Denying it was stupid, fighting it wouldn’t help. She was in Drake’s hands. Completely and utterly.

It was a good thing those hands looked so huge and strong. And it was an even better thing that they were protecting her.

There was absolutely nothing she could do about any of it.

It was like a little surrender, there on the comfortable couch.

Twelve

November 23

A huge, complex mechanism was being set in motion.

There was some pain. Less than Drake would have thought, but still. After all, he was destroying a lifetime of work, everything he had built since he was a homeless boy on the streets of Odessa.

Drake had spent the past twenty-five years becoming stronger, faster, bigger and more powerful than anyone else. He’d sweated for his empire, bled for it, killed for it. And now it was going to crumble like sand and disappear down a hole.

Drake had turned it over and over in his mind, wondering whether what he was doing was too drastic, but in the end it came down to a stark truth. He could keep his life as it was, or he could keep Grace, but not both.

As long as he headed his empire, there would be men wanting to kill him. Once word got out that he had a weak spot, Grace’s days were over. It wouldn’t even be a quick kill, oh no.

It was the most terrifying thought in the world.

Long ago, Drake had made his peace with the thought of his own violent death. It seemed to him to be the only way he could die. The only question was when. To a certain extent, the thought didn’t even bother him that much, he’d been used to it since childhood.

But the thought of Grace in the hands of mobsters who would use her to exact revenge against him—it drove him insane. He could scarcely stay in the same place as the thought. It hurt him constantly, a painful jolt to the chest, as bad as a bullet wound.

Most of his enemies had grown up in places where women were treated like cattle.

The images came to him in sharp, slicing flashes that were physically painful. Grace—tied to a chair while they pulled her fingernails out. Grace—hanging from her arms while they cut her to ribbons. Grace—bound to a table, gang-raped for weeks, dispatched with a knife across the throat.

As far as he knew, Drake didn’t have a neurotic bone in his body. He was a cold realist, through and through. Those weren’t hallucinations. Those images in his head terrified him so much because they were a possible reality. They weren’t horror images from some nightmare you wake up from, but images from this world, his world, one mistake away.

What stood between these images of a broken and bleeding Grace and a healthy, laughing Grace was him. His strength and power. If he did this right, Grace would live. If he did it wrong, she’d die a screaming death, begging for it.

Entering the library silently in late afternoon, Drake stopped. Grace was resting on the couch, eyes closed, perhaps asleep. She’d been working nonstop these past days, producing remarkable work. Every once in a while she’d catnap on the couch in the library.

Coming in and seeing her on his couch made a sharp pain pierce his chest. For one terrifying moment, it felt like his chest was splitting open.

She was just so damned beautiful. All the other beautiful women he’d known and fucked—they vanished from his head like a cloud dispersing in a high wind.

Just look at her, he thought. Curled up on the couch, eyes closed, head tilted back.

The leaping fire loved her face. It washed the pearly skin with a pink glow, highlighted the high cheekbones, outlined the lush, full mouth. In the open vee of the sweater, the delicate collarbones cast tiny horizontal slashes of shadow. Her hair came alive in the glow from the hearth, the fire finding licks of flame in the shiny depths.

Everything about her was so delicate, even fragile. Those narrow, elegant artist’s hands were folded calmly on her lap.

Drake had once seen an Afghan warlord take a hammer to the small hands of a female servant who had spilled a little hot lamb stew, qorma, on his lap. Drake had been unable to stop him since they were in a room full of the warlord’s armed guards.

Later, it had been Drake’s distinct pleasure to find that warlord’s gross, misshapen head between the clean crosshairs of his rifle and gently pull the trigger.

He sat next to Grace, carefully, not wanting to disturb her slumber.

She wasn’t sleeping. She turned her head toward him, then opened her eyes. They gleamed like fragments of the sea in the penumbra.

He touched her face lightly. “Did I disturb you? I didn’t mean to.”

“No.” Her lips curved slightly. “I wasn’t asleep. I was just—thinking.”

His heart gave another painful hammer blow in his chest, only this time not with longing.

“What—” His voice was slightly hoarse. At some point, she was going to come to the realization that he had ruined her life. “What were you thinking about?”

“About the situation,” she said softly. Her eyes never left his. “I guess we’ll be here for some time, won’t we? I mean, this situation isn’t going to resolve itself anytime soon, is it?”

Never, Drake thought.

“I’m sorry,” he said, wanting to say more, but nothing came out. Sorry was a ridiculous word for what she’d lost. A nothing word, totally unable to cover the damage he’d done to this beautiful woman. He’d put her life in danger, deprived her of her home; because of him a good friend of hers had died.

Sorry was nothing, but it was the only word he had.

She nodded gravely, as if understanding everything that the word conveyed. There was no censure in her gaze, no anger, no rage.

Indeed, there was something there that angered him almost as much as the sons of bitches who had attacked them.

Resignation. That was what he saw. Resignation. Sadness. Acceptance.

It made him angry. Beyond angry.

This woman was magic. How could it be that there was no man in her life, protecting her from the shit that was all around? What the fuck was wrong with the men in Manhattan?

Well, she had a man in her life now, by God. Him. And he would sure as hell make certain she was kept safe and happy.

Grace lifted her hand, that long, graceful artist’s hand, and cupped his jaw. Her fingers were right on where the long scar had been. If she probed with her sensitive fingertips, she’d feel where the underlying tissue was still rent. Her hand traced where the scar had been as she watched him, frowning.

“What—” she began, but he covered her mouth with his. Ah, she tasted so good. Sweet and fresh. In a moment, her mouth opened to his. When he lifted his mouth for a second, she took in a deep shaky breath.

He tilted his head slightly and she did, too. The fit was perfect. So incredibly perfect. The heat of her mouth, the way she curved into him, the way his arm fit around her narrow back, the way her hair fell in a warm wash over his hand cupping her head, cascading over his arm.

Without breaking the kiss, he lifted her until she was on his lap, arms clinging to his neck.

Drake moved his mouth to her neck, to the sensitive place behind her ear that made her shiver.

His hand slid under the sweater, wide palm covering her stomach. Every time his mouth moved, her stomach muscles contracted.

He kept his hand on her belly and moved his mouth to her ear.

“Are you still obeying my orders, hmmm?” he whispered.

He loved it that she’d left all that expensive underwear in the boxes, so that his hands were only one layer of material away from her skin.

It excited him to see her in clothes he’d bought, looking so elegant and classy, and knowing that underneath she was bare because he’d asked her to be. He could barely keep his hands off her. Even when they weren’t making love, it was so luscious to slip a hand under her sweater and briefly stroke her breasts, just long enough to tighten her nipples. Know that he could easily touch her in that secret soft spot between her legs, feeling her growing instantly damp for him.