Page 58 of Rubies and Revenge

“I’d rather you be honest with me and yourself about what you’re using me to achieve and how!”

“And what are you usingmeto achieve, princess?” Her voice is quiet, reminding me of a dog growling in its throat before it snaps off a finger. “You’ve been locked away in your tower for days. I know you’re doing more than watching TV and planning an engagement party you wanted to avoid.”

“How do you know what I was or wasn’t doing?” I challenge. Because she wouldn’t know a damn thing if she didn’t have spyware installed on the computer she gifted me.

She scrunches her nose and sits back, cornered.

I lower my voice to match hers, smoke-like venom coating my throat. “At least my secrets don’t involve being paraded in front of predatory men who would just as likely assault me as they would compliment me.”

Tamayo holds my fiery gaze with one of her own, both of our blazes stoked higher with each word. I refuse to douse mine. This night is on her. She brought me here for more than she’s saying, and she knows it. She fuckingknowsit.

Something relents in her, and she deflates, scraping a hand over her face. “You’re right.”

“Excuse me, I didn’t hear you,” I say, because I’m petty.

She throws me a deadpan look but doesn’t comment. “I’msorry,” she says. “I won’t use you like this without your consent again.”

“Great.” I’m still too mad and riled up to be gracious. “Can we leave now?”

She sags back in her chair. “Not until he does.”

“Fine.” I slip out of my chair and readjust my skirt to sit just right. “I’ll be downstairs.”

Tamayo levels a hard glare that pins me in place with the force of it. “Absolutely not.”

“I don’t recall asking.” I take one, singular step.

She cocks a brow at the movement. “Neither do I.”

We glare at each other for so long, I think minutes have passed. Tamayo sits too relaxed, legs wide and shoulders loose, as if she is confident in her ability to control me with twenty feet between us. And I might believe that picture if I couldn’t see her fingers on the arms of her throne, white with the force of her grip. Like she’s holding herself back from pushing out of her seat and keeping me here by force. I think about testing the theory, about whether I can make it to the door before she grabs my wrist and pulls me back, about how much energy it would take to evade her and slip down the stairs to the dance floor.

And the thought itself exhausts me.

I release a breath, and with it, my fight falls out of me. It’s more than Tamayo’s stubborn ass weighing my limbs too heavy to keep going. It’s my lack of progress. Even if I were to leave right now and sit in front of my computer into the early hours of the morning, I’d find as much in my parents’ ledger as I have over the last few days—nothing.

I sink into my seat at the bar again, and the bartender offers a sympathetic frown, saying enough without a single word. I rest my chin on the heel of my palm and chew over all the times I’ve been in this exact situation—a pawn in someone else’s game and unable to further my own. How often have my parents asked me to flirt my way into a man’s good graces, to wear aspecific type of dress in order to play distraction to a man’s ego. Almost every gala, party, or business dinner, I’ve been trotted out like the most delectable morsel of meat that no one can have. Always allowed to sit at the table, but never allowed to be anything more than a set of curves drawn just right.

And the one time I have the chance to make my own moves in a game of my making—one that will not only keep me free, but my family, too—I’m failing.

Tamayo’s elbow rests on the bar beside me, her body inches from mine. I ignore her, tracing the rim of my empty glass and grinding my teeth. She waves off the bartender in the middle of mixing my drink, and they immediately set everything down and stride out of the room through the back door. I watch them leave, lip curling in annoyance.

“We have a couple hours to kill, princess.” Her fingers inch toward my wrist out of the corner of my eye. I flinch away. Tamayo is just another distraction from my ultimate goal. As much as I want her, she’s my pawn. I can’t become hers.

She sighs. “Would you prefer to spend it sulking?”

“I tried to spend it dancing, but you’re a stubborn ass.” I watch her in the mirror behind the bar. Her eyes are on me, trailing over my hair where it falls down my back, over the profile of my face, pausing on my lips turned down with irritation. At me, not her. Because I can feel her gaze traveling over my skin like a physical touch, and fuck, do I want to melt into her.

She sidles closer without touching me. The inches between us crackle with tension. Her face is so close to my ear that each breathy word brushes over my scalp with a shiver. “Dancing with someone else, their hands all over you.”

“That’s the point.” I try to sound unaffected, but my voice cracks.

I can see her smirk in the mirror as she inches her fingers closer. “To lose yourself in the music?”

“In the crowd,” I add.

She slips an arm over the back of my chair. My spine tingles with awareness. The whole left side of my body, so close yet so far from her, heats up as she cages me in. I can’t stop staring at us in the mirror, at her annoying smirk and the sharp edge of her jaw and the heady focus of her gaze on me. She lowers her lips closer to my ear. “You can lose yourself up here, princess.”

I clench my hands into fists on the bar to keep from closing the distance between us, from grabbing hold of her. If I do, I’m failing again. Right? I can’t get caught up in her, in the pleasure she can give me.I can’t.

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