Chapter 6 - The Scars We Hide
The ride back to the penthouse was filled with an electric, suffocating silence.
Lev had already secured Zach in his bed upstairs. When the private elevator opened into the penthouse foyer, Michael immediately shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket and threw it onto the marble console.
“Pour yourself a drink,” he said gruffly, heading toward his private study.
“I don't want a drink,” I called after him, kicking off my heels and following him into the room.
The study was dark, lit only by the amber glow of the fireplace. Michael was pouring two fingers of Scotch at the mahogany bar, his hand uncharacteristically tight around the crystal tumbler.
“You shouldn't have intervened, Aurora,” he said without turning around. “Dominic Rossi understands only one language: absolute annihilation. Letting him breathe shows weakness.”
“It shows humanity!” I countered, stepping closer. “You would have executed him in the middle of a charity gala with fifty witnesses inside! You would have gone to federal prison, Michael! What happens to Zach then?”
Michael spun around, his eyes blazing. “I protect what is mine!”
The words hung in the air like a detonation.
What is mine.
My breath caught in my throat. We stood three feet apart, the silence suddenly thick, heavy, and searing hot.
“I’m not yours, Michael,” I whispered, though my pulse was racing so hard it made my head spin. “I’m a hired tutor. A charity case your debt cleared.”
Michael crossed the distance between us in two long strides, stopping inches from me. He set the glass down with a heavy thud, his eyes raking over my face with an agonizing hunger he had suppressed for weeks.
“You think this is charity?” he growled softly, his voice dropping into that raw, intimate register that made my knees weak. “You think I brought you into my home, let you sleep fifty feet from my bed, let you hold my son’s hand, because of an old debt to a dead cop?”
“Then why?” I breathed.
Michael reached up, his fingers brushing against the side of my neck, his thumb tracing the jawline where Dominic had tried to touch me. The heat of his skin burned through me.
“Because the second I saw you in that pantry—battered, bleeding, holding a frying pan against four armed men just to protect a child you’d known for five minutes—I knew,” Michael said, his thumb brushing my trembling bottom lip. “I knew you were the only real thing in this rotting, miserable city. And God help me, Aurora, I haven't slept a full night since because all I want is to keep you here.”
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Every instinct I had told me that this man was fire, that stepping into his orbit would consume me whole.
I didn't care.
I reached up and caught his lapels, pulling him down.
When his lips crashed into mine, it was a collision of raw fire and hunger. He groaned against my mouth, his large hands sliding around my waist, lifting me effortlessly off the floor until my back pressed against the edge of the heavy mahogany desk. His kiss was demanding, possessive, yet filled with a desperate tenderness that shattered every defense I had left.
When he finally broke the kiss, both of us breathing raggedly, his forehead rested against mine.
“Stay with me, Aurora,” he murmured against my lips. “Not for the contract. Not for Zach. For me.”
May you like
Before I could answer, the security intercom on the desk chimed with an urgent, red flashing light.
Lev’s panicked voice cut through the speaker: “Boss! Breach at the private elevator lobby! Rossi’s men got past the gate!”
