Page 13 of Dash

Before I got to her, the door slammed shut in my face. The sound of the lock clicking in place echoed in my ears. I was furious with myself. I’d allowed my control to snap and now things were even worse than before. I’d tasted her again only to be demeaned and denied.

The fresh wonder of that kiss followed by her rejectionleft me feeling like a wounded animal. She may be done with me, but I sure as hell wasn’t done with her.

I pulled my handkerchief from my front pocket and wiped Thena’s lipstick from my mouth. Pacing before the door, I ignored the pain that came every time I planted my leg. Thena thought I’d betrayed her. If this wasn’t so fucked-up, I’d laugh at the irony of her allegations.

But there was a hell of a lot more on the line than her false belief and my ignorance. For this to work, I had to have Thena’s ear. For her to survive, for her sisters to survive, I had to have her trust. Her father had forced my hand. Even if she didn’t want me to touch her, she needed to listen to me.

The thump of a body hitting the floor on the other side of the door vibrated beneath my feet. A muted whimper drifted through the wood. What the hell?

Knowing it would take me longer to kick open the massive door, I slid out my multitool from my pocket and, wasting no time, put it to use.

***

Thena

He’d kissed me. Dash had kissed me. And I kissed him back. Hell yes, I’d kissed him back with all I had and as if there was no tomorrow, which was true for us, and therefore made this whole hot, passionate, episode of an amazing kiss even more heart-wrenching.

Trailing my shaking fingers over my lips, I stumbled into my father’s office, reeling from the power of that kiss, from the forces that had overwhelmed my senses and destroyed my defenses. I’d almost surrendered to him, to his heat, to his passion. It’d felt true and familiar between us, but also new and amazing. That sense of hope and wonder?

It was the most terrifying feeling of them all.

Stop this. Why are you doing this to yourself? You knowbetter.

The pain in my stomach had eased while I was lost in Dash’s kiss, but now it struck back with a vengeance, stabbing through me like Dash’s favorite weapon. It caught me already weak-kneed and disoriented. I tripped and hit the floor hard.

My hands and knees smarted. The documents slipped from my hand and spilled all over the floor. Weak, nauseous, and dizzy, I tried to retrieve them, but my fingers refused to grasp the pages. Sentences floated before my eyes as if pitching and rocking in a stormy sea.

I hereby declare Dashiell Dagger my true and only heir.The line drifted out of Father’s legal will and curled before my eyes.I appoint Dashiell Dagger as CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Astor Group for life. This one skittered out of his last testament and wiggled onto the floor like a centipede.

The pain. Shit. My stomach cramped into a ball of agony. Father’s flaring signature was everywhere, big and blue, shouting at me, jumping out of the pages like spiders crawling toward me.

“No,” I whimpered, shaking the creepy scrawls off my hands. “No!”

All this time. I’d done everything my father had asked of me. To protect my sisters and my family’s legacy, I’d given up my dreams. I’d become a servant to Father, his company, and his ambitions. And now he was giving it all to Dash, the man who’d betrayed me, the jerk who broke my heart and had just tried to seduce his way back into my life?

Forget your broken heart, Thena. Get mad, really mad.

The pictures my father had shown me after Nix’s funeral flashed in my head. Dash had looked guilty as hell sneaking around, but the smile on his face had been real. Yeah, I’d recognized his naughty smile anytime, anywhere. He’d looked happy as he put the keycard to the hotel room with that beautifulwoman by his side.

All along he’d pretended that nothing happened.

My stomach contracted into one protracted knot of pain. Dash’s sudden return to my life kept me in shock. If those documents he brought stood in court, my sisters and I could be fucked. Why then was I most upset about him pretending he cared for me?

It wasn’t as if there was a possibility that I was wrong. I hadn’t thrown away my dreams on a lie. Plus, Dash had disappeared from my life so fast that I suffered from emotional whiplash. He’d abandoned me when I needed him most.

The thought reminded me of a different kind of abandonment.

My sisters.Oh, my freaking God. My father had been murdered and Dash had said my sisters were in danger. He wouldn’t lie about that, would he? I had to warn them, but how?

Dizzy. So dizzy. I closed my eyes. Memories of my sisters’ dear faces flashed across my mind. I had a recollection of the four of us as kids, playing by the lake. Our voices ran in my head as we sang to the tune ofRing Around the Rosie.

We’re the Astor sisters,

Berry merry sisters.

Hang on, hold on,

And don’t let go.

---