But he would, Uilleam thought before the beating started again.
He didn’t know how—a part of him didn’t even believe it was possible—but he would.
He would make him regret every breath he had ever taken in his miserable, unending life …
Uilleam didn’t realize he was squeezing Karina until he felt her protest, murmuring sleepily as she attempted to turn in his arms.
Offering her a wordless apology with a kiss to the back of her shoulder, he released the hold he had on her and slipped out of bed.
He hated that the thought of Alexander always sent him into such a fucking state. That he could lose track of time and himself whenever he got lost in memories better left buried.
It felt as if a lifetime had passed since that night, and the week he’d spent in a drug-induced coma to recover from his injuries.
But sometimes, when he let his mind wander, he could still feel the echoes of that day as if it were happening all over again.
Disappearing into the bathroom, he stepped into the shower stall, not bothering to wait for the water to heat before he let it rain down on him.
The cold helped wake him up—livened his senses.
Thirty minutes later, after he’d showered and dressed, Uilleam was back in his bedroom straightening the knot in his tie, his gaze finding Karina where she was still fast asleep in the bed.
She was still naked as far as he could tell, the sheet only covering her to just about the curve of her hip.
It should have concerned him the way he felt seeing her in his bed. It went beyond typical male satisfaction.
What he felt was too primal. Too selfish.
He wanted her nearly as much as he wanted a seat at the table, and if he could have both, he would do everything in his power to make sure he did.
He deserved as much.
He’d earned it.
Leaving her a note on the nightstand promising to return before the sun went down—and leaving his credit card should she want to leave and explore the city on her own—he ventured downstairs where Skorpion was waiting with a cup of coffee in hand.
“Long night?” he asked.
“I have considered firing you, you know.”
Skorpion scoffed as he climbed to his feet. “Who else do you know that can do what I do? Not to mention put up with your shit,” he said with a pointed look as they walked out the door.
“That’s why you’ve lasted as long as you have.”
“Yeah,” he said with a grin, “let’s go with that. Anyway, what’s on the agenda?”
“The meeting with Gaspard.”
It was the only thing that mattered.
The single most important meeting of his career.
All his deals and plans and careful schemes had led up to this moment.
Nothing could stand in the way of it.
“And the missus?”
He thought of Karina, still asleep, one hand resting on the side of the bed he’d vacated. “I shouldn’t be long.”
“Understood.”
Skorpion drove them to the recital hall where Gaspard had agreed to meet with him.
Unlike Uilleam, the man he was meeting with had very particular tastes and usually conducted his business in one of two places. The specially designed office with bulletproof walls and armed guards around every corner.
And here.
The theater where the ballet company both rehearsed and performed for the public.
From what Uilleam understood, Gaspard was a major benefactor for the French ballet company, having donated more than a quarter of a million dollars this year alone.
But he wasn’t sure why he liked to meet here, of all places. He couldn’t say whether it was because he actually meant for his guests to be comfortable or to let their guard down.
Uilleam intended to do neither.
“As always, if I’m not out within the hour, you know what to do.”
Skorpion nodded, shoving the car into park. “Godspeed.”
Buttoning the front of his suit jacket as he exited, Uilleam checked both ways down the street before crossing, bypassing the few pedestrians on the sidewalk as he entered the building.
He followed the signs down the hallway until he reached the private staircase that led up to the balconies overlooking the stage.
It didn’t take much effort for him to find where he needed to go, not when two men in creaseless suits stood on opposite sides of the door leading to Balcony 7.
They eyed him momentarily before the one to the left opened the door and gestured for him to enter.
As he walked through the darkened corridor, all he could see ahead of him was a man with graying black hair sitting in the very front row, his attention on the women on stage.
Whether they knew he was here—or perhaps were already used to his presence—they danced as if they weren’t being observed.
“Uilleam Runehart. I can’t say I ever thought we would meet, but here we are.”
One thing about Gaspard? He didn’t mince words. He didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t.
He didn’t like Uilleam, and he made that fact clear.
The cynical part of him admired the man for it.
“Those who underestimate me are often surprised when I surpass their expectations. A character flaw, I imagine.”
The thing about Uilleam? He didn’t bow before any man.
Not even one arguably more powerful than him.
But Gaspard didn’t take offense, merely chuckling as he stood and offered a slightly wrinkled hand where a gold cuff winked at his wrist.
“Nice to finally meet you, Runehart. I’ve heard wonderfully bad things about you,” he said, slipping back and forth between French and English as he spoke. “Not worse than that father of yours, of course.”
If Uilleam had hated his father, it was no great mystery that most he had ever crossed paths with hated him as well.
And funnily enough, he had been spared much of his father’s wrath for the most part because he was his mother’s favorite. She’d doted on him more often than he could count—and though that love had felt suffocating at times, it had also saved him.
He still, even at his age, wasn’t sure whether he should be thankful to her because of it.
After all, she had hated his brother for reasons he never understood. And those reasons had made Kit an easy target, even if he had been the eldest brother.
“Alexander was an acquired taste,” he said with a shrug, helping himself to a seat.
He looked around the room, his gaze skirting over every seat and balcony, looking for faces within the shadows.
Skorpion was hidden somewhere in the room, ready to do whatever was needed should Uilleam need him to, but he was looking for unfamiliar ones who might mean him harm.
He might have wanted to do business with Gaspard, but he didn’t trust the man even a little.
His father might have gone mad, but he hadn’t been completely flawed in his reasoning.
“Tell me,” Gaspard said as he snapped his fingers, prompting the attendant idling in the back of the room to move over to the bar cart and grab two glasses. “Was it your idea to present Paxton with a solution only to snatch it away?”
“Forgive me, but I believe we both know the answer to that question, no?”
Gaspard’s smile slipped a bit, betraying the careful mask he had in place. “Clever.”
Yes. Yes, he was.
And he had no shame in admitting as much.
He always had a contingency plan—thrived on them, actually.
He even had one for Gaspard, though he doubted he would need to implement it.
“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? You’re here because a vacancy has opened up at the table.”
“There’s no better man to fill the position than me,” he returned just as easily. “Or are we pretending you weren’t impressed by what I did in New York?”
“Entertained would be the better word, no? You are
… like a magician with a top hat in your hands, and from inside it, you pull a cute little white rabbit.”
Uilleam tightened his hand around the arm of the chair, ensuring Gaspard couldn’t see the way his fingers twitched at that remark.
It was what he wanted.
A reaction.
He refused to give him one.
“Is that what you think?”
Gaspard’s gaze briefly landed on him, analyzing and assessing. “I think that people overestimate what you’re capable of.”
Uilleam had never burned a man alive before—a bit grisly for his tastes—but as he stared across the aisle at the man sitting in the leather chair with a condescending smile on his slightly gaunt face, he considered taking the lighter from his pocket and watching the flames eat away at his flesh.
It wouldn’t be a quick death nor would it be painless. His clothes would melt into his flesh, a searing heat that he would never have the pleasure of forgetting.
And that was only if he survived the ordeal.
“You’re just a small fish in a very big pond, as the Americans say,” Gaspard continued, drawing him from his thoughts.
He seemed to struggle with what he wanted to say next, grappling for another insult. “Ordinary,” he said after a moment. “I’ve met many men like you.”
After a moment, Uilleam set his drink on the table, making a pointed effort not to shatter the glass. “There is nothing remotely ordinary about who I am or what I’ll become.”
That was enough to wipe the smile from the man’s face, draining his amusement away.
“If you think you’re joining my Coalition, you are mistaken, Uilleam Runehart.”
“If you think I came here asking permission,” Uilleam said as he leaned toward the man, making sure his words were heard, “you’ll understand very quickly how wrong you are. And fortunately for us all, your vote isn’t the only one that matters in the end.”
“Then why come seeking my approval.”
“I only needed you to get me here—which you did once you authorized a meeting in exchange for Paxton.”
His mouth opened and closed, realization setting in.
He hadn’t come seeking Gaspard’s permission for anything—he needed only to give others the idea, and the rest would spread.
“Your rules stipulate that should a vacancy open within the Coalition, a replacement will be chosen within six months. In that six months, you haven’t held a single meeting with anyone with the exception of yours truly.”
Sometimes, the only thing one needed to get what they wanted was making the right impression.
“How am I doing for a little fish?” Uilleam stood before the other man could think to respond. “I understand you may have hated my father, but I am not him. Set your grievances aside.”
He looked as if he wanted to curse him or threaten him, surely, but he did neither. Instead, he simply said, “The welcoming party is tomorrow night.”
Uilleam inclined his head before heading for the door. “Looking forward to it.”
27
Sweet Nothings
Karina looked down, watching the explosion of blue as it quickly swept through the bath water, turning it from translucent to a soft shade of blue-green. Steam billowed and swayed above the water, but before she stepped a foot inside, she crumbled a few bits from the bubble bar she’d picked up as well and crushed it beneath the water.
The fresh, citrusy scent of lemongrass filled her senses, making her eagerly slip out of her robe and step into the water, pausing a moment to adjust to the heat.
A long sigh spilled from her lips as she sank into the water, the bubbles nearly covering her completely. It didn’t take long before her muscles were relaxing and she was content to lie there for as long as possible.
If there was one thing she missed from home, it was being able to sit in the tub and just soak while her mind wandered. She hadn’t minded, at first, that her tiny apartment only had a stall for a shower—it made getting out of the house in the morning relatively quick—but moments like these had her wondering whether it might be time to move.
Her mind drifted in a dozen different directions—the work she would be going home to in a few short days, the other work that she refused to consider for more than a few moments at a time, and the voice mail from Orion she still hadn’t listened to—but even as she tried to focus on anything else, her mind always went back to Uilleam.
To last night.
It shouldn’t have been possible for her skin to grow warmer, considering the temperature of the bath she was sitting in, but she couldn’t help but think she was burning a little hotter at the thought of him and everything they had done.
Truthfully, it was the only thing she could think about.
Especially since she had woken up sore in the best way possible and found him waiting with breakfast on the balcony.
Meetings, he’d told her earlier before leaving her to do as she pleased. He’d promised to return as quickly as possible, yet he had already been gone for more than six hours already.
She expected the time to pass quickly, and after visiting the market and picking up a few things, she hadn’t realized how much she would miss his presence until she had returned and found he still wasn’t back yet.
More curious than she cared to admit, she should have asked what sort of meetings he would be attending—whether they were more of his infamous deals.
Karina had only just closed her eyes after sweeping tendrils of her hair behind her ears when audible footsteps made her shift, her gaze darting to the arched doorway seconds before Uilleam walked inside.
His gaze had appeared concerned for a moment before the expression smoothed away once he laid eyes on her. He looked almost … relieved to see her.
Yet instead of making a coy joke or even bothering to ask if he had, in fact, missed her in all the time he was gone, she smiled softly, feeling shy all of a sudden. “Hey.”
“Soyez toujours mon cœur qui bat—Be still my beating heart.”
The words were said softly, so low that she almost missed them, but there was no mistaking what she had heard, nor could she mask the pleasure she felt at hearing them.
Turning over, she rested her arm against the side of the clawfoot tub, leaning toward him. “You have a way with words, Uilleam Runehart.”
“Did you miss me?” he asked with a little tilt of his head as he tossed his phone on the counter and started loosening the knot of his tie.
“Yes,” she admitted softly, feeling the blush in her cheeks as she marveled at the fact that she’d actually answered truthfully.
He let his tie fall from his fingers once he got it over his head, then started on the row of buttons down his front next. It didn’t matter that she had seen his naked chest in early morning sunlight yesterday or even that she got to run her fingers all over it and the rest of him the night before. It was a different experience entirely when he began stripping out of his shirt.
His shoulders and collarbone, then the flat but ridged expanse of his abdomen, the lean muscles in his biceps, and even the prominent veins that forked up his forearms.
It still felt as if she was seeing him for the very first time.
“Did you think of me?” he asked as he started on his belt, then the button of his trousers, but he didn’t immediately step out of those.
Instead, he allowed them to sit at his waist and gave her a tantalizing view of the black waistband of the boxer briefs beneath as he dragged the stool from the vanity and placed it next to the porcelain bathtub.
Her smile was a little coy as she said, “You didn’t give me much of a choice.”
She was reminded of him every time her thighs rubbed together and she felt the ache there. The way she could so clearly remember the tremors she had felt when he was inside her.
No, she didn’t think she would stop thinking about him for a while.
“Where were you today?” she asked softly as he brushed the damp strands
of her hair off her face.
Even after he did the intimate gesture, he remained close, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him.
She didn’t miss the way it looked with the two of them sitting like this.
Her naked shape mostly concealed by pale blue water and bubbles, him in a perfectly pressed suit.
As if he were a Lord and she was his lady.
As if he were her master and she his willing, obedient slave.
“Is that really what you want to ask me about?” His question came on the heels of a smile that had finally managed to fight its way onto his face.
He’d noticed where her gaze had gone and lingered.
Of course he had.
She might have only stared at for a mere second, and her facial reaction before she schooled it for even less than that, but for a man trained in reading people, it wasn’t a mystery that he had noticed the change in her.
Now, the only question was how to answer his question.
“It’ll answer both questions I have,” she responded simply.
“Clever.”
“I like to think so.”
“The meeting with Gaspard.”
Right. She was hearing his name quite a lot now. “The French billionaire,” she said with a nod, having done a bit of research while he was gone.
She didn’t know everything there was to know about the man, only what little had been released in interviews and news articles about his accomplishments and philanthropy. Beyond that, she hadn’t found much else.
There was also the little that Uilleam had already told her about him when he had taken her shopping.
“I’d requested a meeting with him. Today was an … interview, of sorts.”
“Him or you?” she asked, noting his smile.
He actually rolled his eyes. “Regrettably, some are more stubborn about accepting my services when I offer them.”
“They obviously don’t know what they’re missing,” she said, reaching up to brush her fingers along the hand he now had wrapped around the rim of the tub.
While at first she had meant it as a way to not stroke his ego considering her tone of voice, there was also no mistaking the truth in those words either.
White Rabbit: The Rise (The Kingmaker Saga Book 1) Page 23
