“That’s bullshit,” he snapped. “I would’ve noticed you.”
The words echoed between them, the meaning in them pulsing like a thick, heavy heartbeat in the sudden silence that cocooned them. Her silver eyes flared wide before they flashed with...what? Surprise? Irritation? Desire. A liquid slide of lust prowled through him like a hungry—so goddamn hungry—beast.
The air simmered around them. How could no one else see it shimmer in waves from the concrete floor like steam from a sidewalk after a summer storm?
She was the first to break the visual connection, and when she ducked her head to pat her arms down, the loss of her eyes reverberated in his chest like a physical snapping of tautly strung wire. He fisted his fingers at his sides, refusing to rub the echo of soreness there.
“Do you want me to pull out my membership card to prove that I’m not some kind of stalker?” She tilted her head to the side. “I’m dedicated to my job, but I refuse to cross the line into creepy...or criminal.”
He ground his teeth against the apology that shoved at his throat, but after a moment, he jerked his head down in an abrupt nod. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.” And then because he couldn’t resist, because it still gnawed at him when he shouldn’t have cared what she—a reporter—thought of him or not, he added, “That predilection seems to be in the air.”
She narrowed her eyes on him, and a tiny muscle ticked along her delicate but stubborn jaw. Why that sign of temper and forced control fascinated him, he opted not to dwell on. “And what is that supposed to mean?” she asked, the pleasant tone belied by the anger brewing in her eyes like gray storm clouds.
Moments earlier, he’d wondered if fury or desire had heated her gaze. Now he had his answer. Because he now faced her anger, now had confirmation that when she looked like she wanted to knee him in the balls the silver darkened to near black.
But when she looked like she just wanted to go to her knees for him, her eyes were molten, pure hot silver.
God help him, because, masochistic fool that he’d suddenly become, he craved them both.
He wanted her rage, her passion...wanted both to beat at him, heat his skin, touch him. Make him feel.
Mentally, he scrambled away from that, that need, like it’d reared up and flashed its fangs at him. The other man he’d been—the man who’d lost himself in passion, paint and life captured on film—had drowned in emotion. Willingly. Joyfully. And when it’d been snatched away—when that passion, that life—had been stolen from him by cold, brutal reality, he’d nearly crumbled under the loss, the darkness. Hunger, wanting something so desperately, led only to the pain of eventually losing it.
He’d survived that loss once. Even though it’d been like sawing off his own limbs. He might be an emotional amputee, but dammit, he’d endured. He’d saved his family, their reputation and their business. But he’d managed it by never allowing himself to need again.
And Sophie Armstrong, with her pixie face and warrior spirit, wouldn’t undo all that he’d fought and silently screamed to build.
She must’ve interpreted his silence as an indictment, because her full mouth firmed into an aggravated line, and her shoulders slowly straightened, her posture militant and, yes, defensive. As she should be. “If it makes it easier to look at that pretty face in the mirror, then go ahead and throw verbal punches,” she sneered. Pretty face. He didn’t even pretend to take that for a compliment. Not that way her voice twisted around the words. “But I did the research, and the information I received was solid, and my sources were legitimate.”
“Sources,” he repeated, leaping on that clue. “So you had more than one?”
She didn’t move, but she might as well as have slammed up an invisible door between them. “Yes,” she replied after a long moment. “I didn’t rely on gossip or groundless rumors.”
“Your sources seem to believe they know a lot about not just my family, the inner workings of Black Crescent, but my personal life, as well,” he said, drawing closer to her.
The seeds that their earlier conversation in the Chronicle’s conference room had planted started to sprout roots. Roots of suspicion and hated mistrust wound their way into his head, threading around his heart. He resented Sophie for planting those kernels of suspicion about the people who existed in his small inner circle. Small for a reason. Trial by fire had taught him he could trust a precious few, and only those precious few had access to his family, the details of his life. Could one of them be the “source” she referred to? As he’d done on the drive back to his office yesterday, he again ran through their faces: Haley, Jake, Oliver.
Haley, no. Never. She’d proved her loyalty hundreds of times over. But his brothers... Jesus, he wanted to dismiss any notion that they could’ve turned on him, but... He couldn’t. They resented him, resented that he’d become their father, never appreciating the sacrifices he’d made so they could live free of the burden of Black Crescent and the dark shadow it cast. A shadow he constantly existed in but strove to, if not be free of, at least lighten.
“I want names, Sophie,” he bit out, the dregs of fear, grief and anger at the possible identities of her sources swirling in his mind roughening his voice. He stepped closer until the scent of citrus, velvet, damp blooms and woman—her—filled his nostrils. Ignoring the lure of that sensual musk, he lowered his head, forcing her to meet his gaze. “If someone is digging into my life and giving
