Dangerous Temptation (Dark Dream Duet #1)(23)

He ignored me.

My nails tore through his skin, leaving bleeding welts in his hand and wrist the way the rose had once done to me.

Still, he pulled inexorably on the locket until with one tiny clink that sounded like a gunshot to my ears, the silver chain broke apart in his hands and came clean away from my neck.

When I lunged for it, he held it aloft, dangling easily out of my reach even when I jumped for it. I made another grab for it, but Tiernan’s free hand lashed out to grab my ponytail, yanking it back to keep me away.

Only when I was pinned, struggling helplessly, crying even though I hated myself for showing him how much the locket meant to me, did Tiernan lean close enough for his lips to whisper against my cheek.

“Let this be a lesson to you, little thing. If you will not give me what I want, I will take it from you.”

Abruptly, he released me and turned on his heel to storm out the door. I flew after him, but the door slammed in my face.

“Tiernan!” I called through the heavy wood, banging my fists against the door. “Please. Please, don’t take that from me. I-it was a gift from my father. It’s all I have left from him.”

I stopped pounding on the door to wait for his response. My entire body felt poised on a precipice, quaking in a threatening wind. If he didn’t give me the locket back, I knew I would plummet over the edge and crash into thousands of tiny pieces.

I held my breath as I strained to listen through the thick, old wood.

Finally, there was a sound like rolling metal and then a harsh click.

It took me only a second to realize what he’d done.

Tiernan had locked me in my room.

And without another word, I heard his expensive shoes strike hard against the wood floors, down the hall, and away from me.

My knees gave out from under me and I fell to the ground with an awkward clamor, knocking my elbow into the door, my hip to the floor. My head fell onto the carpet, forehead pressed into the plush material and there I lay.

I lay there and I cried away all my tears.

Tears for my dad and my mom.

Tears for Brando who barely got to know his own parents.

Tears for lost hopes and dreams.

And tears for me, great, body-quaking sobs of self-pity.

Usually, I was stronger than that. Usually, I could remember that there were starving kids in Africa and veterans with PTSD living on the street with their demons. Usually, I could think of Brando’s smile and walking through the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston holding my dad’s hand when I discovered the beauty of art for the very first time.

Usually, I could find the hope and will to carry on.

But just this once, fresh off the death of my mom, burdened with the responsibility of a seven-year-old with epilepsy who deserved every single happiness in the world, deprived of my anchor, the locket my dad had given me before he died, I lay on the ground of Tiernan’s nightmarish house and let myself drown in despair.





Chapter Two





Tiernan

“What is this I hear about you being unreachable?”

Bryant Morelli’s voice boomed through the phone speaker on my desk, filling my office with the sound of his low, perfectly enunciated speech.

“I have a project I’m working on at the house,” I answered smoothly, affecting boredom because I knew he could sniff out a lie from across the phone, across continents. “I’ve left the McTiernan Estate in disarray for too long.”

“You should burn that dump to the ground,” Bryant declared. “Sarah’s parents never should have left it to you in the first place. You should be here so that I don’t have to waste time calling you when something needs to be done.”

Something always needed to be done.

Even though Lucian had wrested control of Morelli Holdings from him last year, Bryant hadn’t conceded defeat, not really. Instead, he’d slunk deeper into the shadows. It had been my domain for so long, I bristled at having to suddenly share with my father. I’d never spent as much time with him as I had the last twelve months, and while I’d yearned for exactly that most of my youth, the reality of “quality time” with Bryant Morelli was much different.

“I’m always available,” I told him, which was true.

A couple months ago when he’d ordered me to jump on a plane to Ireland to track down Caroline Constantine’s bulldog, Ronan, I’d done it without question even though I was in the middle of securing a rigged construction contract for the new Price Tower in New York.

Bryant grunted through the phone. “I find out you’re up to something unsanctioned, Tiernan, I’ll be very unhappy.”

Unsanctioned.

The only unsanctioned thing I’d ever done was fall in love with someone he didn’t approve of when I was seventeen. Grace didn’t deserve what happened to her simply by associating with me and perhaps, Bianca didn’t deserve what I had planned simply because she was the bastard offspring of Lane Constantine.

But life wasn’t fair.

It amused me to think of how young and foolish I’d been then.

Now, I was the one in control.

Not Bianca.

Not Bryant.

“You’re welcome to come by and help me sort Grandma Zelda’s Matisse collection,” I offered drily. “Though, I distinctly remember you saying once that art was the pastime of sloths and fools.”