Guilt and shame coursed through my heart and mind. This man knew who I was, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unforgivable.
“Maybe.” I looked away, hating the charade I’d have to play to reach my goals.
It was the only way. I had to make everyone believe, to make Sam believe.
He’d never understand why I’d agreed to this and betrayed him.
Why would the notorious Devani Patel, the Queen of Diamonds, allow herself to become another man’s arm candy? Why would she walk into a den of diseased vipers and let them believe she would become their saving grace?
He’d never know that I’d sacrifice everything to give him the one thing he’d never admit wanting. The one thing he dreamed of, the one thing that, if he carried out, would destroy the empire he’d built.
But the answer was simple.
Revenge.
Revenge for so many people, but especially for him.
Sam’s grip tightened. “Bullshit.”
“Nothing...nothing is set in stone, Sam.”
“What are you hiding?”
I smirked. “Many things. That’s my job.”
“Are you saying tonight you came here for a last fuck before you walk into another bastard’s bed?”
“You know damn well it’s not like that between us. We don’t just fuck.” I couldn’t hide my raw emotions.
This connection we had went deeper than the physical.
He knew it. I knew it. Well, I thought he knew it.
Maybe it was better he felt this way. I’d never said the words, even though they burned on the tip of my tongue.
Saying them would change everything, and neither of us was ready for the consequences.
No, that wasn’t the truth. I couldn’t risk it.
How had something that started as a one-night stand after a poker game become something neither of us could label but left us raw and exposed?
This was taboo according to where we were in society. I was the diamond mogul from the world of the polished elite. He was one of the notorious billionaire King Brothers who dealt in favors and lived between the legitimate world and organized crime. If only our paths had never crossed, I wouldn’t have challenged him to that poker game, and we’d never have become lovers.
One of his hands slid up my back, threaded into my hair, and drew my face to his. “No, I don’t. We fuck when it’s convenient. We have a good time. No strings, no commitments. Weren’t those the rules?”
“Sam—” My lips trembled for a split second before I harnessed my emotions.
“No. I don’t want to hear it.”
“I don’t want it like this between us.”
“How the fuck did you expect it to go? We aren’t in some from-lovers-to-friends situation. You’re stepping into a life you said you despised, into a life you swore you would never live, into that asshole’s world.”
That asshole being Ashok Shah. Sam’s biological father, the man who’d abandoned Sam’s pregnant mother, Veda Kumari, for a lucrative marriage to an heiress.
How could I tell him the road I was following would save him and countless others? I’d rather Sam hated me than let the monsters like Ashok Shah roam free.
And I planned to take down not only Shah but a whole organization, which included three other men—my uncles. They’d destroyed a little girl’s childhood, sent her off to boarding school, and then played Monopoly with her inheritance.