CH.4

MARILYN

The word landed, and everything in me stopped at once as though someone had reached inside my chest and closed a hand around the machinery.

Strip.

I turned to face him.

Conall's eyes held mine, blue and unreadable.

I searched them for the smallest crack — a flicker, a smirk, anything that would tell me this was a cruel bluff designed to make me panic and beg.

But his jaw stayed set, looking like a man with nowhere else to be and all the time in the world to get there.

My fingers tightened around the envelope.

He didn't care about the police reports. He had never cared. I had carried them across the city like a talisman, and he hadn't so much as glanced at them.

"Mr. Reign…" My voice barely carried past my own lips. "Please. There has to be something else. Money… we can give you money."

I took a step toward the desk, and the words came faster, tumbling over one another as I hunted for an offer he might actually accept.

"Bernard and I are starting a company. I put every dollar I saved from two jobs into it." I lifted the envelope slightly, as though paper could back a promise. "Take my shares. Take whatever you want from the firm. Just set him free."

The corner of his mouth curved as his gaze traveled down my body.

"Do I look like a man who needs money, Miss Danvers?" His voice was smooth as poured glass, and the contempt in it cut deeper for being so quiet. "I own skyscrapers. I buy and sell companies before breakfast. And what are you offering me? A share in a sham business?"

My fingers slackened around the envelope. "A… a sham?"

"A hollow shell." His eyes narrowed.

For an instant I couldn't answer him. The words sat in my throat, too heavy to lift. Then the anger came and it pushed everything else aside.

"It isn't a sham!" My voice rose, yet I hated how close it came to breaking. "I worked two jobs every single day. Every penny I saved went into that firm. I gave up everything I could to help build it. It's real."

The cruel curve of Conall’s mouth deepened. He offered no argument and no pity. He simply stood there, watching me unravel.

My chest tightened.

He was silently mocking me.

'Why does this hurt so much?'

Conall’s utter silence stripped away my pride. Under his glacial stare, my desperate defense suddenly felt pathetic.

He looked at me exactly the way a predator looks at a foolish, naive prey who hasn't yet realized the trap is already sprung.

I tried to tell myself he was only provoking me, only looking for a crack to pry open. But a thin thread of doubt had already found its way in, and it pulled tight somewhere.

We stayed like that, the two of us, until he finally stepped closer.

His height and the breadth of his shoulders seemed to take up all the light in the room, and his scent mixed with the sheer weight of him until my senses couldn't sort one thing from another.

"If you're serious about saving Bernard Abbott's life tonight, you already know my terms."

My legs trembled.

I fixed my eyes on the marble floor, willing them to steady.

Conall stopped a few feet away. He loosened his tie, letting it fall across the desk, and then his fingers found the top button of his black shirt.

He unfastened it slowly, his gaze fixed darkly at me.

Each small click drew my attention back to his hands.

I couldn't stop watching, even as every instinct in me screamed to turn away.

When the collar opened, the dim light caught the hard lines of his chest and the shadow of muscle beneath.

He looked so unhurried that I felt time itself narrow to the small space between us.

My gaze flicked toward the office doors, only a few strides away.

I could leave. I could gather my dignity off the floor, walk out, and refuse him. No one in the world would blame me for it.

But Bernard's face rose up behind my eyes.

I had come here knowing this ruthless billionaire would demand a price. I had simply never let myself picture what the price might be.

And the electric tension pulsing between us… that terrified me as much as the threat did, because some small, shameful part of me had noticed how beautiful he was before I ever noticed how dangerous.

I swallowed, my mouth tasting bitter.

With shaking hands, I set the envelope on the mahogany desk.

For a second my fingers stayed on its bent corner, unwilling to let go of the last ordinary thing I owned. Then I released it and reached for the first button of my blazer.

The fabric soon slipped from my shoulders and fell to the floor.

I watched it land, absurdly aware that it was the only familiar thing in the room.

My fingers moved to the buttons of my blouse.

Sweat made them difficult to manage as I missed one, tried again, and forced myself to keep going.

Conall stood motionless through all of it. His eyes had darkened, following every movement as I fumbled with the small plastic discs.

His stare felt like a physical touch resting on my skin wherever it landed.

The skirt was harder.

The zipper caught at my hip.

I tugged at it twice before a small sob rose in my throat and I had to stop.

I pressed my lips together until the sound went back down, then tried again. At last, the skirt slipped past my knees and pooled around my feet.

I stood in the dim office in nothing but my thin slip.

The cold air lifted goosebumps along my arms and thighs.

The heat burning in his eyes made me feel cold and burning at the same time.

I couldn't decide which was worse.

I wrapped my arms around myself, then let them fall, because even that small gesture felt like it might be mistaken for defiance.

I wanted to disappear, tell him no.

My body wouldn't stop shaking.

"Please…" My voice sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone standing much farther away. "B-be gentle."

Conall's lips curved, but there was no kindness anywhere in his expression … only a dark, consuming hunger.

"You'll do exactly as I say." His voice came low and perfectly controlled. "Or Bernard dies tonight!"