Page 20 of The Vow

Wary, soulless eyes bored into mine, and I let them come. There was nothing for him to find inside my shell. Nothing but a man I’d made just for him.

“I’ve never known you to get carried away, Damon.”

I let his distrust wash over me like cold rain, pretending like all I could feel was the sun.

“I never give myself the luxury.” The words always came easy when they were the truth. “But since this was an offer from your lovely wife, I figured a little luxury was allowed.”

In spite of all his faults (of which there were many), Magnus Sinclair had the one redeeming quality of being recklessly in love with his wife. Not a good kind of love. A jealous, controlling, restricting kind of love, but it was love nonetheless.He never cheated. His eyes never even strayed. And when it came to what Sandrine wanted, he would bend almost any of his rules to make it happen.

And that is why she was the first lever I would lean on to get myself out of this precarious moment.

“But in my office?” He swirled what was left in his tumbler and angrily tossed back the last dregs of his whiskey.

My head tipped, a slow smile cocking my lips, loaded with an answer I’d worked up minutes ago before the woman and I left the room.

“I was ready to fuck her against the door, but she worried your daughter might see.”

Magnus grunted, clearly not having thought about the unwelcome possibility.

I let my eyes flick to where Daria stood, Sandrine’s arm draped protectively around her shoulder, a proud smile on her face as they talked to Robyn. The way Sandrine loved her daughter was without measure or eclipse, and whatever she felt for Magnus didn’t even come close. On some level, I believed Sandrine saw the man her husband was becoming, but it was surprising how much what one wanted to believe could obscure what one knew to be true.

Sometimes, I thought if it weren’t for Daria, she would’ve left him sooner, but then again, to know who he was was to know what he was capable of; he’d never let Sandrine leave.

“Don’t worry.” I let my grin lift. “I couldn’t get my hands off her long enough to even turn on the lights.”

Another grunt, and I knew he’d been successfully lured into my lie.One crisis averted.Now, to deal with the other.

“But on that note, I think I’m going to take this little firecracker back to my place. We have some…unfinished business.”

He waved me away. “Enjoy. But don’t fucking be late to our meeting tomorrow morning.”

I bled all the emotion from my voice and said, “You know I never let my cock get in the way of business.” I waited for him to look at me again. To testagainthe veracity of my words.And he did.

And what he found was the year of proof I’d given him. The year I’d been his charming, calculating counterpart. His concierge for all of the criminal activity he sought to involve himself in. Fraud. Theft. Money laundering. Murder. Drugs.

When Magnus Sinclair wanted something done, I was the one he trusted to handle it. And he trusted me because I gave nothing else my attention except for him. Not the money he put in little traps to see if I’d steal from him. Not the drugs he’d offer or gift to me to see if I’d be swayed. And not the women. Not the bare bodies pressed and ground along mine. I’d made sure Damon Remington existed solely for the command of the man in front of me, so he’d never see his downfall coming.

Except for tonight.

Except for her.

Tonight, I’d put a crack in my persona to protect a damsel in a dangerous situation, and now, I needed to get her the hell away from all of this before she ruined everything.

“Why did we have to come here?” Robyn demanded, backing into my apartment like she expected goons to pop out from around every corner and hold her down.

“Because this is the only place I know he’s not listening.” I shrugged out of my jacket, hanging it on the rack by the door, and then placed my hat on top of it.

“Who are you?” Her eyes darted around the large penthouse like a bird shoved into her first cage.

Unbuttoning the top button on my collar, I pulled the fabric loose at my neck. “Sorry, Robber, that’s not how this works.”

“Robber?” Her brows popped high.

“I don’t know your real name, but I presume you were there to steal from him,” I quipped and stalked around her to the bar cart in the living room—the only piece of furniture I used in the living room.

Popping open the bottle of whiskey on top, I set two glasses in the center and poured a healthy amount in each.

“He always tells Sandrine to stop flaunting all those jewels, but she can’t seem to help herself.” She might be married to a bad man, but that didn’t mean she was without her own vices.

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