man.
“So, what is your forte?” I all but whisper.
“Breaking kneecaps.”
I snort. The feeling of pity is gone as quickly as it came.
After a few beats, he says, “And ruining my father’s reputation.”
He lifts the tumbler to his lips, closing his eyes as he takes a large gulp.
I don’t know how I think I am, taking it from his hands and setting it on the desk behind us. And I don’t know what’s got into him, letting me do it.
“I’m sure you haven’t ruined his reputation,” I say softly.
His Adam’s apple bobs. “When they were alive, all I did was spend the family’s money on pointless antiques and hookers and vacations. Now they are gone, I’m still hemorrhaging money, only in a different way.”
My voice is firmer this time. “If you don’t like the cards dealt to you, then change them.”
He turns to study me with an overwhelming intensity. Like he’s seeing me for the first time. “I dealt your cards for you. You ran away to the other side of the country but it didn’t change your fate.”
Bitterness washes over me.
When he closes the gap between us and crushes his lips against mine, it happens so fast that I almost choke on my own breath.
My bitterness becomes bittersweet. I melt. I melt into his soft lips with their sweet whiskey taste and melt into the hard lines of his body. My hand curls around the lapel of his collar, pulling him even closer—needing him closer. That voice in my head, the screaming voice that constantly scolds my body for feeling reacting to his touch, is strangely silent. Or maybe I can’t hear it over the thumping of my heart against my chest or the ringing in my ears.
The passion floods through my body, electrifying every nerve under my skin.
