Page 14 of Tamed

As ever, since Ten wasn’t here, she was turning all her anger and challenge on me, which was fine. This morning I hadn’t been prepared to let it go, but I would now. Hearing this news wouldn’t have been easy for her.

“I’m telling you because Ten has good reason to suspect that the Hamiltons are trying to contact you, hence the increase in your security. And he’s not telling you himself, because he wouldn’t have. He’d have continued to keep you in the dark till kingdom fucking come.”

Isabel turned around to face me, her arms folded, her jaw stubborn as hell. “So, he doesn’t know you’ve told me all of this?”

“No,” I said shortly. “He doesn’t.”

“But won’t he—”

“I don’t give a shit what he will or won’t think. He wanted to increase your security and I thought you needed to know why.” I paused, because she wasn’t going to like this, not one fucking bit. “Especially because I’m now the one responsible for it.”

Her eyes widened. “You?” That flush was back, washing slowly down her neck and beneath her blouse.

Interesting, that flush. Was that because she hated the idea or liked it?

I lifted a brow. “You have a problem with that?”

Her flush deepened even more, which I found fascinating. “No.”

Oh, so shedidhave a problem with it, and I suspected I knew what that problem was.

“Little liar,” I murmured.

Her jaw became even more set, the sparks in her eyes glittering, and I felt that jolt again, deep in my gut. The awareness of the hunter discovering prey. When I played, I played hard, and I’d always loved a challenging woman. It made her eventual surrender so much sweeter if she fought me, and they always fought. And they always surrendered willingly. Every single time.

She’s got a crush on you a mile wide, so stop fucking flirting with her.

“I’m not lying.” She kept staring at me, obviously desperate to prove me wrong. “But I don’t need anyone to ‘keep an eye on me’. Jesus Christ. I’m not twelve.”

And I wasn’t a teenage boy. I was forty-two, for fuck’s sake. I could control myself when I wanted to and while Isabel Fox might be pretty, she was still the little girl I’d looked after when I’d started as a bouncer at Old Nick’s first club on the Lower East Side. Sitting beside me on an old box as I stood at the door, music from the club pounding. She should have been in bed asleep, but Ten was out of the city with Sir George on some business trip, and he didn’t trust George’s security.

He’d trusted me instead.

I shoved the urge to keep holding her gaze aside. Playing dominance games with her was a stupid move. If I wanted to do that, I could do it with any number of women who weren’t the daughter of one of my best friends.

“Oh, believe me,” I said calmly. “I’m well aware you’re not twelve. But you know nothing about the Hamiltons. They’re dangerous—”

“And who’s fault is that?”

“I just told you why—”

“Yeah, and you should have told me that at least ten years ago.”

“Let me finish, Isabel,” I growled, my patience thinning. Not many people had the balls to interrupt me twice in a row, but of course she had to be one of them. “Ten suspects the Hamiltons are going to make a play for you, welcome you into the family fold so to speak.”

She glared daggers at me. “Sounds great. Their family fold is one hundred percent better than mine.”

I ignored that. “It’s not only you they want. It’s Fox too.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Fox? Why the hell would they want Fox?”

“For the same reasons most people want anything: power and money. Fox is huge and its turnover is in the billions.”

“I mean, has it ever occurred to you that they might actually just want to talk to me?”

There wasn’t any point sugarcoating it. “If they’d wanted only to talk to you, they would have tried years ago and they didn’t.”

Something flashed across her face that looked like pain, but then it was gone. “Well, thanks for the support I guess,” she said acidly. “So, why now then?”

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