1
Three weeksago
Devani
“We can’t do this anymore.”
I kept quiet and stared at the intricately designed ceiling with its multitude of patterns in gray and silver. My heartbeat drummed in my chest as my breath and body calmed from the activities of only moments ago.
“Are you listening to me?”
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and the ache growing in the pit of my stomach. For over a month and a half, I’d waited for this conversation to come. Then, the second my foot had slipped through the hidden passageway leading into the penthouse, something told me tonight was the night.
I shouldn’t have come here in the first place. I said this to myself every time I snuck inside his building.
But, he drew me as a butterfly sought nectar.
I was the Queen of Diamonds, the one without emotions, whose blood ran as cold as the jewels in the many mines I owned. Instead, I used logic and calculation in every aspect of my life.
I was a master chess player, strategizing, exploiting, and utilizing every asset in my arsenal to achieve my end goal.
I’d coined and owned the name “manipulative bitch.”
My petite size was one of my greatest advantages. No one knew when I’d strike or if I felt anything while making a kill.
At thirteen, I’d learned one of the keys to surviving the game, and I lived by it religiously: Never let anyone matter.
Until him.
Samir Krishan King.
Why had I let him in? Why had I fucking broken every one of my damn rules?
I knew better, for fuck’s sake. I was one of the directors for Solon North America, an underground organization tasked with using any means necessary to stop human trafficking worldwide.
I hadn’t even crawled out of the hole of cleaning up the mess from one of my best agents seeking her happily ever after. And now, I had to face the consequences of my mistake and pay the price.
“Don’t ignore me, Devani.” Sam leaned over me, his deep amber eyes boring into mine and reigniting the arousal he coaxed to life with his mere presence.
The way his pupils dilated until his irises became rings of gold told me he felt it too. However, just as fast, he reined it in, and a crease formed between his brows.
If he only knew I found him more attractive when he scowled.
He’d taken my breath away from that very first meeting so many years ago. Every plane of his handsome face appeared as if a sculptor had precisely designed it. Then there was how he carried himself that made a person stop to look deeper. It was a mixture of sheer confidence, the aura of danger, and the intensity with which he studied everyone around him, friend or foe.
“I couldn’t ignore you even if I tried.” I resisted the urge to run a finger down the dark shadow of stubble covering his jaw and seduce him into pushing this conversation off for another time.
“Acknowledging my words would be nice.”
But as always, changing Sam’s mind was like trying to move a mountain.
“What is it you expect me to say?” I wrapped my legs around his waist, shifted my hips, and flipped him onto his back.
He countered just as fast, grabbing hold of my arms and pinning them to the hollow of my back. We both knew I could break free if I wanted.
Except I wouldn’t.
Anger radiated from his golden gaze. “You keep coming back to my bed. Yet you’re planning to marry another man.”