‘Because he’ll know by morning that I’ve stepped up the pressure and he will be doing likewise.’
‘And you want to win, at all costs?’
The question was soft, curious, unlike any tone she’d used on him before. Absurdly that eroded some of his anger. Not enough, of course, to make him forget that she was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. ‘That is none of your business.’
Her chin went up, a taunting little act that made him want to breach the space between them, taste her defiance for himself, then make her yield with soft moans.
‘Isn’t it? Didn’t you all but beg me to stay just so you could achieve this...whatever vendetta you have against your father?’
‘Watch it, Saffie.’
A shadow crossed her eyes and he felt the sting of regret briefly before he stemmed it.
‘It may be none of my business but I think you know I care enough about yours to know I won’t betray your confidence. Or use anything you tell me in any way other than to help you achieve your goals.’
‘Even if you won’t approve of them?’
‘Would it matter to you?’
Sim, it would. The grim realisation disconcerted him, enough for him to jam his hands into his pockets. Beyond the window, Shanghai’s spectacular night-time view was a feast for the senses. His gaze skittered over the Bund, Pudong’s distinct skyline and the beautifully illuminated outline of City God Temple.
But he wanted a different feast entirely, one that started and ended with gorging on Saffron’s body, slaking this hunger overtaking his body and threatening to take over his mind.
His manhood throbbed behind his fly, eagerly offering its consent on the very subject he was fighting. In the window’s reflection, he saw her hand rise to her chignon, stroke it nervously. It was a mannerism he realised he’d spotted before but not clocked. What else hadn’t he clocked about his assistant?
And why this need to appease her by way of personal divulgences? He had nothing to prove to her.
Conversely, he had nothing to lose by giving her a little insight into his motivations. After all, if it helped her better serve him, where was the harm?
‘My father informed me when I was ten that I would amount to nothing.’ The words rubbed his throat raw but he smothered the pain. Just as he’d ignored the burrs scraping the wounds of his past. It was baggage he’d had to leave behind lest it dragged him down.
Behind him, Saffie gasped. ‘Why would he do that?’
He laughed, a grating sound etched in bitterness he couldn’t stem. ‘Most likely because of who else helped to sire me? Or perhaps it was because my conception wasn’t part of the dirty little tryst he had going on with my mother, if you could even call it that. Except I came along and ruined his perfect life and he decided he’d never fail to remind me where I came from.’
He turned around in time to see her tongue sweep across her lower lip, a distracting action as she grappled with what he’d divulged. ‘So he and your mother...had an affair?’
He laughed again. ‘An affair? That’s a little too civilised a term. My mother was a prostitute, Saffie. They met on a seedy street corner, where she traded her wares near the favela where I was born, purely to fuel her drug habit.’
Understanding dawned on her face. ‘And your father didn’t want to know?’
Bitter tunnelled deeper. ‘Of course not. I was the physical manifestation of his recurring weakness. The no-hoper whose geographic circumstances meant I had two choices. Become a drug addict or become a drug dealer.’
‘You chose neither option, obviously.’
He started to laugh again but the scar in his palm tingled with a force he hadn’t felt since his teenage days. He pulled out his hand and stared down at the jagged white line. The mark that had changed his life. ‘No. But it was a very close call.’
‘How did you get out of it?’
She’d ventured closer, enough for him to inhale that stimulating scent that seemed programmed to attack his defences.
Voce parece sublime...
She was beyond sublime and he didn’t want to further stain her with his past, especially not with secrets he’d guarded with fervent zeal so far. Secrets he would prefer to take to his grave.
‘Through the magnanimity of a stranger. That’s all you need to know.’
He read the hurt in her eyes and steeled himself against it.