Empire of Desire(Empire #1)(30)

Is it possible for a heart to leave the ribcage and still beat? Because it feels like it’s spilling out of my chest with each word from his mouth.

I should probably listen. He does look terrifying, and I don’t know if I can really handle it when he takes action while in this mode.

But what’s the point if I don’t find out for myself? If I don’t take the step and see it personally. All of it.

So even though I’m having some sort of a heart attack and I still can’t breathe properly, I say, “But I don’t want safe and boring.”

I want you.

I almost say that. Almost, but I don’t get to, because his next words knock the living breath out of my lungs.

“You’re well and truly fucked, baby girl.”





11





Nathaniel





When my father said that I have a train brain, it had absolutely nothing to do with how much I actually love trains.

My train brain doesn’t reverse. Ever. Once it’s moving forward, it just keeps going. There are no regrets. No going back and definitely no retracting what I fucking said or did.

So now, I have a train life, one that’s only focused on getting shit done and moving on to the next thing, then the one after that, and so on. That’s how my train brain works.

Forward.

Outward.

Nothing is kept inward. Otherwise, it’ll rot and cause my downfall.

Now is no different. The present and the past are only a step for the future. A stop, a station. They’re not what I should be focused on and I certainly shouldn’t be thinking about her fucking words. The words that she shouldn’t have said in that sultry voice that I want to hear say fucked-up things.

I don’t want safe and boring.

That’s what started it all. That’s what brought us to this moment where she’s staring at me as if I’m the big bad wolf from her favorite fairy tale. Even though it used to scare her, she wanted to hear the story over and over again, because that’s what Gwyneth does. Instead of running away like normal people do, she stands in front of what scares her and looks at it—or him—with those chameleon eyes.

I want to see what makes them that way, she used to say. Everyone has a reason, right?

And now, I’m the one she’s focused on. The one she obviously fears—or is at least apprehensive of. But she still willingly stands in the path of my destruction.

When I drove her back to the house, she didn’t stop her scrutinizing either. Her inquisitive eyes kept watching, observing, as if waiting for some sort of a sign.

What exactly, I have no fucking clue.

We’re now in front of King’s house. We agreed that I’ll be moving in, not only because we can’t leave this place empty, but I also don’t want her alone after everything that’s happened.

However, she doesn’t know that piece of information, and she never will.

“Go get some sleep,” I tell her.

She faces me with a slight furrow in her brows. “How do you know I didn’t sleep last night? I looked at myself in the rearview mirror, and I don’t have dark circles.”

“You have tremors.”

“Tremors?”

I tip my chin at her hands. Her fingers are shaking slightly, even though they’re lying inert at either side of her.

She lifts them up and stares at them under the sun, her lips falling open the slightest bit. And I want to jam my fingers in there, open her mouth wide with them and order her to suck on them.

I clench my fist.

What the fuck am I thinking about? In King’s house? About his daughter?

It’s those damn words. She shouldn’t have said them. She shouldn’t have confessed that she doesn’t want safe and boring. That’s what girls like her are supposed to want. Fucking safe and fucking boring. It’s predictable and with a known result.

This whole new thing isn’t.

“Oh. I didn’t notice that.” She lets her arms fall. “How did you?”

“How did I what?”

“Notice my tremors when I haven’t?”

“Because you were doing it when we were at City Hall.” Lie. It’s barely noticeable unless you look close—really fucking close.

“I was?”

I nod but don’t say anything else. She keeps watching me, though, as if waiting for my words. When they don’t come, she wipes her palm on her denim shorts.

“So what happens now?” she asks in that tone again, in that fucking bright and lively and damn curious tone.

“Now you go to sleep and I go back to the firm.”

“And after that?”

“After that, you’ll wake up and eat something. Actually, do that now. Eat before you sleep.”

“You give a lot of orders, did you know that?”

“And you do a lot of talking back.”

“Because you’re so inflexible. Someone has to lighten up the mood a little.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“If you want.”

“Do you see me laughing?”

She throws a dismissive hand in the air. “I never see you laugh, Nate. So the problem is you, not me. Anyway, what happens after I wake up and eat and go to visit Dad and you come back from work?”