Page 114 of Dark Romeo

His shoulders sank and his fists loosened as some of the tension left his body. Why was he so relieved? Why did a man who only wanted sex from me care so much about what I thought?

“Who is Goldfish?” I asked.

Roman’s mouth twitched.

“You know him, don’t you?”

He still didn’t reply. He didn’t even look at me, but I saw the flash of pain cross his face before it disappeared.

“Is he dangerous?”

Roman let out a low growl. “No more dangerous than most.”

“But you know who he is,” I pushed.

“It’s not important.”

“But—”

“I’ll take care of it.”

His dismissal was as sharp as a razor blade. Roman didn’t trust me enough to confide in me.

Roman took out his phone and dialed someone. “Yeah, I know it’s late. I need help.” There was a pause. Then he rattled off the address of this warehouse before ending the call.

“Who is that?”

“Someone I trust.” That seemed to be the end of it. “You should make a report in the morning. Let your father and your partner know that two men attacked you. They’ll be able to protect you better than I ever could.” I could hear a touch of bitterness in his voice.

“You did a fine job of doing that tonight,” I said quietly.

He looked sideways at me. “I can’t always be there…”

“Why did you help me?”

“I wasn’t going to stand by and let them…” Roman’s face twisted as he spoke. “In the warehouse, with my knife in his throat, all I could think was what if he had succeeded in taking you? What if he put his hands on you and I hadn’t been there? What if he’d beaten you, raped you? It took everything I had not to kill him.”

I swallowed. “But you didn’t.”

“I wanted to. I wanted to slide the blade back into his brain and twist it.”

Roman just admitted he wanted to kill a man. I should be fleeing from him. But underneath my instinctive fear, my body vibrated, my flesh felt raw and sensitive, the blood rushing hot around my veins. I couldn’t deny it. I was turned on.

Turned on? What the hell was wrong with me?

“Aren’t you going to arrest me, detective?” Roman stared at me with black fire in his eyes, a confrontational edge to his voice. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was deliberately pushing me.

“No.”

“You should. Kidnapping, assault, you could even get me on attempted murder. You could use me to bring down my whole family.”

He was baiting me. Testing me. Whose side I would choose?

My father flashed into my mind. This was everything that he needed to put Roman Tyrell away. I could see it now, that rare flash of pride on his face, that’s my girl, when I locked Roman Tyrell in a cell and single-handedly brought down the rest of the Tyrell empire. It would make my career in a heartbeat. I’d be promoted. Gain the respect I had wanted for so long…

None of that seemed to matter. When I thought of doing that to Roman, my heart ached so hard I thought it might break. I couldn’t bring him down. Even to put away the Tyrells, I couldn’t sacrifice Roman.

Are you listening to yourself, Julianna? Roman almost killed a man.

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