The one thing I couldn’t afford right now.
I was here to get justice for Sarah. For yet another person I wasn’t there for when I should have been. Who I abandoned.
I couldn’t let some woman get in the way of making the person responsible pay, regardless of how beautiful she was.
“It doesn’t concern you.” My voice turned cold, even as the heat from her body still burned on my skin. “Despite what you want to believe, Iamholding you captive. Ididtake you. I may feed you. May allow you a warm place to sleep. But I’m more than happy to deprive you of these comforts if that’s what it takes to remind you of your place. Of what you are to me.”
She straightened her spine, her chin lifted. “And what exactly am I to you?”
“Nothing.” I let the word hang like smoke between us. “You arenothingto me.”
I turned from her, storming back down the stairs and into my office, Cato at my heels. I snatched my jacket off the hook and shoved my arms through the sleeves, zipping it up beforetugging on gloves and a knit cap. With my rifle slung over my shoulder, I exited through the secondary stairs and door leading directly outside. I didn’t even need to call for Cato to follow me. He knew.
The temperature was colder than I expected. A thin layer of fog crept across the ground, and the snow had melted and refrozen into slick patches along the path. I moved deftly, my boots crunching beneath me.
It wasn’t completely out of the ordinary for one of my perimeter cameras to alert me to motion, considering the wildlife roaming the vast wilderness surrounding my cabin. I normally didn’t bother to investigate, other than checking the camera feed.
But I needed something to distract me from ArianafuckingKane.
From her sultry stare. Her smart mouth. The way she made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t in years.
I clenched my jaw and pressed forward, heading deeper into the woods.
But it didn’t help. Ariana’s voice still lingered in my mind, low and soft, threaded with compassion. Her bright eyes haunted me. And those lips…
Jesus. Those lips.
I shouldn’t have wanted to taste them. Shouldn’t have imagined the feel of her skin, the heat of her breath against mine, the way her body might fit with me if I let go of every instinct screaming at me to stay away.
She was married. Not just that. She was married to Victor Kane. The goddamn enemy. She was the very definition of off limits.
Despite that, she still had me twisted in knots.
Maybe she was just playing a game. Some kind of long con or strategy to chip away at my defenses.
If she was, it was working.
But I’d learned to read people. And something in my gut told me she wasn’t the person I thought she was. Now that I’d spent time watching her outside of the public eye, she wasn’t the spoiled trophy wife I’d observed for months.
There was steel under her softness. Pain behind her smile.
So who the hell was Ariana Kane?
And why did I care so much?
A sharp bark snapped me out of my spiraling thoughts.
Cato.
I looked behind me, confused why he hung back instead of remaining by my side as I’d trained him.
“What are you doing, buddy? Come on.” I turned, continuing through the heavily wooded area.
But when I took my next step, I realized why Cato had stopped.
I’d been so lost in my thoughts of Ariana, I’d lost my bearings.
The ground shifted beneath me with a soft, sickening crunch. Then it gave way entirely. I had just enough time to realize where I was before I went weightless.
