Page 25 of Stolen Magic
“I can find my way out,” the blonde bombshell hissed and yanked her arm out of his hold.
Dressed in a black skintight dress that barely covered the creases of her behind, she jutted her chin up and narrowed her eyes on me. Since I wasn’t very tall, it was easy for people to stare down their nose at me. It never bothered me as much as seeing Dimitri’s fiancé doing it.
My jaw clenched, and I kept my eyes on the Alpha.
Silence stretched between the three of us. With an indignant huff, Angela snatched a clutch I didn’t notice until that moment from the top of the desk and glided out of the office like a gazelle. Her hate-filled glare stayed on my face until the door slammed behind her. Her dramatic exit would’ve had more of a punch if the door was not padded, but the sentiment was not lost on me. She hated that I was present in the room with her man.
I hated it more, not that I could tell her.
Actually, I didn’t mind it in many ways if I was honest with myself. I very much liked looking at the too-handsome-for-his-own-good shifter, with his high cheekbones, full lips, and a body out of every woman’s wet dream. It was his murderous attempts on my life that rubbed me wrong. With that thought, anger surged to the forefront of my mind.
“Trouble in paradise already?” Cocking my hip, I planted my hand on it for good measure, and to hide the tremor in my fingers. His gaze tracked every move I made like a hawk. “I did offer to make you a candle. It still stands, since it’s obvious you need it.”
“Miss McCullough, please.” His large hand pointed at the chair that Angela had been using a moment before. “Take a seat.”
I waited until he moved around the desk and faced me—okay, I totally checked out his firm, rounded backside the whole time—to present him with my smug grin. My expression formed a line between his brows, and when his head tilted to the side, a lock of dark hair fell across his forehead. It was my turn to follow the direction of his strong fingers as he brushed it aside.
“I prefer to stand, thank you.” My reply came out jumbled when a knowing glint entered his irises.
“What brings you here so early?” Unperturbed, he lowered the part of his body I admired the most to the leather executive chair. Forearms pressed on the desk, Dimitri laced his fingers and peered at me through lashes that belonged on a woman, not a brute like himself. Thick and slightly curled, they made his silver blue eyes pop in contrast to the tanned skin on his face.
“I’m here to tell you that I’m no longer playing your game.” When he said nothing and continued to gaze at me with an unreadable expression on his face, I fought the need to fidget. “I figured out everything, and I came to tell you that you can take the book and get the hell out of my life.” Tugging the said object I threw it on his desk and watched it slide over the wood until it bumped his arm.
If I wasn’t staring at him the way I was, I would’ve missed the subtle stiffening of his shoulders. The fabric of the dark gray shirt hugging his torso crinkled across his bulging biceps and chest. “Is that so?” The Russian accent became thicker than usual. “You figured me all out. Well done, Miss McCullough. Care to share your findings with me?” Snatching the small book he dumped it in the first drawer on his right without taking his eyes off of me.
Anger prickled my skin, and I felt heat spread from my chest up my neck and all the way to the tips of my ears. Leaning forward, I bared my teeth at him and spoke in a hiss. “I know you made the call to hire me for the job, Dimitri. I traced the call to this very office. If I am a thief, so are you now. So, let’s cut the crap and be honest for once, huh? Who said there was no honor among thieves?”
My temper always got the best of me. Had I not been so consumed with outrage, I would’ve noticed when the color drained from his face. Or the way his entire body turned from flesh and blood to a marble statue, unnaturally still. It wasn’t until he jumped to his feet and sent his chair crashing against the wall behind him that I came out of my tirade and gasped. Expecting him to attack me, my knees bent, and I snatched the daggers I had sheathed around my thighs.
“Take it easy, Miss McCullough.” He held his hands to his sides, his palms facing the desk. “I assure you I have not hired you or anyone else to steal my mother’s family journal full of spells.”
My eyes nearly popped out of my skull when he spoke freely about witch magic in the middle of the building where anyone could hear him. It must all be a trick, I decided. Bell was trying to get me to talk about what I am. Panic gripped me, and he must’ve noticed because he tried coming toward me around the desk before he thought better of it.
“My office is soundproofed against supernatural hearing.” Satisfying my curiosity, he pointed at the padded door. So, that’s why it looked weird? Who knew?
“If you expect me to believe it wasn’t you, you must really think I’m dumb.” My feet slid closer to the door by an inch. Dimitri didn’t miss the movement. “I know your type. Those like you don’t give free access to what they consider theirs, be it a person or an office. The call was made from that phone.” My dagger stabbed the air toward the rectangular phone at the corner of his desk.
For the first time, and that included the time he stood only wrapped in a silky sarong in the middle of my store, Dimitri seemed troubled. More than troubled, the Alpha looked almost afraid. It doused my anger long enough to notice the change in his posture. It was almost as if he was holding back from snatching me and making a run for it.
He raked his fingers over the top of his head, grabbing a fistful of hair and messing it up. “I took over the family business when I returned to America from Russia. I’m not sure how aware you are of what transpired with the transfer.” A sigh passed his kissable lips, and he stared unseeing through the floor-to-ceiling windows stretching the expanse of one wall of the large office. “It was not pretty, as you Americans like to say. My father did not relish giving up control of the empire he helped build. Some things are not yet sorted, you see. While the paperwork is in progress, I’m not the only one with access to this office.” That silver blue gaze locked on me, and the troubled emotions I saw there took my breath away. “One more person has the right to use it at any given time, for now.”
“No.” My whispered denial didn’t stop the next thing coming from his mouth.
“My father.” His deep voice was laced with reproach, but there was sadness there, too.
Chapter Twenty
It was the sadness that did me in, yet I had no idea why I wanted to argue with him on behalf of his father. I felt that I had to.
“Lies. Every word coming out of your mouth is a lie. I met your father, and he is a very nice, older gentleman. Why would he try to set me up?” My voice kept rising until I was practically shouting in his face. “What have I ever done to him? Or to you, if you want to get down to technicalities.”
“You think all this was done because of you, malen'kaya ved'ma?” The smile curling his lips held no humor.
“I told you if you are going to insult me, do it in English so I can return the favor.” Despite how rattled he appeared to be, the Alpha smirked at me. “What does malele-whatever mean? You said it before once at the beach.” Purposely butchering the pronunciation, I pinned him with a glare.
“Little witch,” Dimitri told me simply, irrefutably shutting down everything I had geared up to throw in his face.
“Whatever.” It wasn’t easy to act like he hadn’t flustered me. “My point is, stop trying to redirect the blame to your father. He has no reason to do all this to me. You, on the other hand …” I let my voice trail off, the implications obvious to anyone with half a brain. Well. Anyone but Dimitri, it turned out.
