Page 34 of Dangerous Passion

“Here,” he said, taking her hand and curling it around the cut crystal glass. Her hand was chilled and he held his hand around hers for a moment to warm it up. “Drink that down and I’ll answer your questions.”

She obeyed him, chugging the shot down in one long swallow. Good girl.

A touch of color came back to her face.

He drained his own glass and put it on the table, then moved his chair and sat down right across from her, their knees touching, holding her hands in his.

“Grace.” He waited a second, to make sure he had her full attention. By sheer will power he managed not to wince at the expression on her face.

This was not her world. She was as lost as if she had just landed on an airless, lightless planet and been attacked by wolves. She watched his face carefully, instinctively understanding that he was at home on this planet.

“Something bad has happened and unfortunately, you are caught right in the middle of it. Some very dangerous and, above all, very ruthless men are gunning for me and are now gunning for you. You saw what was done to your house, right?”

She nodded, eyes locked on his. He knew she was seeing the coldness in him, he could only hope she was seeing the regret.

“They wouldn’t hesitate to do that to you. Slowly. As a way to get to me. I will keep you safe, I promise. But you must do as I say and you must stay in a fortified perimeter where I can protect you, which right now is this place. Access is by a code very few people know, and they are people I trust. Guards are posted outside at all times. The windows are bullet-resistant. No one can get to you here, trust me, but you’re going to have to stay put. You can’t go to Feinstein’s memorial service, you can’t go home, you can’t go to any friends. As a matter of fact, until I start straightening this situation out, you can’t leave this building. I wish with all my heart that things could be different, but they aren’t. All I can say is that I will try to make you as comfortable as possible. I have staff on call 24/7 and all you have to do is express a wish and it’s yours, as long as it doesn’t involve you going out.”

“I’m—I’m a prisoner?”

Oh God. Yes, she was but he didn’t want her to think of herself in that way.

He brought her hand to his mouth and planted a soft kiss on her palm. Shocked and scared as she was, the pulse in her throat speeded up a little.

Thank God. Just as soon as humanly possibly he was going to start fucking her, binding her to him with sex. He was going to get into her and stay in her as long as he could, until they breathed the same air, until their hearts beat together, until it would be unthinkable for her to leave his side.

“I want you to think of the outside world as a prison, Grace. And in here you can do exactly as you please. In fact—” Drake reached out to the intercom and waited for Shota’s voice.

“Sir?”

“Shota, besides the other things I told you to buy tomorrow morning, I want to add art supplies.”

“Sir?” Shota sounded resigned.

Drake watched Grace. “Art supplies. Everything a painter might need.” Which was what? He floundered. “Ah, oil colors, watercolors, a complete range, ah—” Fuck, what were they called? “Canvases and the—thing they’re placed on.” He looked at Grace, eyebrows lifted.

“Easel,” she said softly.

“Easel. Listen, just ask the owner to give you something of everything. Find out who the best supplier in town is, only not—“ he leaned forward to her. “Where do you regularly buy your supplies?”

“Cellini’s on Broadway.”

“Not Cellini’s on Broadway. Stay away from there. Find out who is next best and go there. I want everything here by 11 tomorrow morning.”

“Yessir.”

Drake broke the connection.

Grace was sitting straighter in her chair, looking a little less like a truck had run over her. His respect for her went up another notch.

“I’ll pay you back, Drake. I don’t have my checkbook or credit card with me, they were in my purse, but I’ll?—“

Drake put a finger over her lips, horrified. “Stop. Please stop. Don’t even think it. I’m the reason this is happening to you. All I’m trying to do is make you as comfortable here as possible.”

“Okay.” She drew in a deep breath. “I understand that I stepped into the middle of some kind of—hostile takeover.” She gave a little laugh that turned wobbly. She bit her lips and waited a second for control. “Very hostile. But I don’t understand why I’m involved. Why do they feel that somehow they can get to you through me? I’m nothing to you. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So why trash my house? Slash my paintings? What difference could that possibly make to you?”

Okay.

Drake had been hoping to put this moment off to when she was feeling better, when the adrenalin had worked its way out of her system and she wasn’t shaking. To when she could be wearing clothes of her own and not his and was feeling less of a refugee from her own life.

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