Page 92 of Cruel Hearts

I steal a moment of the quiet morning to enjoy lying in Zane’s embrace as the bright sunlight glimmers through the white, gauzy curtains. We didn’t move all night, and he cradles me in his arms. I wish we could stay like this all day, but I’m hungry, my stomach rumbling, and I have to use the bathroom. Carefully, I disentangle myself without waking him. He doesn’t give me up easily, and I love him so much for that.

No one else is awake yet, and I order breakfast, charging the same credit card Mel used to pay for our dinner. Muffins, pastries, and gallons of coffee. The single-serve Keurig can’t keep up with what we’ll need to stay focused throughout the day.

The bakery sends three people to deliver my order to Max’s room.

I add a tip to the receipt to thank the delivery staff and eagerly, I fix a mug of coffee and down it, savoring the rich, earthy roast. I pour another to sip on and arrange a tray of pastries to bring Zane. I leave the rest on the conference table for the others, but there’s no chance we’ll run out.

Trying to prevent our coffee from sloshing over the sides of the mugs, I carefully carry the tray to Zane’s room. I bump the door open with my hip and step inside. His hand is patting my side of the bed searching for me. It’s adorable, and holding his mug of coffee, I inch across the bed on my knees.

His eyes crack open. “Too early.”

“I was hungry and couldn’t fall back asleep.”

He sits up. His broad chest is toned and tanned, his wide shoulders propped against a pure white pillow.

Because he’d been not much more than a boy when Ash kidnapped me, his masculinity always strikes me now. His boyish charm has turned into an adult charisma I admire on a different level. Not that of a girl, feeling out of her depth, but as a woman, who has lived through some things and come out the other side, older, wiser, cautioned.

Grief still shadows his deep brown eyes, but it’s a different kind than that of mourning his parents’ deaths. Betrayal and defeat. Losing me, maybe, losing a childhood friend. Losing his sister.

I pass him the steaming mug, and he groans appreciatively.

The low growl makes me wet, and I want to climb into his lap, but I stay where I am.

He links our fingers. “You slept here last night.”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles.

I melt, and I berate myself for being so easy.

“You’re worried,” he says. “I am, too. But I’d be more worried if we didn’t do something. Ash has had plenty of chances, but so far, he hasn’t succeeded. By luck, maybe, or because he’s having fun playing with you. This is Ash, so I suspect it’s the latter, but he’ll grow bored, Stella, and we can’t forget that if you’re alive, you’re a threat.”

I tighten my fingers around his. The pressure turns my skin white.

“Do you think he knows you talked to Sergio?” I ask, leaning over the side of the bed and picking up my mug off the tray. I gulp the rich coffee, downing half the cup, and then I trade it for an almond and caramel pastry. It smells sweet, almost too much, and I offer Zane a bite. His lips brush my fingers.

He chews and swallows. “I think it’s a very good possibility. I told Cardello shit was going down, things concerning Ash and Black Enterprises, and if he was accepting a bribe to stop now and cover his tracks. I wasn’t kind and gave him a warning I shouldn’t have. He helped Ash abduct you and lied about it. He should go to prison.”

“Why would he do something like that?” I feed Zane another bite. I should have ordered something more nutritious, but this is okay if we don’t do it every day. He said he’d take care of me, and I’m more than willing to return the favor.

“His family needs the cash. They’re big spenders, and they’re in serious debt, something I didn’t know. He did it because it was easy money for little work. He’s already a playboy. Why would he turn down the chance to make a few million hanging out with a pretty woman and letting Ash’s photographers snap some pictures to plant online?”

“He seemed so nice at your party.”

“His debt and his attraction to you made him an easy target when Ash suddenly needed you to disappear.”

I nibble the pastry, the coffee’s earthy flavor and the sugar mixing decadently on my tongue. “It’s sad people are so easily bought.”

Zane rubs his finger over my lips and licks it clean of caramel. “Cardello’s mother sent him to my party hoping he and Zarah would make a match. The Maddox money would have saved their reputation and bought out their debt. I believed he wasoffering you the world and that you were shallow enough to take it. I’m sorry.”

“I am, too.”

We sip our coffee in silence and share the pastries until they’re gone.

Everyone’s using the morning to get some extra rest, and we don’t hear activity in the hallway until after nine o’clock.

Mel sticks her head into Zane’s room. She spots me on Zane’s bed, smiles sheepishly, and quickly retreats. I don’t blame her for wanting a head count. We’re all going to have a part to play, and mine may be bigger than the others’. A ghost can go anywhere without being seen. Mel and Zane would be stupid not to use that.

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