Dirty Aristocrat: British Billionaire Bad Boy Romance (47 page)

BOOK: Dirty Aristocrat: British Billionaire Bad Boy Romance

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I walk toward the painting, my soul aching.

The man on the bench speaks. ‘She shouldn’t have opened the box.’

I don’t look at him. I simply sit next to him, but not close enough to touch. There are six inches between us. I feel frozen inside. I think of my brother lying on the floor with the needle sticking out of his arm. And I am suddenly caught by his pain, the pain of the painting, my pain. I can do this. Of course I can do this.

I look at the painting and all I can see is the word ‘Bitch’.

‘You called for a meeting,’ the man says without looking at me.

‘Yes.’

He turns his head briefly to look at me. I turn my head quickly to meet his gaze. I want to look into his eyes. I want to stand again on firm ground. His eyes are dark and expressionless. Exactly the way I remember them. I stare at him. He is first to look away.

‘Well?’

‘There is something big happening on the sixteenth,’ I say.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know yet. But something is coming in through Dover.’

‘Good work, but we won’t act on this one. It will compromise you. We’ll let this one go. You have something far more important to do.’

I swallow hard.

He turns to stare at me. ‘Are you falling for him?’ His voice is hard and cold.

I think of Jake’s skin pressed against mine, his tongue tracing an erotic path to my ear, his lips whispering, ‘I love you, Lily. I never believed anybody could be as beautiful as you.’

‘No. Of course not. This is just a job,’ I say, my insides twisted in a hard knot.

He looks at me with narrowed eyes. ‘Good. Because you are a servant of the Crown and our best hope to bring Crystal Jake and his criminal enterprise down.’

‘Yes, sir.’ I stand to leave.

‘Keep your wits about you, Hart,’ he cautions.

I don’t turn back and I don’t allow myself to think of Jake. I walk away with the sound of my feet echoing on the hard floors and Luke’s beautiful, helpless face in my mind.

To be continued…