“Look at me.”
She drags her eyes up from the folio to meet mine.
“You’re free to be nervous, Ms. Van Kempt. You’re free to be angry. You’re free to be humiliated. But you’re not going to look at the ground when you speak to me. If I want your eyes lowered, I’ll tell you.”
“Okay.” It’s just above a whisper. Embarrassed, but steady.
I let my smile come slowly. Let it turn into the expression that brings meeting rooms to dead silence.
The hollow of Charlotte’s throat dips. She needs a diamond there. So fucking badly. Is that what used to be there? Is that what she keeps reaching for?
“Okay, Mr. Hill.” A breath of a pause. When I don’t interrupt, her shoulders relax. “I’ve brought the signed contract.”
She offers the folio to me and I take it. Look her up and down one more time, then flip it open to double-check the signature. Her chin comes out so she can look over the folio with me. Make sure it’s still there. I want to put my hand around her neck and feel her pulse. I want to stop it for a few brief seconds so she knows I can. I want to make her understand the sins she’s going to pay for.
But I won’t do it yet. Patience.
I snap the folio shut and she blinks, startled. Curiosity ignites all down my spine. It’s not particularly loud, or particularly violent. It’s leather on leather. Something happened with it while it was out of my sight—while she was out of my sight—or else it’s me she’s reacting to. This is how I want her. Wide-eyed. Innocent. Breakable.
There’s another folio, identical except for the papers inside, balanced on the trunk of my car. Charlotte’s eyes follow my hands as I switch them out. Open the second one in front of her. “Now it’s time for your signature.”
A deep breath. “I never sign anything without reading it first.”
“Did your daddy teach you that?”
“Yes.” Defiance sparks in her eyes. “No matter what you think of him, it’s good advice.”
“You don’t think there are ever occasions when it’s better not to know?”
“I think it’s always better to know.” Uncertainty in that big blue gaze. Another swallow.
“Read, then.”
Charlotte doesn’t reach for the folio, and I don’t offer it to her. I hold it in front of me so she has to step a little closer to read the print on the page. One big, deep breath, like she’s getting ready to jump into the ocean, and she begins with the first paragraph.
Her face gets redder. This is a game that’s going to be difficult to give up when I’m finished with her. I want to know, down to the shade, exactly how hard I can make her blush.
On the third paragraph she presses her lips together in a thin line.
On the fourth, her hand comes up to her throat. I’m intensely jealous of those fingertips on that fine flesh, but it’s fascinating to watch. This is the paragraph that undid her. That made her forget I was watching. She’s given herself away.
One more paragraph.
I’ve kept the document concise. It will be simpler, contract-wise, to trade her body for her father’s debt than it is for me to take charge of Cornerstone. Cyrus Van Kempt’s signature essentially gives me the power, as a partner in the venture, to modify existing building contracts to ensure the completion of the project. Doing those things requires hundreds of other decisions and signatures. An electronic forest of legal documents signed and stamped by my lawyers.
Charlotte’s signature gives me—
“This is everything.” Barely above a whisper. She remembers what I told her about not staring at the ground and looks back into my eyes. “This says—” Charlotte glances around, like she’s worried someone might have crept up to peer over her shoulder. “This says you can do anything.”
“I won’t accept less.”
Another glance down at the page. This is the moment Charlotte Van Kempt could come to her senses. She could realize that her asshole father isn’t worth putting herself in my hands for.
She could understand that there are larger forces in play than the building. Than the deal.
That I have a deeper motive than simple cruelty.
“I don’t—” Charlotte’s hand splays out at her throat like it’s possible to protect herself, and my knee tenses again. It aches. It hurts. On the verge of locking up completely. If she walks away from me now, I won’t chase her. I won’t have to. I will make my presence known everywhere she goes even if I never step foot in those buildings. I’ll haunt every meeting. I’ll be the death of any business deal she tries to make before it has a chance to breathe. I’ll do all this despite the fact that I’m here at the end of fourteen years of excruciating patience, waiting to get back at her father, and she’s still fresh and sunny and—
“Finish the sentence, Ms. Van Kempt.”
“I don’t have a pen,” she whispers.
There should be no sense of relief at this, but I feel it anyway. I take the pen from my pocket and hand it to her, the folio balanced in my other palm.
The weight of her pen on the paper is so light. The meaning of her signature is so heavy. Charlotte gives me the pen with a shaking hand. She straightens her back. “What now?”
“What do you think? That I’ll put you on your knees here in the street?”
Oh, that shade of red. I want it captured in a painting. It’s burned into my memory instead. “You could do that,” she admits, and I hear it in her voice—reality setting in.
“My team will be visiting the property in an hour to make assessments.” I close the folio and toss it on top of the car. It lands neatly on top of the one she brought with her, freeing my hands to reach for my phone. “You’ll be at my apartment on Friday at sunset.” I send the address in a text message. “The address is waiting on your phone.”
“Okay.” She glances at the concrete and steel beams. “And right now—”
“Right now you’ll turn around, get back into your car, and drive away.”
“Shouldn’t we talk about Cornerstone?”
Charlotte stands so close that it’s nothing to take her by her ridiculous little belt and haul her closer to me. She panics, trying to pull away, trying not to fall into me, but I have her by her clothes. I hold her there until she stops struggling. It doesn’t take long.
“A piece of advice, Ms. Van Kempt.”
“What? What?” Breathless. I fucking love it.
“If I give you the choice to walk away from me, take it. This is the last time I’ll give you a second chance.”
I release her, though I don’t want to, and Charlotte turns on her heel and runs.
3
Charlotte
The town car trundles through the gates of the parking garage underneath the building where Mason Hill lives, and the first thing I’m confronted with is a sign that says VISITORS MUST STOP AT SECURITY STATION.
It should make me feel more comfortable. We have a gatehouse in our neighborhood, and I’ve been waved through every time I came home since I was sixteen. My heart continues racing. I ease past the sign and pull up next to the guard station. A man in a dark uniform steps out and motions for me to roll down the window. I do it.