Frozen in place with the slice of the blade that is the fear and doubt I see in Emily’s eyes, I stare at her, the armor I’ve learned to erect long ago, a way of surviving life in the Brandon clan, cracking like glass rather than remaining impenetrable steel. Each flaw forms a representation of the conflicting emotions I felt by the door moments before. I will them all back into containment, under my control, but there is one that refuses to be quieted: anger. And at the core of that anger is the realization that this woman who I love, who I want to protect—and yes, Derek, dear brother, I dare to admit to myself in this moment—who I want to make my wife, is shaken by me. Not my brother. Not my family in general. Not Martina. By me.
So yes. I’m angry. I’m angry as hell, in fact. Angry with my people for letting Martina up here to ever allow that look in Emily’s eyes to exist right now. Angry with myself for allowing a conversation I couldn’t avoid once Martina was here, to be held in a place Emily could overhear, when I know all too well what her family has put her through. But damn it, I’m angry with her too. She knows me. She knows what I’m trying to do and who I am, and it guts me that she now doubts me.
It’s with that thought that I step forward, my stride long, and in a few short moments, I’ve closed the small space between myself and the woman I love, who now thinks I’m no better than anyone else in her life, and from nothing more than one conversation. Instantly my senses are overloaded with the mix of my temper and her contrasting sweet floral scent, the memory of that smell on my skin after, and during, me licking and kissing her, heating my body. And just that easily, that dark, hungry need I felt in the elevator roars to the surface, a beast I want to deny that I know from the past, though I don’t.
This part of me that punishes myself with the far too human feeling of self-doubt that I couldn’t afford to feel then and damn sure can’t now … the part of me that I would tame with hard, meaningless sex the night before every courtroom battle I feared I might lose, which was every damn one of them … He’s the beast that demands satisfaction above all else and has none of the tenderness or caution in him that the man Emily knows does. He’s the man who wants to grab Emily now and kiss her with what I know would be punishment to us both. I should have protected her better tonight. She shouldn’t have trusted me more. A ridiculous contradiction that I hate has even entered my mind.
“Why didn’t you stay upstairs?” I ask, my voice low, tight, one part that anger I’m still feeling, another part barely bridled lust I will not unleash with Emily. Not when I’m in a mental and physical place that isn’t one I frequent or welcome, and might just convince her I’m as dark and dangerous as she seems to think I am.
Her eyes flash in response to my demand, her chin lifting in this delicate defiant way that just makes me want to say fuck it, and fuck her despite that animal clawing away at me. “Stay upstairs?” she demands. “I’m not a child sent to my room. I’m either in this with you or I’m not.”
I tell myself not to touch her for all of one second, before I shackle her arm and pull her to me. Instantly, I am aware of her many soft curves pressing against me, tempting me in all kinds of deviant ways, but her words are what have my attention now, even above her body. “This is the second time tonight you’ve mentioned leaving,” I say, hyperaware of her hand settling on my chest, scorching me through the starched cotton of my shirt. “If you keep bringing it up, I’m going to think that’s what you want.”
“I never said I wanted to leave. I said I can’t be here if I’m not in this with you. You know I don’t want to leave.”
She’s wrong. I don’t know that at all, and judging from the shadows glazing her pale blue eyes, whether she realizes it right now, I’m not sure she does either. And since nothing else we can say on this topic, this night, under these circumstances, will change anything, I move on. “How much did you hear?”
“Everything, and yet I don’t know what I heard. What was that between you and Martina?”
“Strategy,” I say. “I’m letting him think I’m playing his game while I make it mine.”
“Strategy?” she demands. “That’s what he said. I can’t begin to tell you how much I don’t like you repeating his words.”
There is a hint of accusation to those words that I do not like, and I turn her, pressing her against the thick wooden beam dividing two panes of the floor-to-ceiling window wrapping the room. My body lifts from hers, my hands settling on the wall above her, while her hands press to the glass on either side of her. And for several beats we just stare at each other, her gaze probing, looking for something, I assume for a reason to trust me. And I wonder what she finds. I wonder if it would be the same thing I would see if it were me looking.
“Shane,” she says softly. “You and Adrian Martina—”
“It’s a game, Emily. Just a game.”
“A dangerous game.”
“One that would be far more dangerous if I didn’t play it right.”
“Please tell me this right way doesn’t include doing business with him.”
“The right way is any way I get his drugs out of my facility.”
“In other words, you are going to do business with him.”
“We’re already doing business with him. I’m controlling how and when until I can remove him from our lives.”
“You’re playing his game. He wants you in his inner circle. That was clear. This is what he wants.”
“I let him think I’m playing his game. There’s a difference.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I looked into that man’s eyes, Shane. He’s smart. He’s intelligent. He’s vicious. He scares the hell out of me, but he doesn’t scare you, does he?”
“Fear to a man like Martina is like blood to a lion. He craves it. He will come after it. He will use it against you, and I won’t give him that weapon. So no. I don’t fear him, but I do understand him. I know who he is and what he wants. And that is power.”
“Understand him? What does that even mean? He’s not you. You know that, right? No matter what he might seem to have in common with you. He’s not you. He’s not really trying to do the right thing.”
“At his core,” I say, “he is like me. He’s a son, a brother, and a businessman. A person who wants and desires something bigger or better. But our similarities are not bad, Emily. Knowing our enemies as well as they know themselves, or better, is how we defeat them.”
“If you know him, then he knows you.”
“He thinks he does.”
“And I’m sure he’s saying the same thing about you.”
“You underestimate how well I stand toe-to-toe with my opponents.”
“What happens when your opponents begin to feel like the ally your family is not?”
That anger I’m battling spikes hard and fast. “I am not your brother. I am not seduced by Martina’s world the way Rick was your by stepfather’s.” My hand falls from the wall. “And right now I need to go find out how the hell Martina got up here in the first place.” I back up, intending to turn away.
She grabs my tie and holds on to it and me. “Don’t do that. Don’t put words in my mouth and then try to leave to shut me out.”
“I’m not shutting you out,” I say, my hands staying by my sides, while that part of me that wants to fuck really wants to say to hell with my anger and touch her. And taste. And fuck her again.
“You are shutting me out,” she says, snapping me back to the war of words. “We both know you are.”
“I’m protecting you,” I amend. “That’s what I’m doing, and I need you to trust me to do that and to handle this.”