People like Uilleam.
As it stood, her post on him had more than ten thousand views and growing. When she’d first posted it, there had only been more than a couple hundred. She hadn’t given much thought to the impact it would have while she’d been in the middle of writing it—her only concern had been whether or not Uilleam saw it.
But it was baffling now knowing that so many were reading about the mysterious Kingmaker. They wouldn’t know it was Uilleam she wrote about, or rather ... they wouldn’t know it was him if he didn’t share it.
To her surprise, however, there were comments beneath her post—comments she wasn’t ready to look at just yet. Instead, she searched through the forums, looking for anything with Uilleam’s name in it.
She typed his name in and clicked enter, waiting for the search results, but after loading for several seconds … zero results came in. The first time she’d run the search months ago, she’d been too fueled with rage to truly pay attention to the fact that nothing had come back, but now … now she was just curious.
Picking up her mug of coffee, she took another sip before a thought hit her.
If she couldn’t find anything on Uilleam, maybe she could find something on the man he was becoming.
Ten seconds passed between the time she set her mug down and typing in Kingmaker.
Seven results …
It was strange as she slowly made her way through the results, reading the rest of the posts others had written. She knew the man they talked about—better than any of them—but as she read about the Kingmaker, it felt as if she didn’t know Uilleam at all. It was hard making the connection between the man she had fallen in love with and the notorious criminal whose exploits people were now following.
Karina had only started on her third posting when she received a call. Hope that it was the paper flared to life inside her, but she was still happy all the same when she saw Uilleam’s name staring back at her. “I thought you were going to be busy all day?” she said by way of greeting, glancing at the clock to check the time.
Twenty minutes.
She’d only been out of the shower for twenty minutes.
“I only needed a couple of hours to finish what I needed to do.”
“Yeah? What did you have to do?”
“I could tell you, sure, but I’d much rather show you.”
That quickly, she stopped paying attention entirely to what she was reading. “What are you talking about?”
“Come outside and see.”
With an invitation like that ...
Moving to her feet, she quickly disappeared into her bedroom to find her jacket and pull on her shoes before heading outside, not that they did her much good, considering how cold it was.
But even as her arms seem to lock up the second she was out in the poor weather, and her teeth started to chatter, her discomfort was very quickly forgotten as she caught sight of Uilleam.
Watching TV was a favored pastime of hers—one she did far more often than she probably should, but in all that time, she had seen more than a dozen commercials around this time of the man showing up with a car as a gift for his significant other.
She had always thought the idea of it was cute, though she severely doubted she would ever be on the receiving end of such a gesture.
That was until now.
The Range Rover Sport was pristine with its immaculate paint job in a color whiter than the snow at her feet. Exhaust billowed out from the chrome tail pipe as new and unused as the rest of the car, including the glistening tires with snow stuck to the threads.
But more than anything, she couldn’t miss the giant red bow. It was too massive—too unapologetically Christmas that she felt the ridiculous urge to cry.
It was far too much.
“Uilleam, you didn’t …”
His smile was a little too innocent as he pushed off the side of it and reached for her hand.
“Of course I did. The thought of you trying to travel in this weather alone makes me anxious.”
Even as she stepped into the fold of his body, she still said, “I’ve managed pretty well on my own.”
“And now, you have even more freedom at your fingertips.”
Not to mention she would save a small fortune in travel expenses … but that was only if she accepted his present.
What did women usually say when they received expensive gifts? Truthfully, she didn’t know how to respond.
That wasn’t to say she wasn’t grateful—that it wasn’t the most beautiful truck she had ever seen—and she told him as much, but added, “As beautiful as it is, I don’t know that I’ll be able to accept it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I couldn’t begin to spend the same amount on you.” And not just because she would have to access the accounts she wasn’t supposed to know about.
“Poppet, I don’t buy you things expecting you to return the favor. I buy them because I want you to have them. It’s as simple as that.”
“Uilleam—”
“Fine. Do you really want to give me something in return?”
“Yes, I really do.”
He came close enough that she could feel the weight of his presence. “Tell me another secret—something you’ve never told someone else.”
“That’s all?” she asked, feeling as if that still wasn’t enough. “That’s really all you want?”
“I have more money than a god, Karina,” he reminded her in case she had forgotten. “Secrets are of more value to me.”
She would need to remember that. “Any secret at all?”
“Lady’s choice.”
She wanted to make it worth it.
And she was tempted to tell him everything about herself—even the terrible ones that she didn’t want to share with another living soul.
“Maybe I should tell you inside the car.” Because with the way the wind was blowing, she was sure she would be explaining this very thing from a hospital room if she caught hypothermia.
Uilleam didn’t think twice about it before he opened the driver’s side door and gestured for her to get in.
As she slipped behind the wheel, she couldn’t help but feel that giddy emotion in her chest, especially as she watched Uilleam cross over in front of the truck before climbing in on the passenger’s side.
Even as she sat on the leather seats and breathed in that new car smell, it didn’t feel real. It was still hard to imagine that this was hers. Back home, she hadn’t owned a car—not that she had needed one, considering how often Katherine liked to be driven around, and she insisted on the same for her girls. And after moving to New York, she had just never felt the need to buy one when she oftentimes could get around quicker on foot or using the subway.
When Uilleam climbed into the passenger seat beside her and closed the door against the onslaught of winter air, she didn’t think twice before shifting and leaning over to him, planting a fast kiss on his lips.
A simple thank you didn’t feel like nearly enough, but her lack of proper gratitude didn’t seem to bother him at all.
She could feel the smile growing on his lips, the caress of his fingers as he reached for her.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said a moment later, pulling back just far enough to see his face.
“I don’t do anything I don’t want to,” he replied just as quickly. “It’s merely a small token of my love for you.”
Love.
Such a simple yet complicated word that made her feel like a girl experiencing the wonders of the world for the very first time.
“You should know my Christmas present for you certainly won’t top this.”
He chuckled, low and amused. “You have and always will be enough for me.”
Uilleam was perfect.
More than she could have ever dreamed. More than she could have thought possible.
He was the dream she never wanted to wake up from.
27
Quiet His Mind
Three days he had been comforting her through a pain he was responsible for.
Three days he had wrapped her in his arms and felt her sadness, doing everything he could to lessen her pain.
He knew, if she ever learned the truth, it wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t remember this part of it—that he’d been there to wipe her tears and make her forget about her troubles for a while—she would only ever remember the rest of it.
Could he really blame her?
Would an apology even be enough?
Closing his eyes, he tried to clear his chaotic thoughts, wishing the guilt he felt would finally go away. It wasn’t often that he actually felt the emotion, but when he did … he was a slave to it.
As much as he wanted to fix this and make it right for her in some way, there was still that part of him that wanted to shield his involvement to avoid the blowback.
And as it stood, he couldn’t think of a way to make it right without revealing what he had done in the process.
“Bad day?”
His eyes cracked open at the sound of Karina’s voice, the soft cadence bringing equal measures of pain and pleasure.
“Not entirely,” he said, reaching for her before he even had a mind to do it.
But he had grown to crave that first bit of contact—the way it felt as if he could finally settle into his skin. Breathe a little easier.
Her hair fell over her shoulder and caressed his bare chest as she straddled his lap, her hands coming down to rest between them.
For a moment, he just reached out to stroke her cheek, then over the line of her jaw all the way around to her lips.
He could just see the bruises forming along her collarbone and up her slender neck, and he knew, without even having to look down, that more would cover her thighs as well.
Fucking her made it easier.
To work off the grueling tension he felt.
To exhaust her as much as he needed to exhaust himself to quiet his mind.
It was a distraction, one they both seemed to need.
Even if his mouth hadn’t, his body had asked for her forgiveness.
It wouldn’t take anything at all to part the shirt she wore and run his fingers down the flat of her stomach until his hand went between her legs.
He wasn’t the only one doing what they could to forget what happened.
“You’re making that face,” she said after a moment.
“What face is that?”
“Your unhappy face,” she replied with what he assumed was an interpretation of what he looked like.
But the expression only served to make him laugh.
“I’m not unhappy.” Never when he was with her.
“Are you busy tonight?”
“If you want me, I’m yours.”
“There’s a place in the village I’ve always wanted to try …”
The knot in his chest eased when she smiled, when it wasn’t hard for her thoughts to slip away from her.
When McDonall and the paper and everything else was forgotten, and it was just the two of them again.
He wished he could box the emotion away to feel it again later.
“As talented as you are, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t start your own paper,” Uilleam said over dinner, the thought running through the back of his mind all day.
It wouldn’t be completely unheard of, and he wasn’t lying when he said she was good at what she did. One little blip in her career wouldn’t have to be a stain, not when he could smooth it all over.
He’d make it so that no one would ever mention Karina negatively again if it was what she wanted.
But she would have to want it.
Karina smiled even as she shook her head, tearing a breadstick in half before biting off a corner of one. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not? You certainly have the means.”
Her brow arched up. “Do I really?”
He had more than two dozen bank accounts around the world filled with ill-gotten gains. Not to mention the fortune his father had left him still collecting interest in an account somewhere.
There was no price he wasn’t willing to pay for her.
It would hardly even factor into his bottom line.
“If it’s what you want, I can make it happen.”
Her laughter made him look at her, studying the consternation between her brows. “For a price … Does anyone ever pay you in anything else other than currency?”
“Yes,” he answered. An easy enough question.
“Has anyone ever bartered in secrets?”
That part of him compelled by curious things perked up at the mention. “No one has held secrets I’d want to know.”
“And mine?” she asked, sounding strangely … sad. “What are my secrets worth?”
He reached across the table for her hand, curling his fingers around hers. “Anything.”
“And what would you do to get them?” she asked, her fingers dancing over the back of his knuckles.
He didn’t even have to think before he answered. “Everything.”
At least, if only for tonight before she remembered why she was sad in the first place, he had managed to put a smile on her face.
That was all he could ask for.
“Dessert?” the waiter asked as he walked up, glancing at both of them expectantly.
“Strawberry shortcake,” she replied with that smile of hers before she turned her gaze to him.
“Oh, I’ll have mine later.”
She caught his meaning quickly, her cheeks turning that rosy hue—a reminder of the blush that would spread through the rest of her once he had her undressed.
But her smile froze as her gaze found something behind him. He could read expressions well enough, but he excelled at reading body language.
Considering he spent an awful lot of time attempting to make someone afraid enough they did his bidding, he could read a host of different, fleeting emotions.
Like rage.
An anger so profound it translated all over her, but as quickly as that was there, it was replaced by surprise.
And something else …
Something he wouldn’t understand until he turned around and found what had grabbed her attention.
Claire McDonall.
Uilleam was a pro at pretending. He could see a person he’d been threatening bodily harm to the day before and smile at them the next day as if nothing had happened.
Claire was inconsequential, and considering their transaction had been completed and delivered as promised, she no longer mattered to him.
He would have gone on and pretended he had never seen the woman before in his life … if she hadn’t been walking directly toward them as if they’d been waiting for her to arrive.
As if she were a treasured friend and not the thing that would cause a fracture between them.
That was the thing.
He didn’t mind who his client was screwing over when it came to them getting what they wanted. It didn’t matter to him one way or the other.
So long as it didn’t affect him.
And he made that abundantly clear to anyone he did business with at the very beginning. It was a warning to them as much as it was a reminder to himself. He didn’t get attached, nor would he ever allow anything to do with them affect his safety or business.
Claire seemed to have forgotten that as a smile twisted her lips, her gaze focused on Karina.
In her mind, she was now the predator and Karina the prey, but she didn’t seem to realize that he would rip out her jugular before she ever got close enough to harm her.
He didn’t have to speak, nor did he have to actually stand. He merely turned to look over his shoulder, knowing the moment her gaze found him.
There was a question there that had an answer that was none of her concern, and to his immense satisfaction, he sa
w the moment she understood she had grievously miscalculated.
That she had made a mistake in ever putting Karina in her sights.
He had warned her, and if there was one thing to be said about him, he always followed through with a threat.
Her gaze flickered to Karina for a heartbeat before returning to him, and whatever she saw there had her quickly averting her gaze as she turned around and went back the way she came.
But Uilleam knew, even before he turned around, that it wouldn’t matter.
The damage was done, and there was nothing he could do about it.
A lover had once called him a bastard as she’d left his bed in a flurry of blind rage, and even his father had called him one on a few occasions when he’d had too much to drink and liked to hear the sound of his own voice, but Uilleam had never much felt like one until right this moment.
Her stare was just … hard. Assessing.
Putting the pieces together inside her own head until she had the bigger picture.
Or as much as she needed to know to realize what he had done.
“Karina, listen—”
The sound of his voice only made her react.
No one else could see that she was upset, not when she was as poised as ever, finishing off the last of her drink before setting the glass down again.
But he could.
He saw in the tension that straightened her spine even as the nerves she felt had her hand shaking. It might have just looked as if she was rising, but only he could see her careful restraint. The way she looked as if she was mere moments from exploding from all she had bottled up.
He had fucked up.
Something he had known already but was absolutely sure of as he watched her skirt through the tables without a backward glance at him.
He just needed to fix this.
That was all there was left to do.
28
Lessons Learned
She should have known better.
Karina had learned many things about herself as she got older and was exposed to everything outside of the bubble Katherine had created for them.
Most days, she knew where she stood on the moral gray line. She understood what love without condition meant, and she understood what it meant to have a family that confused you as much as you loved them.
White Rabbit Page 28
