Before I can protest, he leads me onto the dance floor and pulls me into his arms. One hand settles at the small of my back, the other clasps my right hand, holding it against his chest. The position forces me closer to him than I would prefer, our bodies separated by mere inches.
“Smile,” he murmurs, his breath warm against my ear. “Everyone is watching.”
I paste a convincing smile on my face, though I’m seething inside. “You’re just trying to deflect from this discussion.”
He guides me into a slow turn, his movements fluid and confident. Of course, he dances well. He excels at everything he does, clearly a side effect of his pathological need for control.
“I’m trying to maintain our cover,” he replies, his voice pitched low enough that only I can hear him. “Something you seem intent on jeopardizing with your little tête-à-tête with Wong.”
“He knows something about my mother. Something he’s afraid to tell me.”
“Everyone at this party knows something they’re afraid to tell. That’s how power works in this city.” His hand presses more firmly against my back, bringing me closer. “What exactly did he say?”
I consider lying but decide against it. Nico probably had someone watching our interaction, possibly even reading our lips. “He said my mother’s work is more extensive than sheadmits. That it involves ‘international stakeholders.’ He warned me to be careful about the company I keep.”
“Interesting,” Nico muses, his expression revealing nothing. “Anything else?”
“He used the past tense when referring to her. As if...” I can’t bring myself to complete the thought.
Nico’s eyes narrow slightly. “Your mother is alive, Lea. Of that, I’m certain.”
The conviction in his voice should be reassuring, but it only raises more questions. How can he be so sure? What does he know that I don’t?
“Are you worried about my mother?” I challenge him. “Or about what she might do to your precious pharmaceutical pipeline?”
His rhythm falters for just a fraction of a second, so brief I might have imagined it. “Right now, I’m not worried about either of those things.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
His eyes scan the room in a deliberate sweep before returning to mine. The intensity in his gaze makes my breath catch. “The only thing I’m worried about right now is the way every man in this room is watching you. They should know you’re mine.”
Before I can process his words and plan a response to the raw possession in his voice, he dips his head and captures my mouth in a kiss.
There is nothing gentle or romantic about it. This is a public claim. His lips are hard against mine, a dominant, punishing pressure that is not meant for me, but for every man in the roomwhose eyes have lingered on me today. It’s a brand, a warning, a declaration of ownership written in a language everyone here understands.
I should fight back. My mind screams it, a frantic, useless command. Journalist. Strategist. Prisoner. The words are meaningless static against the sudden, brutal reality of his mouth on mine.
His hand is a vise at the small of my back, crushing the silk of my dress, pulling me flush against the hard lines of his body. The scrape of his five-o’clock shadow is an abrasive truth against my skin. He tastes of expensive whiskey and cold fury.
My body, that goddamn traitor, doesn’t just surrender; it ignites. A wave of heat, raw and filthy, obliterates every plan I’ve ever made. My hands, which should shove him away, instead fist in the lapels of his tuxedo, my knuckles white as I cling to him, not to escape, but to keep from collapsing.
A sound tears from my throat. A choked, desperate whimper I don’t recognize as my own. He takes it as the surrender it is, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, plundering, demanding a response I am powerless to deny. I give it to him, meeting his hunger with a frantic desperation that terrifies me.
The world dissolves. There is no gala, no music, no watching eyes. There is only this. The searing heat of his mouth, the bruising grip of his hand, and the terrifying, undeniable truth that this raw, consuming need is real. It was never a game. Not for me.
When he finally breaks the kiss, the air rushes back into my lungs, cold and thin. The sounds of the gala crash back in adistant, muffled roar from another universe. My lips are tingling and swollen, my entire body humming with the aftershock.
I stare up at him, my mind a blank slate. I see my shock mirrored in his dark eyes. The mask of “The Diplomat” has slipped. He started this as a declaration of power, a strategic move to put me in my place. But the raw, animal response he tore from me was a variable he never expected. He looks... stunned. Confused.
For one crystalline moment, we are not manipulator and pawn. We are a man and a woman drowning in the wreckage of a truth we just accidentally screamed at each other without a single word: This is real.
I meet his dark, questioning gaze, and my voice, when I speak, is low and steady, a command born from the ashes of my shattered control.
“Take me home to your bedroom,” I say. “Now.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
NICO
