Page 44 of A Dangerous Proposal

“Yes.”

“Not counting the one I saw.”

“Yes.”

“More than two?”

“Yes.”

She stiffened, and for a moment he thought he made an error.

“Did they deserve it?”

Her question told him more than she realized, and he felt his shoulder relax. “I’ve never hurt anyone who either didn’t deserve it or didn’t know the risks they were taking with the choices they made for their life.”

He cocked his head.

“Do you want me to kill Felix?”

This might speed up the negotiations faster than he hoped.

She shook her head slowly. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

Her eyes flew to his, and he could see the battle waging inside her.

“Sometimes I think about it.” Madison picked at the muffin, leaving crumbs over the plate. “At night, or sometimes after I’ve dropped off Jax with him, I think about how I could get away with it.” Her cheeks flamed. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

He resisted the urge to put his arms around her. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Angel.”

“I literally just told you I fantasize about killing someone.”

He shrugged and popped a blueberry into his mouth. “Fantasy isn’t reality. You can do anything, be anyone in a fantasy… You aren’t hurting anyone.”

She looked thoughtful.

“Not to point out the tremendous hole in your logic, but you barely flinched when I told you what I’ve done. Why are you ashamed of your thoughts?”

Madison’s mouth fell open, and then her brow wrinkled. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I guess, maybe because I’m just a regular person, and you’re…” She snapped her mouth shut even as a pang shot through his chest. “I didn’t mean?—”

Alex forced himself to laugh. “Don’t apologize. You’re right. We aren’t the same.”

He turned away to pour another cup of coffee and to get the unfamiliar emotions coursing through him under control.

“How do you run your company if everyone knows who you are?”

A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. The inquisition wasn’t over, and he decided to take her interest as a good sign.

“My family isn’t a secret. Anyone who searches for my birth certificate could find it. You found information about me. We simply don’t advertise the connection. We don’t socialize in public or attend the same events.”

Easy enough because Mikhail rarely left his heavily guarded estate except to go to his offices or one of his own clubs. “Thinkof me more like the shadow family.” He hadn’t meant to say that. “Remember, I’m illegitimate.”

“Does that still matter these days?” Madison scrunched her nose.

“In our world? Yes. My father always claimed me—allowed my mother to put his name on my birth certificate and gave me his name. I’m a Kovalyov, but understandably, my father’s wife and many family members didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms.”

“What was that like?”

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