Treachery

Taylor is smart enough. Which makes me wonder why they didn’t just break into the servers themselves if they needed info on Everly.

“Just leave it alone, Luca. Sell the patents, but forget about the records. It’s in your best interest to do so.”

Best interest? What the hell is he talking about?

“I need to go, Luca. Sorry I couldn’t help you more. Good luck with the patents.”

He hangs up before I have the chance to inquire further, my hand clenching over my phone so hard the plastic cracks.

Tossing the phone onto the side table by my bed, I sit on the edge of the mattress and bury my face in my hands.

“You should take the deal, Luca. Seriously, your refusal is getting boring.”

A shriek crawls up my throat as my head snaps right to find Ta

His jacket is missing, his tie loose over his shoulders, making him the picture of casual sophistication, a man at ease following the formal event he’d dragged me to.

Leaning a shoulder against the doorway to my bedroom, he grins as he stares over at me, those damn eyes of his glimmering to have caught me off guard.

It’s insane how beautiful he is, a thread of attraction unraveling in me despite the absolute hatred I feel for him at the moment.

Anger at myself chases the same thread, but I tell myself it’s natural to feel the undiluted, sensual pull from a man who doesn’t have to do more than blink for women to look in his direction.

Still, I refuse to show him how he affects me, my eyes narrowing instead of rounding, the heat across my face easily explained as rage instead of desire.

“What are you doing in my apartment?”

Shrugging as if this is acceptable behavior, he blinks before pi

“You left the front door unlocked and didn’t answer when I knocked.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just walk inside, Ta

Pushing away from the doorframe, he steps fully into my bedroom, his eyes sca

Gri

“Is this what you’ve been reduced to? You can’t possibly enjoy living this way.”

I ignore the taunt, even though it hurts, stabs really, the deep vibration of his voice twisting the blade because I can feel it against my bones.

Ta

And angrier.

At him for setting this trap.

At myself for falling into it.

At Clayton for hiring him.

At Everly for introducing me to the Inferno and then ru

I’m mad at the entire world.

Launching from the bed, I storm across the room to slam my palms against his chest. I ignore the heat of his skin and the steel of muscle beneath it as I shove him back.

“Get out,” I demand. “You have no right to be here.”

He stumbles back a few steps, more because he’s toying with me than because I have any hope of overpowering him. He towers over me, his shoulders twice the width of mine. And from what I can see beneath the perfect tailoring of his clothes, he’s only packed on more muscle since Yale.

Hands reaching up to grab my wrists, Ta

“How long are we going to keep doing this? It’s getting boring.”

My eyes narrow more. “This is still my decision-“

“Who were you on the phone with?”

Lips pulling into a thin line, I try to shove against him again, but he steps toward me, pushing me back. Not to hurt me. Not to knock me down. But just to show me that he’ll leave when he damn well pleases because Ta

“I’m not telling you that,” I answer, shoving harder, not that it’s doing any good.

The back of my legs hit the mattress after he continues pushing me into the room, my butt landing down with a bounce just as he turns to sit next to me.

The moment our thighs touch, I launch forward again, refusing to be anywhere near a bed with him.

His gaze lifts to mine as a smirk pulls at the corner of his lips. Ta

“Problem?”

Backing away until my body hits a wall, I cross stiff arms over my chest, my heart hammering, rage vibrating just beneath my skin.

And still that damn flicker of attraction. My thoughts won’t stop going back to that one mistake at Yale, the one time I believed I saw something human inside the man smirking at me now.

My body remembers him, though, my thighs clenching together while my brain screams about how idiotic the reaction is.

Although, my brain can’t quite claim i

It’s busy remembering how dirty this man talks, how smooth his skin is, how he kisses with such dark passion that it ignites a spark that quickly becomes a fire.

I have to stop thinking about this. Have to will myself to hate him more than I want him.

When he lounges back on the bed, his shirt pulling taut over his shoulders and arms, his pants bunching over thighs thick with muscle, I forget what I have to do.

I lost this fight long before the battle even started, and with the way he’s looking at me now...he knows it.