The fucking brat. She thinks she can get away that easily?
I get to the garage just as the car’s backing out at a goddamn breakneck speed, but she’s only got use of one arm, and she hasn’t seen me yet. I yank on the passenger door, and find it unlocked. It flies open and she gasps, stepping on the gas, but not before I take the chance during her momentary panic to slide in beside her. The door crashes against my leg and I stifle a scream, shoving it open as I reach for her.
I yank the steering wheel and pull the car to the side. I reach my leg right over her and stomp on the brake. We come to a skidding halt, dust and gravel rising around us.
“Think you’d get away that easily, did you?”
We stare at each other, panting. Her cheeks are aflame, her hair all around her face in wild waves. The top button to her top’s come undone in the ruckus, and the very top of her cleavage spills out. She looks like someone roughed her up. I want to be that person.
I make myself focus on the need to drag her out of here, to secure her, to question and punish her.
She put my entire Clan at risk.
She tried to escape.
She lied to me.
“You’ll park this fucking car,” I tell her in a low, controlled voice. “And then you’ll come with me to my place, where you and I will have a good, long talk.”
She blinks hard. Twice. Then swallows, and I’m momentarily mesmerized by the way her throat moves. She says nothing.
I lean closer to her. “And if you don’t,” I whisper, “I promise you, love, I’ll call my brothers. I’ll tell them what I know. And the three of us will handle you together.”
It’s no bluff. I’ll call them here and tell them what happened, then fucking punish her right in front of them. I can’t believe the nerve of her.
Holding her head high and giving me an aloof look, she rolls her eyes, but does what I tell her. We park the car awkwardly, with me holding her in a grip that won’t let her escape. I take the keys out of the ignition and pocket them.
She stays put while I come around to get her. There’s no way she’ll get away from here now.
She’s just about signed her fucking confession to me by trying to escape.
“How’d you get the keys?”
“Someone left them on the counter in the kitchen,” she says, turning away from me.
Resourceful.
“Do you know how fucking lucky you are?”
“Lucky?” she snaps. “I’d have escaped if I didn’t have this broken arm.”
“If any of the other men of the Clan found you escaping… if my father knew what you’ve done…”
His words come back to me.
You’ll never fill those shoes. You and Leith together aren’t half the man Tavish was.
Maybe I don’t want to be the man Tavish was. Maybe I don’t want to fucking please my father.
I look up at the house. No more smoke. Leith will probably try to ban the girls from baking or something over-the-top like that, but Paisley will probably be back in the kitchen by the morning.
“Everyone alright up there?” she asks.
“Like you really care?”
She scowls at me. “You can’t blame me for trying to get away, Tate. Not after the things you said to me on the way here. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care about my friends. Looked like just a normal kitchen fire.”
“How can you say you care about your friends when you put their safety on the line like that?”
Her brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
Does she really have no idea what I’m talking about?
I shake my head, out of patience for explanations.
We head down the hill that leads to my private home, the one furthest from the main house. It’s a bit of a hike to get there, and I like it that way. I want people to have to walk to see me. It gives me the privacy that I crave.
The ground is icy and wet, so I hold her arm tightly.
“If a man and a woman could get to know one another by holding arms, we’d be practically engaged by now,” she quips.
I grunt. This is not a time for joking. Jesus.
“In fact, in some middle Eastern countries, I believe that’s actually customary, and if you touch my bare elbow, it’s akin to a proposal.”
I don’t reply.
I can’t believe she has the fucking nerve to take this so lightly.
“Is this your place, Tate?”
“Don’t you know? I’d have imagined you have a map drawn out or something.”
She bites her lip and doesn’t reply.
“You do! You have a map, don’t you?”
“Well…”
I can’t believe she’s spied on us like this. I can’t believe we didn’t know. I feel like a total idiot for not realizing the truth sooner. I didn’t pay much attention to the books, though, if I’m honest. I’d heard Leith and Cairstina mention them, and my sisters, of course, but I never knew that anything would come of it. Never.