Page 56 of Thorns of Lust
“You’re right,” I acknowledged and her eyes widened. “What? I’m smart enough to see when someone has a good idea.”
“Hmmm.” She leveled a questioning gaze my way. “Pray tell, Konstantin. Why would the owner of malls have something Adrian’s customers would want? Security isn’t something you can buy in a boutique after all.”
“A discussion for another day, perhaps.” She knew who I was. She knew full well what those “customers” would get from me, the minx.
“There’s no time like the present,” she remarked dryly.
My eyes flickered to the laptop in front of her. “So what are you trying to do?” I asked instead.
She sighed. “Log in,” she admitted. “But I don’t know the password.”
She lowered her eyes to the laptop, her fingertips resting against the keyboard. All my intel indicated that Adrian didn’t keep any of the information on his business laptop. It would have made it too easy to uncover it. Too easy to hack into.
Besides, I’d already been into that laptop.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I want to find the company ownership papers.” Then as if she realized she answered my question, she retorted dryly. “And it’s none of your business.”
“You know we could help each other,” I noted.
“I seriously doubt that,” she muttered.
What the fuck did I have to do for this woman to actually see me? They usually fell all over themselves for me, yet this one hardly remembered that we’d met before. Not once but twice. I might as well be fucking invisible to her.
By the time this is over, she’ll only remember me. Her every breath will belong to me,I vowed.
She might have been my obsession for years, but I’d become hers too. We’d be two souls intertwined so thickly, nothing would be able to separate us. She hid fire beneath those pale blue eyes, I wanted to know how hot it burned. And then, I wanted to let it consume me. Consume us.
Because we’d be one body and one soul.
“Try ‘Thorns and Roses’ with a capital T and capital R,” I told her, offering her the olive branch. “Underscore between the words.”
She raised a brow, then pushed an unruly piece of hair back off her face with trembling fingers. It was the most peculiar combination when it came to this woman. She could be strong and vulnerable at the same time. Meek one moment and a spitfire the next.
Maybe it was that which made me vouch for her to Marchetti. Or maybe I’d been whipped by her virgin pussy all those years ago. Talk about a mockery.
I scoffed at my idiocy.
“Try it,” I ordered her.
“So bossy,” she muttered and typed the password. The screen unlocked immediately. “I’m guessing you’ve been on this computer already.”
I didn’t confirm it. Nor deny it. “How did you enter?” she asked.
“Through the door,” I said dryly.
“You don’t say,” she mumbled wryly, then turned her attention to the computer. I watched as she moved her mouse left and right, clicking. It didn’t take her long to realize there was nothing noteworthy there. Not even the company agreement she needed.
She leaned back in the chair. “He saved pictures on this one,” she muttered, her eyes lingering on the screen.
“Do any of them mean anything?”
I fucking hated every single one of those photos. Adrian saved their happiest moments on that laptop. The images of the two of them sharing ice cream, on a merry-go-round, skiing. Tatiana’s smile dazzled in every single one of them.
Adrian meant for me to find it. I’d stake my life on it. My father might have started the war when he killed his father, but Adrian took it to a whole new level. He was the boy I shouldn’t have saved.
My father’s words rang in my ears.Boys grow up to become men. They come back to find you, and suddenly, the hunter becomes the hunted.
