Chapter 1 Reunion

Evelyn's POV

The air in the underground bar was thick and syrupy, soaked with the stench of smoke and liquor.

The bass pounded hard enough to rattle my chest. Crimson lights swept across the dancers writhing to the beat, their full breasts spilling out of their tops as they moved.

I held my half-burnt slim cigarette between my fingers, unable to make out whatever Sarah was shouting. I just saw her gesturing wildly toward the bar a few feet away.

"Evelyn! You lost!" She mouthed the words with exaggerated emphasis. "Pay up!"

The friends beside her were loving every second of it, egging me on while pointing their phones at my face.

I shrugged helplessly.

The penalty for losing the champagne game, go kiss that man sitting alone in the next booth.

Through the dim light, I could barely make out a dark silhouette in a black shirt. He sat with a graceful, lazy elegance, one muscular arm draped over the back of the chair, veins standing out against his skin. He looked like he was waiting for someone. Or maybe just killing time. I couldn't see his face, couldn't read his expression.

Just a stranger.

What was there to be afraid of?

I crushed out my cigarette and stood up.

My heels clicked sharp against the wooden floor. I wove past a few tables of drunken men and women, getting closer to that booth.

Through the haze of smoke and shifting light, I could just barely see the man, tall, powerful build, his profile lost in shadow. Even so, there was an unmistakable air about him. Handsome. Commanding.

He must have sensed someone approaching, because he tilted his head slightly toward me.

I stopped. Nerves hit me, and I tried to steady myself.

It's fine. The light's too dim. Kiss him, then run. No one will know who anyone is.

I bent down.

The distance shrank. A foot between us. Six inches. I could smell the whiskey on him, mixed with a cold pine cologne that felt achingly familiar. I just couldn't place where I'd smelled it before.

He was right there. His breath brushed across my face.

I could almost make out his features now.

He had to be gorgeous.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when a small flame flickered to life.

He'd flicked open a lighter at exactly that moment, bringing it to the cigarette between his lips.

The flame was no bigger than a fingernail, but its warm yellow glow was enough to light the tiny space between us.

I froze mid-motion.

I knew this face. Better than I wanted to.

Blue-gray eyes, dark and deep. A faint scar across the bridge of his nose, the one he got in college, fighting over me. I still remembered the way he'd hissed in pain when I dabbed ointment on it.

It was Brode.

My broke, nobody ex-boyfriend who couldn't even afford a graduation trip.

The one I'd dumped because he was poor, because he had no future, because he could never give me the life I wanted.

The flame flickered. He lifted his eyes to mine, letting his gaze slide slowly down my body, the way a man in power sizes up something he owns.

The cigarette burned between his fingers, smoke curling through the space between us.

His sensual, thin lips moved slightly, as if saying: Long time no see.

My head exploded. Guilt slammed into my chest.

I spun around and half-stumbled back the way I'd come.

My heel caught on something. I nearly went down, grabbing the edge of a nearby table to catch myself.

Someone was saying something behind me, but I couldn't focus on any of it. Just one thing in my head, run.

Out of the bar. Into a cab. Back to my apartment. Then I'd be safe.

That's when a hand shot out in front of me.

A waiter in a black vest held out a bill. "Ma'am, your tab. Please settle up."

I froze. I'd never charged that much to anything in my life.

Champagne. Whiskey. Appetizers. Three thousand eight hundred dollars.

"There has to be a mistake—"

"I'll cover her tab. Here's four thousand. Keep the change. Consider it your tip."

A stack of bills dropped onto the tray. His voice was deep, heavy with authority, cutting me off mid-sentence.

"That enough?" he asked.

The decadent light caught the hard, beautiful lines of his face. I heard the waiter suck in a sharp breath.

The tray crashed to the floor.

"Don!"

The word rippled out. For a split second the whole bar went silent, then erupted into frantic whispers.

"Don! He's actually here?"

"They say he's the one, the guy who'll drop you in an acid pit if you so much as look at him wrong!"

"He's a cold-blooded killing machine!"

The voices crashed into me like a wave. My hands and feet went numb. I stared at this man, stranger and ex and something much worse, and slowly backed away.

A few years gone, and the family's bastard son had clawed his way to the top. He was the Don now. The one everyone feared.

The kind of man that changed everything. I finally understood exactly what kind of animal I'd crossed all those years ago.

I turned to run. His hand snapped around my wrist.

"Running? Evelyn, we've still got a tab to settle, you and I."

His eyes were dark, bloodthirsty, carrying a malice forged somewhere deep and vicious.

That massive, vein-ridged hand held my wrist like it was a twig. The pain made me gasp.

"Let go… Brode… there's nothing between us anymore!"

The moment the words left my mouth, his brow tightened. Something dark flashed through his eyes. Then he yanked me hard against him.

"Nothing? That's not for you to decide."

"Listen, Brode, this was a mistake, I… I didn't know it was you—"

"You didn't know it was me…" His low, magnetic voice lingered over each word. Then he gave a soft, cold laugh. "So if it had been someone else, you'd have kissed him?"

Before I could even react, his other hand slid up under my dress. In the smoky, sordid half-dark, he pinched down hard on the soft flesh of my inner thigh.

His grip was brutal, like he meant to tear the skin off. Lust and possession mingled in the cruelty of it, and pure instinct took over—

Crack.

A bright red handprint bloomed across the side of his beautiful, coldly elegant face. He didn't even turn his head. His eyes stayed locked on mine.

That look terrified me. And that's when I realized what I'd just done.

The noise around me rushed back in, loud and sharp, like something had burst.

"God, she just slapped the Don!"

"She's got a death wish!"

My hands were shaking. I disappeared into the chaos of the crowd, out of Brode's sight.