Page 67 of Filthy Rich

He gets up and breaches my space as he looms over me, his expression thunderous and his eyes flashing ice. “You’re the fool? Do you know what I’ve done to be with you, Ms. Scott? Do you have any idea?”

The words echo through the cabin, filling me with dread. There’s a wild and untethered look on his face that I’ve never seen before. I can’t decide whether it excites me or scares me. Maybe both. Because this is the moment when I finally feel that I’m getting a glimpse of the real Lucien Winter. All of him.

“Tell me,” I say, although I’m not sure I want to know.

Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine with it. I’m that far gone for him. If he confesses to murdering someone and throwing their body overboard to hide the evidence, I’ll switch seamlessly to justification mode. I know I will.

He runs his hands over the top of his head and blows out a breath, throwing me a speculative look and clearly already regretting his flash of temper. One of his crooked smiles dawns slowly, all turned inward because he seems to be laughing at himself. And maybe he’s marveling over some imaginary and invisible power he thinks I have when I know that he’s in the driver’s seat here.

“You think Mrs. Hooper randomly won some private tour package that kept her out of our hair for two weeks?” he says quietly.

Whatever I expected him to say, it wasn’t this. I gasp as the picture comes into focus for me. Part of me is thrilled. Part of me is horrified. All of me is convinced that there’s no way he did something like that—went to that kind of effort and expense—for me.

Absolutely no way.

“What are you saying?” I say, shaking my head. “That you, what? Put together a fake tour for Mrs. Hooper so you could hang out with me?”

“That’s right.”

He radiates such quiet satisfaction. Such arrogance. Such power.

Such irresistible sexiness.

I keep shaking my head. “Why go to the trouble? Why not just ask me? You know I would’ve said yes to anything you said.”

He scoffs. “What, so I could figure out a new way to ditch Mrs. Hooper every day? I don’t think so.”

I cannot be hearing this.

“You can’t just wave your magic wand and move your chess pieces across the board,” I say, my voice pitching higher. “You’re dealing with real people with real feelings.”

“And you’re mixing your metaphors,” he says, gleaming eyes showing all the repentance of a wolf that just devoured a tasty young sheep. “I saw a problem. I solved it.”

“You manipulated us.”

“Yeah. So?” He seems genuinely puzzled. “I found an elegant solution that benefited all three of us. Where’s the harm?”

“Where’s the harm?” I cry, my incredulity getting the best of me. “Do you not understand that you’re proving my point for me? I spent all this time with you, and I still don’t know you at all. I don’t know how you think. I don’t know what you’re capable of.”

“Tamsyn.” He gentles as though he realizes he’s overwhelming me, some of the flash going out of his eyes. “You know the important things. You know you do. You know it.”

To seal the deal, he takes my hand and reels me in, all the way up against his body with his lips nuzzling my forehead. And if I needed a sign of how lethal he is to my equilibrium, here it is. I’m already melting into him, savoring his clean and woodsy scent and tipping my head up for his kiss, when the biggest issue races back to the front of my mind. And not a moment too soon.

I stiffen, pushing him away.

“I know I don’t know you. Because I never would’ve predicted your reaction when you thought you saw Ravenna today.”

He tenses. “Don’t say her name to me. Ever.”

“Why not?” I say, abandoning all good sense. “Because you’re still in love with her?”

“Because she has nothing to do with us.” He tries to say something else but can’t seem to find the words. So he roughly runs his hands over the top of his head and tries again. “Look. There was a time after the boat accident when I was convinced she was still alive.”

“Because they never found her body, you mean?”

“Correct. But that’s over now.”

I think back to the desolation I personally witnessed on his face when he thought he saw Ravenna earlier and realize that nothing is over. Not even close.

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