Page 20 of Gilded Desires

He’s running his hand through my fake hair. “Tell me, where did you go when you ditched your security detail?”

Nice try. All three stare at me. Alone they are powerful. Together, they are unstoppable. But they have nothing on a determined woman trying to forge her path.

I shove steel beams into my resolve and point to my wig. “I went to a costume party. Hey, by the way, have you seen Sapphire?”

“She’s on the dark floor,” Cassius answers me when all Harlon does is stare at me unmoving.

I move toward the office door.

“Maybe you could be an undertaker. Sapphire seems to have taken a good liking to it.”

“Not happening, Harlon.” My brother is oblivious to how much Sapphire hates her new job.

“I have a job already so stop trying to saddle me with what I don’t want.” And an even better one if tonight goes off well.

“Belle,” he draws out when I don’t fall in line like a good soldier.

If I want to make it out of here without him tossing me in my suite and locking the door, I better heed the warning in his tone. With my hand on the handle, my gaze swings to his.

“Don’t go against my word. Your new detail will be waiting for you downstairs. I advise you not to try and shake them off again.”

His eyes have turned darker than usual. Santi and Cassius flank him looking just as grim. My God, how does Polaris stand working with them all day?

Steel resolve, Belle.

But all the fortified determination in the world doesn’t hold back the cold warning from chasing me all the way to the dark floor.

Five

Belle

Ihit the elevator button and wave to the front receptionist for the murder-for-hire department of the Constantine empire.

Like I said, its head, for now, is my dear sweet cousin with a penchant for the mysterious, Sapphire Constantine. Her father was a one-time undertaker and now she’s stepping into the role as a way to pay back a debt she believes she owes after her father took off with the money he stole from a contract.

It was a mess that left my cousin with nowhere to live except my spare bed for a long time.

I keep telling her she doesn’t owe the family shit. If anyone owes anything it’s the deadbeat who abandoned her, but she’s not listening.

I slap the newspaper down on the table in front of us and giggle when the blue-eyed beauty jumps.

“Damn it, Belle. I nearly had a heart attack.” Sapphire grips her heart.

“I did it.”

She picks up the paper and turns a curious eye on me. “Did what? Should I be worried?”

“Totally a point-of-view answer. Check out page eight, top half.”

I watch as my best friend’s eyes grow wide with surprise.

“So you applied to be a janitor at The Society?”

I sit up, laughing. “Right? Could they have been any vaguer? But I gotta say. When I walked my size five Choos into the hiring office I was pleasantly not greeted with a mop bucket or broom.”

“What were you handed instead?”

“Three gorgeous military men. Navy by the looks of the tattoo on the arm of the one named Aziel. I didn’t get a good look. They were too busy kissing me.”

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