Page 174 of Chandelier Sin
“That’s right. You’re not invited.”
“I’m not leaving until I speak with Jake.”
“About?”
“None of your business.”
“Actually, it is.”
“You showed what kind of man you are when you manipulated two Dominatrices into entering the High Chamber.” I raised my chin, feeling secretly impressed and shamefully jealous, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Our finest staff led in on a leash no less,” I added.
“It was a chain.”
Always the last word with him.
He closed his eyes with a glimmer of annoyance. “Eve, you’re going to have to trust me.”
“You saved me from Lance. This is me returning the favor. Then we’re done.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What made you suddenly have compassion for my friends?”
He didn’t need to hear about my conversation with Inaya. Herinsight proving what he had told me about the submissives. That some were coerced. That in the moment of hearing the truth, my world had shattered.
The conversation with Inaya had changed everything. I would no longer be complicit within a club that destroyed lives.
What happened to me as a teenager wasn’t an isolated case and that had broken my heart all over again. This time though, I wasn’t powerless. Did they really think I’d never find out?
“Giving me the silent treatment?” he said.
After seeing Atticus’ performance on the sixth-floor chamber, I’d questioned his motives.
I stepped toward the door.
Atticus caught me and spun me around, pinning me against the wall. “Talk to me.”
I pressed my hands to his chest and tried to push him away, only he was too strong. His sensual cologne fooled me into thinking this was a good idea, that being this close was something I needed. As though this would satiate the constant craving. I’d fought hard against my feelings for him, only now, being this close was too much.
He glowered. “If you think for one second that I’m going to let you near my friends, you’re fucking wrong.”
“You’re not their guardian.”
He arched a brow. “Someone has to stand between Hell and Heaven.”
“What does that make me?”
“Guess.”
“You’re obsessed with me,” I teased.
“You’re the one obsessed. Seems to me you can’t get me out of your head.”
“I have no interest in joining all the other women at Chrysalis who throw themselves at you.”
“The rumors reached you then.”
“Arrogant…”
