Page 3 of Dash

Her lips sported the brightest, latest shade of power red. It irked me that I longed to kiss that wide mouth of hers, to make a mess of her lipstick and rediscover her flavors even though I’d been forbidden from partaking in this pleasure. I noted that she didn’t smile freely anymore. In the last three years, she’d been trained to mimic her father’s cruel smirk, the one she now aimed at me.

What a shame. I knew firsthand that in their wild, original form, her lips had been made for kissing and her mouth was skilled at giving and taking pleasure. The loss hit me all over again. This was my fault. She’d traded joy for sarcasm because of me.

She’d inherited her father’s pale complexion and his eye color, and yet she was an original. Her pearl-gray eyes were set far apart on her face, giving her a perennial expression ofwonder. Passion had once sparkled in her gaze when she looked at me, but now she radiated only anger, a visceral fury that burned at the pit of my stomach.

The clash between the woman she’d been before her father had conscripted her to his cause and the shrewd executive who marched into the room sent my thigh muscle into a spasm. My leg hurt as if it was stuck in the mouth of a great white.Fuck the pain. I schooled my features into a blank mask. I refused to let her see me hurting.

She took the long way around me and came to a stop at the head of the conference table. Standing beneath her father’s portrait, her bearing was that of a general commanding her troops. When her glare fell on my face, her celestial nose turned higher in the air and her delicate jaw squared. She was not pleased to see me and was keen to show it.

Well, then. Get to it, Marine.

“Thena.” I inclined my head at the woman who’d been the sole object of my affection and the center of my existence for more years than I cared to admit.

“It’s Ms. Astor to you.” The acid in her voice could’ve added scars to my collection.

A short, reedy hipster wearing a lemon-green suit scurried after her. He rushed to hold out the chair for her. “Ms. Astor?” he offered, earning my immediate dislike.

“Thanks, Paolo,” she said flatly.

Her voice lacked all traces of the joyful musicality I yearned to hear.

What the fuck, Dagger, did you think you were gonna rewind time today?

I waited until she sat down before I unbuttoned my jacket, eased myself back into my chair, and settled the cane on my lap. The great white shark clamped down on my leg again. My thigh screamed, but I wasn’t gonna let the pain show. Nofucking way.

“Leave us.” Thena waved an imperious hand at the small crowd that had followed her into the room. “All of you.”

Her minions looked visibly disappointed. They poured through the door like garbage flowing down the sewers. I was certain they were curious about the man responsible for Nix’s death. Richard Astor had made sure the entire world knew that person was me.

Paolo ran a hand over his spiky black hair and lingered behind the others, betraying a great deal of separation anxiety. I knew from doing my homework that Paolo Davis had been Thena’s assistant for a year before her father died. His position was now secondary, given that Richard Astor’s secretary, Monique Stuart, had asserted herself as Thena’s right-hand woman.

I’d never worked for Richard, but, like his kids, I knew his staff. Richard always traveled with his entourage and his key employees often stayed at the house. Today, the stocky matron was dressed in her usual work wear, a black pantsuit and a pair of sturdy kitten heels. Her face reminded me of a brick and so did her personality.

Monique didn’t share Paolo’s hesitation. She didn’t even pretend to join the other underlings exiting the boardroom. Instead, she stepped up to the table, pulled the chair across from me, and tightened her square jaw like a boxer about to enter the ring.

“You’ll need me to document this meeting,” she said to Thena in the firm tone that comes with corporate longevity and bureaucratic endurance. “And also—”

“Monique, I saidallof you,” Thena cut her off. “Hold my calls. This won’t take long.”

Thena’s glare swooped down on me, firing silver rounds into my brain, letting me know without words that, even thoughshe’d made me wait hours for this audience, I had only a few minutes to present my case and get the hell out of her sight.

Her belligerence tensed every part of me, including my dick. Happy or furious, Athena Astor always had an instant effect on me. If the intensity of the erection torturing me was any indication, she still had a devastating impact on my senses.

A vision of her naked and us fucking on top of the mahogany conference table flashed in my head. It ramped up my dick to the point of pain. I missed her scent perfuming my world, her warmth melting my heart. I craved her laughter, her smiles. I longed to—

Stop it, Dagger. She hates you, remember?

Yeah, and for that, I hated myself, too.

I sank my nails into the cane. If she so much as blinked at me the right way, I’d have to kiss her. If I ever kissed her again, I was a goner. But no, I wasn’t gonna kiss her. She’d kicked me out of her life. My pride and dignity stood in the way of succumbing to the gravity she exercised over me. I wasn’t gonna go through that kind of pain ever again.

Monique glowered at me before she retreated out the door. A fretting Paolo followed her. I didn’t miss the look of consternation that passed between them. I got that they were protective of their boss, but for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t as if I was here to hurt Thena.

Yeah, you are, asshole.

Shit. I winced inside and glanced at the portrait of Richard Astor.I hate you, old man.

As soon as the door closed, Thena’s brilliant stare returned to my face. “What do you want, Dagger?”

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