Owned By My Dangerous Stepbrother

Isla — ❀ — There were twelve people in the Gilt Room who could have had me arrested. Only one of them was looking at me instead of the painting. I felt it like a gun in my back. Slow. Heavy. A stare that slid down my spine and settled low, where it had no f*****g business being. I kept my face blank behind the silver mask and kept pouring. Smoked-glass eyeholes. Hair pinned flat under a black silk cap. A lanyard at my neck that read IVY MARSH. Nobody in this room knew my real identity. That was the only reason I could breathe. “Lot nine,” the auctioneer called. “Portrait of a Woman in Grey, Dutch school, circa 1650. We open at eight hundred thousand.” My portrait. Six weeks on a box-room floor. Every crack in her varnish was a lie I’d baked in my mother’s oven. Two point four million. That was the number my father left me, tucked in a cream envelope between the funeral lilies. Every painting came off it. Sable had one rule: the hand that delivers must watch it sold. “One million.” “One-two.” The bidders wore masks too - wolves, birds, a gold-leaf devil. Nobody looked at anybody. Nobody except the man by the far door. His mask was plain black and left his mouth bare. A hard mouth. A mouth that had never once asked permission. He leaned a shoulder against the wall, one gloved hand at his side, and the whole room moved around him like water around a stone. Even the auctioneer, Mr. Lowe, glanced at him before every raise, like a man checking his leash. He owned the room. I knew men who owned rooms. They all had a specific air around them. He looked at me and I felt a chill run down my spine. “Sold,” said Mr. Lowe. “One million, seven hundred thousand pounds.” Seven hundred thousand to go, plus whatever Sable felt like calling interest. My hands shook so hard I almost dropped the bottle. I turned for the service door. “Well, hello, sweetheart.” A hand clamped around my wrist. Big man. Wolf mask. Whiskey breath. His thumb stroked the inside of my arm like he’d paid for it. “You’ve been pouring for an hour. Come and pour for me.” “Sir, I’m not—” His other hand slid to my hip. Something cold and clear went through me. My fingers were already round the neck of the bottle. I knew exactly where it was going. Behind his ear. Hard. I never saw the man by the door cross the room. I only heard the silence he left behind. He lifted the wolf’s hand off my body like a coat off a chair. No hurry. No rage. He turned the wrist, folded it back, and something gave with a small, wet crack. The wolf screamed. “That was Mr. Thornton’s second-favourite hand,” said the man in the black mask, almost pleasantly. “Apologise to the lady before you lose the other.” “f**k— I’m sorry—” “To her.” “I’m sorry!” Thornton sobbed. “Lowe.” “Everyone out,” the auctioneer said at once. “The sale is concluded.” Eleven masked people left in the time it took me to breathe three times. Then there was only the portrait, and him. “Not you,” he said. My heart slammed. I stopped. “Thank you,” It came out stiff. “Though I could have handled it.” “You had a bottle in your hand.” “And a plan.” “Behind the ear.” He pulled off his left glove, one finger at a time. The hand underneath was bare and tattooed across the knuckles. “Neat. He’d have pressed charges.” His eyes dropped to my hand. It was trembling. “It’s a warm room.” “I run cold.” “I doubt that.” He came toward me slowly, like a man who had all night. “You’re the only person in here who didn’t look at the painting. You looked at the guests. The exits. Me.” My pulse hit my ribs like a fist. “I’m paid to watch the room.” “You’re paid to pour.” He stopped a hand’s width away. I had to tilt my head to see his eyes through the slits of his mask. Light brown. Honey held up to a flame. “Take off the mask.” “No.” Something moved in that bare mouth. Not quite a smile. “Nobody says no to me in this building.” “Lucky for me I don’t work here.” He flattened his bare hand on the wall beside my head. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t have to. The heat of him closed around me, cedar and smoke and something darker under it. His thumb came to rest on the silk ribbon behind my ear. One flick, and the mask would fall. My knees went weak. I hated them for it. “I’m going to ask your name,” he said. “You’ll refuse.” His thumb dragged along my jaw, and a shiver ripped through me so hard he felt it. “Then I’ll find it anyway.” “Goodnight, sir.” I ducked under his arm and walked. Fast. His stare burned between my shoulder blades until the service door slammed behind me. In the staff corridor a Grayhound courier shoved an envelope into my hand without a word. Three thousand pounds. Same as always. For expenses. I leaned against the cold tiles and tried to count it, and my fingers wouldn’t work. I counted something else instead. The seconds his thumb had rested on my jaw. Ten. It was 2 a.m. when I got home. Theo’s night-light made a pale moon on his wall. In the kitchen my mother sat waiting with a half-empty glass of wine and a look I hadn’t seen on her face in years. She was glowing. “Darling, sit down. I’m engaged.” A diamond the size of a sugar cube caught the light. “Julian Hale. Of Hale & Rook, the auction house. Can you believe it? You’ll all have dinner with us on Friday. His son is wonderful. Look.” Hale & Rook. The name hit me like cold water. A ballroom photograph. A silver-haired man in a pale suit, and beside him a man in charcoal, a champagne flute in his left hand. No mask. A face of clean angles and quiet menace. The brown eyes. The bare, merciless mouth. The same tattooed knuckles around the glass. My mother kept smiling and talking, but I couldn’t hear a word. The man who had pinned me to a wall two hours ago was about to become my stepbrother.