Page 21 of Promise of Destruction
My smile doesn’t make it to my eyes, but Luc doesn’t care. He turns and bounces away, leaving me to stare at the office I’m supposed to relocate to.
I have half a mind to turn and walk out the door once I tuck the laptop under my arm, but I’m not letting him know how much power he has over me. Not a chance in hell. I balance the coffees again and make the short walk to the office, struggling to pull the door open without everything toppling out of my arms.
I set the coffees down and slink into my chair, eager to open my laptop so that I can put something in the empty space between Declan and me.
He’s looking at something in the paper in front of him—or rather, he’spretendingto look at something in the paper in front of him. Try as I might, I can’t shake the weight of his eyes on me, so that when I finally look up, I find him watching me.
“What?” I demand, unable to feign any pleasantries. It’s not even noon and I’m mentally tapped. I don’t know how I’m going to make it to five o’ clock. And what if I do? I ran that article because I wanted people to pay attention to him. Instead, it seems he’s turned his attention to me and everybody else is oblivious to it.
“You seem tense, Miss Palmer.” The way he says my name sends a flicker of fear through me. He says it almostironically, like he knows it’s not who I really am, like he knows that Soren Palmer is a fraud.
Khan assured me that it would be damn near impossible for anyone without prior knowledge to figure out who I am. Then again, a man with resources as limitless as what Declan Evers has got could probably figure it out if he had a reason. And if he’s responsible for the night that my life ended, I’d say he’s got a damn good reason to be interested.
“How observant of you.” I say through gritted teeth. “You make your fortune on such stellar detective work?”
His laughter is light and airy, and it’s clear I’ve missed my mark.
He wants to get under my skin, so I’m going to do whatever I can to get under his. I thought mentioning his finances would do it, but it’s a clear swing and a miss.
“No.” He chuckles. “No, I made my fortune crippling every man or woman who dared to stand between me and what I want.”
Iknowbetter than to engage.
Iknowbetter than to look at him.
Iknowbetter than to grace him with my attention.
But none of that stops me from leaning forward on my elbows and peering at him over the top of my computer. He leans back in his chair, his starched white shirt pulled taut over what appears to be a muscular chest. He’s abandoned the façade of reading his paper, setting it to the side and steepling his hands like he’s deep in thought.
The smirk on his face says otherwise.
“And what do you want?” I ask.
The smirk turns to a smile that reaches the shadows on his face that make him look so severe. In fact, it almost looks like a genuine smile. That’s what makes it all the more terrifying when he answers.
“I want to ruin you, Soren Palmer.”
fifteen
Declan
I’mscrollingthroughabusiness proposal—a contract that I’m not going to sign no matter how much they offer simply because of the name attached to it—when my phone chimes with a text message from Collins.
Your girl’s got some friends in high places. I don’t know how she did it, but there’s virtually no record of her. It’s got to be an alias.
I glance up from my phone to the woman at the desk across from me, typing feverishly on her keyboard. I think she’s trying to drown out any sound that may come from me, to ignore any chatter that may come about.
Soren Palmer isn’t the kind of woman who blends in. Nearly everything about her draws the eye—a willowy frame but somehow an ass that looks like it belongs on the cover of a sports magazine. Dark, silky hair that falls just right around her heart-shaped face, lips plump enough to make it look like she’s just got done sucking on a cherry popsicle. Even her name—Soren—isn’t very ordinary. So how is she trying to blend in when it seems she was made to stand out?
Better yet, what sort of secrets is she hiding behind those wild eyes?
If she notices me staring openly at her, she does a damn good job of playing it off. It’s hard to imagine that someone who wears her trauma like a scarlet letter could really be so oblivious to her surroundings. And if she is, maybe I ought to teach her a lesson.
She doesn’t hear me stand up—or, at least, she acts like she doesn’t. I slide the door to our office open and look around the desks at my new staff.
I don’t give a damn what happens to this paper. Print journalism is a dying industry; everyone in the office knows it. I could fire every last person here, pay them a handsome pension, shutter the doors, andstillprobably save money compared to running the damn thing at a loss for the next five years. Who knows where journalism will be by then?
But doing that wouldn’t let me get closer to her. It wouldn’t give me an opportunity to learn about my prey, to figure out her greatest fears. Doing that would only knock her down a peg. My little lioness needs to be taken down to the pit of desperation, to be pulled so deep that she can’t even find the strength to pull herself back up. Her only chance at escape will be by taking my hand.
