Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(28)

When he pulled back, I was panting and flushed. I bit my lip to keep from begging for more.

His cheeks were dark, eyes like onyx.

The moment was charged with desire, with danger. My heart knocked against my ribs, and I waited for him to tell me what that was. To tell me what he wanted. I waited for him, the way he had waited for me all these years.

His gaze sharpened, and I thought he might say something important. Something personal. Then a steel gate slammed down on his expression, leaving the cold, detached man in his place. This man might not have been kissing me just seconds ago. This man didn’t feel a thing.

“Consider that your down payment,” he said.





Chapter Twenty

I DREAMED OF Philip that night, of his large body looming over mine, of his murmured promise. Consider that your down payment. I wanted to hate him for that. It was cruel to make me pay with sex while my brother’s life was on the line.

He may as well have put a gun to my head.

A man of opportunity.

I didn’t see him the next morning—not over coffee with Adrian or in any of the rooms when I went searching. It was as if he’d left the house. I hoped that wasn’t the case. I needed him.

And I supposed there was one upside to my down payment. It meant we had sealed our agreement. And Philip may be a lot of things, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would back out on a deal.

By midafternoon I was determined to find him. Adrian bustled around the kitchen wearing a paisley apron of navy blue and maroon. The spice of chili filled the air. My stomach grumbled.

Adrian glanced over, grinning. “Grab a bowl.”

“I’m looking for Philip. Do you know where he is?”

That earned me a silent laugh. “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask.”

I stuck out my tongue. “Come on, you must know where I can find him.”

“What I know is that he’ll be found when he wants to be.”

“Fine, be that way.”

I spent another hour searching before I found his office, not spacious like the study with the little wire machines. This was tucked away, small, dark. I had to find the fake door from the workout room to get there.

After all that, of course it was empty.

This house was almost as large as his primary home, though with a more contemporary style. More straight lines and glossy surfaces. The office was no different, a granite slab for a desk and a pale cream leather wingback chair. Shelves were set deep into the wall, lit by an unseen light source above each one.

The plush carpet was impossibly soft beneath my feet. I circled the room and paused beside a framed picture. It was a close-up, an artistic piece half in shadow. I could only see half of a face and the curve of an arm, but I knew who it must be.

Rose, again. She had been a ballerina then with the city corps de ballet.

She’d had a rough childhood, but an old ballerina who taught at the YMCA had seen promise in her—and she had danced with all the discipline and power and grace that Philip brought to his criminal dealings. Excellence was a family trait.

“Looking for me?” The low voice came from behind me, and I whirled.

“Yes,” I said with a small smile. That was all I could manage with my heart pounding. I gestured to the picture. “Does she still dance?”

“Not professionally.” He strolled into the room, hands in the pockets of his slacks. He didn’t seem angry. In fact, he seemed almost…pleased. The way a lion would be pleased to find a mouse in its den.

My throat was dry. “Oh. Does she miss it?”

“I imagine so.”

That distracted me from my fear. “You haven’t asked her?”

“I haven’t spoken to her in six months.”

“Why?”

He sat down in the cream leather chair and leaned back. “She’s not my biggest fan right now.”

“Hmm.” I remembered how close they had been. If I’d had any doubts, her framed picture here would have proven it. Across the room there was another artistic close-up—a child’s chubby cheek next to a grown-up’s scruff-covered jaw. Colin and his daughter, Bailey, I would have guessed. He’d adopted her once he’d married her mother, and love was plain on his face.

Family.

His expression was droll. “Do you have an opinion on that? Of course you do.”

“It doesn’t really matter what I think.” If we were friends, I might have been worried about Philip. He seemed so isolated. But we weren’t friends. He required sex as payment during the darkest moments of my life—first from Shelly, now from me. Not exactly a strong foundation for a friendship. “What does your brother think?”

He scowled. “Digging again? I haven’t spoken to Colin in a while either.”

I tried not to care. “They left you?”

“Maybe I pushed them away,” he said. “For their own good. For their protection.”

“Or for yours.” Philip thought the worst of himself—and he wasn’t entirely wrong. But everyone needed family. Even knowing that my parents didn’t really love me, I couldn’t break those ties. Maybe that made me pathetic or desperate, but I couldn’t think Philip’s forced distance was any better.

“Be careful with that shovel,” he said drily. “You might hurt someone.”