Page 99 of Boardroom Sins

“That’s not the end.” His gray eyes catch the candlelight. “That’s barely the beginning.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because you’re still here.” He sets his glass down. “Most people would have run by now.”

“Most people didn’t get bought at auction for five million dollars.”

“Most people aren’t you.”

I don’t know what to say to that. The wine buzzes pleasantly through my veins, loosening a little knot of tension in my chest that’s been wound tight for days. Weeks. Maybe years.

“You make it sound like I’m special,” I say. “I’m not. I’m just stubborn.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“What wouldyoucall it?”

His gaze holds mine across the candlelit table. “Brave.”

I laugh, because the idea is so absurd. “I’m not brave. Brave people do brave things on purpose. I’m just too tired to be scared anymore.”

“You’re very determined to argue with me, Ms. Everett.”

“Someone has to. I get the feeling people don’t tell you no very often.”

“They don’t.”

“That’s probably not healthy.”

“Certainly not for the few whododare.”

I shudder despite the warm evening air. I’m too scared to meet his eyes right now, so I steal another peek at his hands.

It’s crazy how something can be so big and dangerous, and yet still cradle that delicate wine stem so tenderly. His fingertips were calloused when he adjusted the strap of my dress, but the touch was soft as clouds.

He can cook coq au vin with those hands.

Can he kill with them, too?

The thought slithers into my brain uninvited, a snake in the garden. I try to push it away, but the wine has other ideas.

Would it have been quick when he did it, I wonder? A gun to the back of his wife’s head, cold and efficient, the same way he does everything else? Or slow and personal, those thick, brutal fingers tightening around her throat while he watched the life drain from her eyes?

Did he feel anything when he did it? Rage? Sorrow? Relief? Guilt?

Or did he justdo it?A quick murder, and then onto his more pressing business?

I shudder a second time. Lukas notices. “Cold?” he asks.

I bob a shoulder. “A little bit,” I lie. “The sun’s setting.”

He blinks and looks out again, like he hadn’t noticed anything happening in the world around us. “So it is. Dinner is over.”

I stand and start gathering plates. “Let me clean up, at least. It’s the least I can do after you?—”

“Leave it.”

Thedon’t-fuck-with-metone in Lukas’s voice is so natural that I wonder if he even realizes he does it. Regardless, I set the plate back down.