Page 28 of Ruthless Enforcer

Unfortunately.

My pulse does that pathetic, erratic hitch in my throat just thinking about the way his hands felt on my waist. He said that the marriage would be in name only. I know he meant it, but I wonder if I can change his mind.

"You captured his arrogant scowl pretty well."

I don't startle. The house is quiet, but living with servants gets you used to feeling when someone silently enters a room.

Mandy steps into the morning light creeping through the great room's tall windows, holding two ceramic mugs and a grease-stained bakery box. She and Hendricks went back to their place shortly after Gabriel agreed to marry me. She must have a key to Blackthorn to get in here.

"He doesn't scowl. He calculates." I don’t dispute the arrogant part. Keeping my hand steady, I shade the hollow beneath his cheek.

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to." Mandy sets one mug of black coffee down on the side table next to me, along with a glazed donut on a paper napkin, before plopping down on the other end of the couch. "Eat the donut. You look like you've been running on pure adrenaline and Gabriel’s bad attitude for twelve straight hours."

I set the pen down. The warm, yeasty sugar smells good, actually. "I've had worse mornings."

"Doubt it." She takes a slow sip of her coffee, watching me over the rim with sharp, amused hazel eyes. "So. Are you going to tell me how long you've had it bad for him, or do I have to pretend the sexual tension in the kitchen last night wasn't thick enough to choke on?"

I don't blink as I pick up the donut. "I proposed an alliance, Mandy. It’s practical."

A dry smirk touches the woman's mouth. “Sweetheart, you're drawing his collarbones on legal paper while wearing his clothes. Gabriel usually looks at people like they're invoices or moving targets. He looked at you in there like he was trying to decide which one of his rules he wanted to break first, and you looked right back at him like you've been waiting for him to do it.” She shifts her legs under her. “It's almost cute, playing house with the Reyes family badass for a few weeks before you have to go back to the real world."

"We aren't playing house." I lift the coffee to my mouth. The heat hits the back of my throat, rich and bracing. "I know what this is."

"He's dangerous, Clara. Not just with a gun. He plays for keeps." Mandy tilts her head, her gaze drifting over the oversized fleece swallowing my shoulders. "With Gabriel, it's life or death, and usually it's the latter."

"I'm not stupid, Mandy," I say, my voice quiet and steady. "But I'm not going to sit in a hole in the ground and let Cole Turner burn down everything I care about."

“Is Gabriel one of those things?” she asks slyly.

I give her the stare I use on my cousins when they’re being overbearing.

Mandy’s expression shifts, the irreverence softening into something grounded and respectful. “You should know something about him.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Gabriel will protect you with everything he has.” Her mouth twists. “The problem is, sometimes he forgets protecting someone and controlling them aren’t the same thing.”

I glance toward the staircase up to where he’s sleeping. “I’ve noticed.”

“Good.” Mandy smiles. “Then you might actually survive being married to him.”

I can't help but smile a little. “Is that supposed to be reassuring?”

“I wasn’t finished. When he starts deciding what’s best for you, don’t let him.” She leans closer, her expression completely serious. “Make him ask, Clara.”

A slow breath slips past my lips. Her words strike the exact chord of stubborn defiance humming in my blood. If Gabriel thinks he can lock me away on some remote coast and dictate the terms of my survival while I quietly play the damsel in distress, he has severely underestimated who he’s dealing with.

Well—he doesn't really know me, does he? I trace the rim of my mug. I wonder what he'd think if I told him I was an artist. A successful artist on the verge of stardom.

No one knows except Uncle James, and he doesn't know the name I paint as. If I told him, he'd buy all my paintings—not because he likes them but because they're mine. I don't want that. I’m going to succeed on my own merit, not because my family is wealthy.

Hence why I sell my paintings as Claire Laurent.

Clara Whitlock has things to deal with, but Claire Laurent does too.

Beneath the calm, the clock in my head is ticking like a bomb. Fourteen days. I have two weeks until the opening of my first solo gallery showing, until the debut of my What We Hold collection.

If I disappear into Gabriel's world completely, the biggest milestone of my life collapses into dust. I’m not reckless—I know Cole Turner is out there and dangerous, and I know why two men tried to drag me into an alley last night—but I’m not going to let Gabriel’s safe house become a cage where my identity gets erased.