Page 31 of Seizing Control: Part One

When she stiffens, I run my fingers through her hair. “Look at me.”

A five-alarm fire warning blazes within me when she lifts her face to mine. Pure, unadulterated love shines in her eyes. It burns bright. Extinguishes my pride. Makes me believe, for a moment at least, that I can handle being second best.

I press a kiss to the end of her nose. “I love you, duchess.”

“I love you too.”

My chest tightens at the unspoken asterisk my duchess adds to the admission I’ve been hoping to hear for years.

She loves me.

Only it’s not as much as she loves Venom.

It hurts to acknowledge the truth, which adds a bittersweet bite to my next words. “I know… it’s the reason why I’ll never give up on us.”

My duchess remains silent in the wake of my declaration.

She knows as well as I do it that wasn’t simply a statement of fact.

Challenge made.

Gauntlet laid.

I’ve ignited a battle to the death with my best friend...

4

LILY

“Anna.”

“Yes.” Shaking myself free of the worried thoughts that have plagued me since I woke up in Slash’s bed this morning, I offer Veronica a tight smile. Her narrowed gaze roams my face, and I realise that it’s likely she’s called my name more than once. “I’m sorry, Ronni… I was off with the fairies.”

“Hmmm,” she muses. “Seems it’s catching.”

I follow her judgement filled gaze. Her focus settles on our boss, Gabriel Abaddon. He’s hunched over at the end of the conference table, a crease marring the skin between his eyes, as he frantically flips through pages of the brief he asked me to come into the office to review. A civil case with international implications. This type of law isn’t my forte since I normally focus on criminal law so I can be of most benefit to the Shamrocks, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

If Gabriel thinks I’m the best graduate to assist him, I’m going to step up without question. I’ll work Saturdays and Sundays if he needs me. He’s taken more than one risk keeping me around, especially at the height of the media’s obsession with mine and Alex’s relationship. Leaving my comfort zone to expand my horizons under Gabriel’s mentorship is an opportunity that doesn’t come around often.

I’ll cop the snide comments from my colleagues with a smile.

As if he can read my mind, my boss lifts his head to shoot me a curious look. Hair sticking up, dark eyes ringed by red, he’s a ball of nervous energy. I quirk my lips in acknowledgement, and he nods once before returning to his reading.

“I’m not sure why he’s so worried about this,” I venture in a voice low enough for only Veronica to hear. “It’s pretty open and shut… Gabriel will kick arse if he takes it on.”

The matter is an international relations dispute between two multinational conglomerates with subsidiaries based in Australia. Best friends who had a falling out over a woman, then became bitter rivals. The two men, both billionaires in their own right, are at loggerheads over the patent for a revolutionary children’s cancer treatment they funded a decade ago.

One of them wants to buy the other out.

The other man wants Gabriel to help him force a fire sale.

As the correlation between the case and my situation with Zeke and Slash hits home, I flinch like I’ve been punched. Veronica gives me a look that could melt ice. She’s been in an unusual mood all day. Always eccentric, typically unflappable, her displeasure at our firm’s potential involvement in this case has been evident since she texted me to come into work on this Saturday morning.

“Meddling in matters of the heart is a recipe for disaster,” she mutters. “Men will fight to the death over one thing—a woman. Money is replaceable. Pride mendable. Religion negotiable. Two men and the love of a good woman, well, that’s just a plain lethal combination.”

I press my lips together and lift my eyebrows.

Her insight is a direct hit.

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