“You can’t—” Moua’s eyes flashed.
“Am I under arrest?” My voice was dangerous. At my side, Wallace was impressively blank-faced, though I could sense his displeasure at my rudeness. Just be polite to them, Donovan, what does it cost you? He’d asked the question countless times over the years.
Moua’s face twisted and he leaned over the table. “We are going to find the truth,” he warned me. “And when you do, you will pay for what you have done.”
He left the room without another word, slamming the door open and striding down the hall, and Wallace raised his eyebrows at me. The police were usually more circumspect than that, even the ones Sheng-li had bought. Especially them.
“I’m very sorry about that, Mr. White.” Officer Preston bobbed his head nervously. “Officer Moua is…” He swallowed. “If you think of anything useful,” he said carefully, “please consider telling us. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that the disappearance of a young woman is cause for concern. There will be considerable pressure on Officer Moua to…find a suspect.” He let the admission hang in the air for a moment before excusing himself, a faint blush touching his cheeks.
Both Wallace and I knew better than to speak as we left. It was only when we had folded into the darkness of the car that he gave me a glare.
“What the hell happened back there? What’s going on?”
“It’s fine,” I said flatly. It wasn’t, but he didn’t need to know that.
“If they find a body—”
“They’re not going to find a body.” I gave a humorless smile; that was one thing I could be absolutely sure of. No one was going to find Chun-mei’s body. My phone rang and I cut off his retort with raised finger. “Donovan White.”
“Oh, thank God.” Colton’s voice was panicked. “Thank God.”
“What’s going on?”
“Lily’s missing.” He sounded scared. “I know you said…I know she wasn’t supposed to—”
“How?” I bit off the word, trying to tamp down a surge of anger.
There was a silence as I waited, and fear took me. Missing. How the hell could she be missing?
“I was making calls,” Colton admitted finally. “And I looked around, and she was just…gone.”
I hung up, fury coursing through me, and met Wallace’s eyes. “I have to deal with this. I’ll give you a call later.”
Chapter 14
Lily
Colton was so busy that it wasn’t actually too difficult to sneak out of Donovan’s office. I knew he was going to be furious at me. I even felt a little bit bad for Colton, truth be told, but I knew Donovan wasn’t going to hold the man entirely responsible. Whatever had inspired Colton’s intense loyalty, it was genuine.
Besides, I told myself, I needed to go study for Monday’s test. I made my way out of the building, ignoring the stares of the well-dressed businesspeople, and strolled for a while. I tried not to think of anything at all, and for the most part, it worked. When I was near campus, however, the sight of the buildings reminded me of school. I pulled out my phone with a little sigh.
Bei answered immediately. “Are you okay? You weren’t in class.”
“I’m okay,” I assured her. “I just got a little caught up in stuff.”
“With that man?” Her voice was immediately distrustful.
“Yes, but, Bei—”
“I don’t like him,” she said fiercely.
I stopped, frowning. Bei was well versed in subtle disapproval—I could only imagine what her mother was like—but she rarely responded to anyone like this. Hell, even with Chris she had been advising me to take him back.
“Why not?” I asked cautiously.
“He doesn’t care about you at all.”
I swallowed. This was just a little too close to my worries for comfort. I felt like a fool all of a sudden. I had walked out of Donovan’s office? I should have walked out sooner. Who the hell was I to think he’d be interested in someone like me?
“I know that,” I said quietly.
“So why are you talking to him? What has he promised you?” Bei’s voice was fierce. “Lily, please, don’t do something you’d regret later in life. He may seem very elegant, but such men cannot be trusted.”
“I know that.” Anger at myself made my voice sharp, and she broke off. I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just angry at myself, not at you.”
“Lily…come home tonight. Don’t stay with him again.”
“I didn’t stay with him,” I said automatically. Bei had been tentatively all right with me living with Chris, given how long we’d been going out, but even that had made her a little uncomfortable, and I knew a one-night stand wasn’t something she would approve of.
“He told me you did.”
I froze. “What?” I asked carefully. I had to have misheard her.
“He called me,” she said, and I could hear the anger in her voice. “I don’t wish to hurt you, Lily, but you should know this—you should know the type of man he is.”
“He called you?” I was furious. I was more than furious. My head felt like it was about to explode. “When?”
“After I went to class.”
It was impossible. Donovan and I had been in the same place—
Except for when he’d been in his office with Hayden. Except when he’d gone to the police station. How did I know he’d gone directly there? He might have called any time.
“What did he say?” It was a struggle to think.
“He was bragging about you. He said he wanted to make sure you were good enough for him, asking if you were a slut.”
“What?” I spun, fingers clenching on my phone. One hand found its way into my hair and I yanked, hoping the pain would clear my mind. All it did was remind me of Donovan pulling my head back as he fingered me over his desk. My face was hot and I wanted to sob. How could he do this? How could he—
“He said you’d been sleeping with him for months. Is this true, Lily?”
“What? No!” It didn’t make sense, it couldn’t be real.
“You haven’t slept with him.” She sounded relieved.
“Well…” So much for lying. My nature got the better of me.
“Lily?”
“Okay, I slept with him. But not—” I shook my head.
“Lily, how could you?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I insisted. “I don’t even know how he knew who you were, or…” I gulped. Sheng-li had found out who I was, and Donovan…Donovan was with the mob. “I’ll call you back. I have to—”
“Don’t confront him,” she advised. She knew me too well. “You don’t win arguments with men like that. Just cut him out and come home. We can study together.”
I couldn’t have studied now, no matter what. “I’ll be home in a bit.”
“Why are your suitcases here?”
“I’ll be…I’ll be there in a bit.” I hung up the phone and stood there, struggling to breathe.
That piece of shit. He’d called Bei to gloat about his conquest. Often chased, never caught? No. Donovan White was just another insecure man that needed the world to know he could get anyone into bed—before he mocked them for it. And I must have been just a perfect mark. My chin trembled. Something new, a diversion, him slumming it for a night. He probably just wanted to hit some sort of list of things so he could crow about it with Hayden.
“I’m going to kill him,” I said out loud, to no one.
“So you did fuck him.” The voice was eminently self-satisfied.
I whirled, and my heart leapt into my throat. “Chris—”
“I knew it.” He gave the coldest smile I had ever seen, shaking his head. “I knew you’d been cheating.”
“I wasn’t cheating!”
“You were with him last night. You can lie, but Bei can’t.”
Understanding came far too late. “That was you calling her?”
“Of course.” He gave me a smug look. “I warned you I was going to find out, Lily. I
warned you I was going to ruin your life.”
“I. Didn’t. Cheat.” My voice was harsh. “I didn’t cheat.”
I might as well not have spoken at all.
“You think you can just play with me?” He was advancing on me now. “You think you can make a fool out of me and no one is going to care? Did you think I was going to let you get away with it?”
“You cheated,” I whispered. “Not me. You.” But it was all turned around. With him looking at me like that, it really did seem like a weak defense. We’d only been broken up a few days, really. And I’d kissed Donovan before I’d told Chris I was never coming back, so maybe—
“I’m going to take everything you care about,” Chris told me. “Him, your little friends who tell you to do things like cheat on me. Bei’s going to pay for that.”
“Bei told me not to! She told me to take you back!”
“Apparently, she didn’t convince you.”
My blood ran cold. “You leave her alone,” I whispered. “Chris, you promise me you’ll leave her alone.”
His smile was truly terrifying—and then it changed. I saw him swallow. He was looking over my shoulder, and his face had gone pale.
“Chris Germain, I assume,” Donovan said coldly.
Chapter 15
Donovan
It was interesting. Up until a few seconds ago, I had been ready to rage at Lily. She knew—she had known the danger, and she had still run out without telling me where she was going. She had done everything in her power to avoid promising me that, and she had asserted herself willfully, without a single thought to the consequences.
Then I heard what the boy was saying to her, and a new fury kindled in my chest. I remembered her panic this morning, her telling me she couldn’t see him, she couldn’t deal with him. Now I knew why: the boy was a sociopath, one who thought he was smarter than he truly was, and willfully cruel with it. It took the space of one glance to realize what had happened: he’d wound up, somehow, with a woman who was far too good for him. He had always known she would leave him someday, and now he was trying to punish her for actually doing it. I’d seen that look of contempt before on the faces of weak men whose money bought them everything but actual love, everything but respect, and who raged at the world for their own failures.
And from the look on Lily’s face, from the way she was pleading with him, he’d managed to convince Lily of all of it. How she’d gotten up the courage to walk away from him when she still believed his lies, I wasn’t sure—but from the fear I saw in her, she really did believe he could hurt her, and whichever friend he was currently threatening.
“Come with me.” I held out my hand to Lily. “Right now.”
“He orders you around?” the boy said contemptuously.
“Don’t listen to another word he says.” My voice was simmering with rage. “Don’t give him another thought, Lily.”
She wavered, looking between the two of us.
“She knows she fucked up,” Chris told me triumphantly. He looked at her again. “And she knows I’m never going to take her back.”
“Yes, that must be why you’re out here stalking her.” I pushed her out of the way and advanced on him, looking down at him with a smile that made him go pale. “Let’s get one thing straight right now. You? Are a failure.”
“Donovan,” Lily protested.
I ignored her. “You never deserved her,” I told him. “You know that. You must have started cheating on her almost as soon as you two were together. Don’t give me that look. I’ve seen dozens like you, people who wanted to pretend they were better than the person they were with. They wanted to pretend if they could just get someone else to fuck them, it would cancel out the fact that they were pieces of shit who didn’t deserve their luck.”
He gulped.
“You’re nothing.” My voice was quiet, methodical. Ruthless. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to beat him into the pavement until he couldn’t get up, and I knew I couldn’t let myself do that. “You will never speak to Lily again. You will never go near her. You will not try to hurt her, or anyone she cares about. Whatever petty reason you have for thinking she owes you her pain, you’re wrong. And the next time I see you? I’m going to kill you. Get out of my sight.”
I didn’t wait to see if he obeyed. I took Lily’s hand and dragged her into the dark of the car, and leaned my head back against the seat, fighting for control.
“Donovan?”
“Not now.” My fingers clenched on my leg. It was a long time before I could make myself look at her, and when I did, something seemed to tear inside my chest. She was looking at me like she wasn’t quite sure of anything right now.
“Did he hurt you?” If he had, he was going to die. In the mood I was in, I was not going to deal with that gracefully.
“No.” But she had flinched.
“Tell me,” I said simply.
“He was cheating on me,” she said, in a very small voice. Her cheeks were pink with shame. “I walked in on him and my roommate, and I left. That was a week ago. This morning, I—went to go get my stuff.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“He threw things. He told me—” Her face screwed up. “He told me he was going to find out who you were, and he was going to ruin my life. He was so angry.”
“You told him about me?” Oddly, that didn’t make me angry.
“No! No. He was just so sure…” She started to laugh, but there were tears leaking out of her eyes. “He was so sure I’d never leave him unless there was someone else.”
And, as of this morning, she had thought I was a cold-hearted bastard who had fucked her and thrown her out—and she’d still left him. Pride warred with the sneaking suspicion that I was more of a bastard than I’d wanted to be.
“He’s not going to hurt you,” I told her. “Ever.”
The look she gave me was dull. She lifted one shoulder.
“What is it?”
“You hate him,” she said. “You think he’s nothing. And I wasn’t even good enough for him.”
“He said that?” I’d known it, and it still made me furious.
“He didn’t need to,” she protested. “It was obvious.”
“How on earth—” I broke off. Reasoning with this boy would go nowhere, and if I listened to her arguments now, that would be who I was talking with, not her. “He’s wrong,” I told her flatly. “He knew you were better than him. Why do you think he cheated?”
She frowned, as if trying to figure out how to tell me that I was deeply stupid.
“Come here.” I twitched a finger and she came to sit next to me, hesitant. She shuddered when I drew her close, and I kissed her until she melted against me. Her lips parted and she gave a little moan under my mouth, setting my blood on fire.
When the car stopped, her eyes flew open.
She was in a daze in the elevator, fingers playing over her lips, and she blushed every time she caught me staring at her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, though. She had thought she wasn’t good enough? She was perfect. She was everything.
“You brought me to your apartment,” she said, when we got there. She shook her head, as if in a daze. “I need to go home.”
“Because?”
“Well, I need clothes, for one thing.” A shadow of her humor flashed at me.
“We’ll buy you clothes tomorrow.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
I took a moment to look her over. “Dark blue,” I decided. It would match her eyes.
“Dark blue what?”
“Lingerie.” I smiled at her, and watched the blush rise in her cheeks. “Heels. Evening gowns, of course.”
“When am I ever going to use an evening gown?”
“At the opera.”
“I don’t go to the—”
“I do. I’m taking you. Tomorrow night.”
She stared at me like I had gone mad. “I don’t know anything about opera,” she said, faintly.
“We’ll s
ee if you like it.” I pulled her close. “And if you don’t…there are always other things we can do to make you pass the time.”
He eyes went wide.
“You’ll have to stay very quiet, of course.” I couldn’t hide my smile. I jerked her close and bit her lower lip. “Very quiet. Unless you want everyone there to hear me fucking you.” When she drew in an unsteady breath, her eyes drifting closed, I nearly lost it right there.
She looked at me, just looked into my eyes, and I saw something there I couldn’t make sense of. Then she was down on her knees, clever little fingers at my belt, opening my pants. She stared up at me as her fingers wrapped around my cock and began to stroke it, and I felt my hands clench.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” It was all I could do to keep my voice level.
Her tongue flicked out, playing over the tip of me, and I groaned.
“Pleasing you,” she whispered. And then she took me deep in her mouth, working her lips and her throat, fingers sliding over slick flesh.
How she could seem innocent while running her tongue up and down my cock, I didn’t know. All I knew was that she was, somehow, entirely innocent—eager to please, learning what I liked. She gave a little sound of surprise when I pushed her away.
“Stand up.”
“What?”
“I want to come inside you.”
I hauled her to her feet, bent her over the couch, and yanked her panties down in one swift movement. I was inside her the next moment, already on the brink again. I sheathed myself in her once, twice, and pleasure exploded through me. I poured into her, listening to her moan, holding her hips so hard I was sure I was bruising her.
She whimpered in frustration and I felt my lips curve in a satisfied smile.
“Oh, don’t worry.” I held her with one hand, unwilling to pull out of her just yet, and loosened my tie with the other hand.
When I slipped it over her eyes as a makeshift blindfold, she bit her lip.
“Tonight,” I whispered, “your training really begins.”
Dark Lust: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Books 1-5) Page 7