Page 34 of Ashes of Saints

Why were you so fucking precious? Where were the adults protecting me?

Nowhere. That’s where.

Familiar fury flares inside me and I push down the need to smash something. It’s a tool I’ve learned over the years. Sometimes it works, other times not so much.

Hence wishing we could revise our childhood fight club.

Maybe seeing Aurora again is triggering me. In more ways than one. She’s a goddamn mess. There’s nothing special about her.

I hope you aren’t going to propose.

Her fucking words stopped me in my tracks. One minute I was going along with this whole fake date, then she leans against the banister like some all-American girl falling in love.

I played along, enjoying her sexy ass poking out like she was hoping I’d lift it and shove my cock inside her cunt. And she’d love it.

Why do I have a feeling she would?

Then the world stopped when she jokingly said she loved another. Like someone had slapped me across the face, I felt my body move. We were face-to-face before I knew what I was doing.

I could have hurt her.

My hand was so close to going around her throat.

I don’t like the way I react to her. It’s out of control, when I must stay in control around her.

She makes me way too unstable.

For a moment, I had the urge to smash my mouth down on hers and tell her she was coming home with me, where I’d fuck her senseless. And tell any other man if they even fucking looked at her, I’ll rip their goddamn heads from their shoulders.

Not even in that damn order.

“Jesus,” I curse into the empty room, then sit and stare out the windows into the night.

I need to maintain full control next time.

ON MONDAY, I have my personal assistant send the fork off on an urgent courier to the lab. An associate on the West Coast has connections with a testing company who promises they can turn it around fast. Well, I threatened to buy his company and destroy it if he didn’t.

Jeremy laughed.

I wasn’t joking.

“Make sure you track the parcel and get them to sign for it. Drive it there yourself if you can.”

She frowns at the address. “It’s in California.”

So?

“You’re a problem solver, remember Louise!” I shout over my shoulder. I know she’s giving me the bird.

“Can I take the jet?” I hear her call out as I walk back into my office.

I don’t bother replying. Louise is a damn good PA. Organized, professional, but has a smart mouth. Which is probably why she puts up with my demands and doesn’t go home crying each day.

As I spin in my chair and tug my laptop back in front of me, I wonder what Aurora is doing. How does she spend her days at her job? Are there men in her office wishing they could shove their cocks inside her?

Better fucking not.

I lean back in my dark gray executive chair and gaze out at the Manhattan skyline. I have a message from my mother waiting for a response and have been ignoring it all week.

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