Page 6 of Dash

I didn’t have the option of backing down. I’d made a promise to a dead man. I also knew that Thena was strong. Mentally strong, I reminded myself, even though these days she was so pale and thin she looked almost fragile. I owed her the full truth, even though it would hurt her.

The prospect twisted my guts, but I’d never been Richard’s underling and I was not gonna start now. I refused to diminish Thena. Her father had wanted me to keep her in the dark, and yet I wasn’t gonna inflict on her the same stupid biases Richard had fostered upon his daughters. I owed Thena the truth, and I was gonna do thismyway, not his.

“A week ago, I received a sealed envelope delivered byone of your father’s lawyers,” I said. “Along with the documents, there was a handwritten letter from Richard.”

Her throat rippled with a swallow. “From my father?”

“Affirmative.” I patted my breast pocket over the single sheet of paper that had shaken my world. “In this letter, he gave me a set of instructions.”

“If Father had any instructions to give, he would’ve given them to me.” Her wide-set gaze magnified her skepticism. “You never followed any of his orders. Why would he bother?”

“Because of the gravity of the threat.”

“What’s going on?” She softened her voice and for a moment, fear sparked in her eyes. “Just tell me, please. Dash?”

I don’t know if it was the emphasis she put into the word or the uncertainty that seeped into her voice that compelled me to answer her. Perhaps it was the fascinating sweep of her arched eyebrows and the way the lines that bracketed her mouth deepened, which made her look drained. Or maybe I couldn’t refuse to answer because instead of referring to me as Dagger, she’d called me Dash.

Dash. With a strong “D” and a silky “sh.” She whispered it quietly, almost sweetly, in the same way she used to murmur my name when our bodies were tangled together in the frenzy of our lovemaking and she was about to come. With need. With passion. With faith.

“I’m here because I made a promise to protect you, always.” I drew a deep inhale. “Your father didn’t die of natural causes. He was murdered.”

Chapter Two

Thena

My mother had a knack for reading the stars. I never understood what she meant by that and I certainly had no talent for it, and yet, had I been able to somehow predict the future, I would’ve never in my wildest dreams foretold this moment. Three years too late, Dashiell Dagger stood right here in front of me, telling me that my father had been murdered.

Murdered.

Could it be true?

Yes, it could.

The answer shot out from the back of my mind as if I’d known this all along; as if the full recognition of this possibility had been waiting for a trusted messenger to deliver it and skewer me in a moment of clear awareness.

The boardroom whirled around me. I turned my back to Dash and gritted my teeth. The pain in my stomach robbed me of breath. I bent over, pressing one hand over my belly and bracing the other on the window glass. Trying to keep my balance, I struggled against the agony blazing through me, fighting not to show it.

“Thena?” The concern in Dash’s voice reminded me not to yield, to him, to anybody.

I lifted a hand as if I had magical powers to freeze him in place. “I need a moment.”

All I could do was lock my knees and stay upright.

“I know this is a lot,” he offered in the even voice that had always brought respite to my anxieties. “I’m here.”

What on earth was I supposed to make of that statement?

A glance over my shoulder showed him leaning on his cane, feet planted on the imaginary line I’d drawn on thecarpet, body tensed in expectation, chocolate eyes alight. His impeccably groomed stubble accentuated the line of his strong jaw, the stern build of his face, and his straight nose. His olive skin looked as always, kissed by the rays of the sun, beaming with warmth. His nickname fit him to perfection. Dash had always been dashing, even when he’d dashed all my hopes.

The last three years had only improved his body’s striking construction. His wide shoulders and narrow hips made his suit look like a million bucks. Beneath it, his muscular frame reminded me he’d always been a man of action, even though the cane suggested he’d sustained some sort of injury. I wanted to ask him about it, but I didn’t, couldn’t. Asking would imply that I still cared, something I couldn’t admit to anyone other than myself.

Another jolt of pain hit me and so did the need to go to him, lean my forehead on his shoulder, and, surrounded by his scent, cry for the next few hours.

How stupid can you be?

After all these years, after everything that had happened, I still wanted him. My fingers itched to trace the lines of his face and my body wanted to find comfort in his arms. My hands ached to rediscover every nook and cranny on his chiseled frame.

I had no defenses to fight off the alchemy that pulled me to him. Like the lovelorn, Dash-addicted idiot I was, I wanted him, needed him—in my life, in my bed. It was humiliating. Without the buffer of my pain and the shield of my Astor pride, I might’ve shed my clothes and begged him to take me until I could no longer remember his betrayal.

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