by Lora Leigh
your jewels, but we all know the animal she is. Screw her, toss her out, then return to us with your senses and fortune intact.”
Lightning fast and dangerous, fluid, like a vengeful wind, Dane was out of his chair and across the short distance two chairs from his own. He jerked Valere’s head back, a wicked knife in his hand before anyone knew he had it, and laid at the other man’s throat.
Death glittered in Dane’s dark gold eyes, tightened his features and strengthened the savagery in his expression.
Valere’s eyes bulged from his head as a thin line of blood oozed from the shallow cut beneath the blade.
“Mate, you don’t want to go there,” Dane warned him carefully as Dawn rose slowly to her feet.
The Breeds providing security for the meeting were tense, their hands on their weapons, fury flaring in their eyes.
“Enough,” she said calmly, causing Seth to pause and glare back at her.
“You have no say in this,” he snapped.
Her gaze met Valere’s and she saw smug, vindictive hatred there.
“When he returns to the mainland, we don’t want him to have reason to fuel any fires during the press conference he’ll be making. Better to escort him nicely from the house than to beat him to a bloody pulp. Besides…” She smiled back at Valere as rage flickered in his eyes. “You might splatter blood on the silk your wealth dressed me in. And it is so hard to get bloodstains out.”
She smoothed a hand over the maroon skirt she wore before adjusting the gold chain at her neck, just above the white silk of her sleeveless blouse.
They were her clothes. Well, except for the panties. She had brought a few nice things with her from Sanctuary. Just in case.
Seth’s lips almost twitched. Dane eased the dagger back.
“A true lady shows herself in not just her actions but in her compassion,” Craig Bartel said then, his tone drawing her gaze, his rueful smile an apology for his wife’s words the night before.
“Compassion?” She lifted a brow as Valere rose from his chair. “I have very little compassion for pedophiles and murderers.”
“Compassion perhaps for your fellow board members,” Bartel suggested. “My wife can tell you, I become ill at the sight of sliced arteries. It’s a particularly distasteful sight. So I’ll claim your compassion for myself.”
“Stop flirting, Bartel,” Seth grunted, the tension easing from him as Mercury and Stygian moved close to Theodore Valere, their eyes hard.
“Don’t bruise him when you toss him off my island,” Seth requested. “Dawn’s right. He needs to be presentable for the press conference he will no doubt hold. Just as I’ll be presentable for mine a few days later. When I announce my engagement to Ms. Daniels, as well as my regret that the Valere family would prefer to fund the Council than to aid the survival of the Breeds.”
If rage had simmered in Valere’s eyes before, it burned in them now. Seth had just blocked him, and he knew it. They all knew it.
Valere’s jaw tightened as he straightened his silk jacket with a jerk and stomped to the door. There was no parting shot, no “fuck off” or “fuck you.” The door didn’t even slam, as Stygian managed to catch it and close it quietly as he and Styx followed the other man.
The other board members watched quietly.
“Is there anyone else who would like to follow him?” Seth asked softly, his tone dangerous. “We all know he most likely never broke from the Council. Do any of you have the same problems?”
“We signed the agreement, Seth,” Brian Phelps sighed. “Hell, I don’t know what Valere was doing then or now, but I didn’t know what we were funding. And now, knowing…” He shook his head, sincerity evident in his scent and his expression. “Knowing doesn’t help my nightmares at night, I’ll tell you that much right now. I’ll be letting my nephew know the changes and they’ll be implemented upon our return.”
“Jason will fight it.” Bartel spoke up then, glancing at Brian. “He’s always fought Lawrence support to the Breeds. I think it dips too far into his inheritance to suit him.”
Phelps grunted at that. “Little bastard.” There was obvious affection in his voice. “He’s the only heir I have left. I’m stuck with him.”
“Adopt,” Dane suggested mockingly, rising to his feet, the sweet scent of his cigar curling around the room, teasing the senses.
Phelps shook his head with a smile, his reluctance to defend his nephew apparent. “He has his good points.”
“The ladies like him,” another member piped up. “Perhaps you could marry him off to an heiress.”
Now that the tension of negotiations was over, Dawn glimpsed another side to Seth’s board of directors, joking, teasing, bashing like little boys around a campfire.
Seth moved back to her, chuckling a bit.
“So, we have an engagement to celebrate?” Dane drawled as Seth’s arm curled around Dawn’s back. “Funny, I don’t see a ring, my friend. Surely you were prepared?”
Seth grinned as he stared down at her. “She keeps me off balance, Dane. But trust me, she’ll have a very special ring soon.”
Dawn felt pleasure warm her; she knew the flush that flooded her cheeks was as much from joy as from the appreciation directed her way by the board members.
“And now we have a party to get ready for.” Dane drew on the cigar, his gaze on Dawn, the brown of his eyes hiding secrets and amusement. “Will you save me a dance, beautiful?”
“All her dances are taken,” Seth assured him.
“He’s a greedy bastard,” Dane laughed. “Ah well, the lovely Cassie should be present. She likes me.”
“Yeah, for an old man,” Bartel snorted with laughter as Dane cast him a mock glare. “What are you? All of thirty?”
Dane grinned. “Look that old, do I?”
They all laughed.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, my fiancée and I are going to have lunch in our suite and we’ll join you and your families in a few hours for the party. Thank you again, and we’ll all look forward to the profits Sanctuary and Haven will bring in soon.”
“You’re such a businessman,” Dawn sighed as he pulled her to the door.
“There are definitely perks,” Seth laughed, his look heated enough, male enough, that she flushed as the others laughed again.
They filed from the meeting room as Seth curved his arm around her waist and they headed to their suite. She loved the way he touched her, how he allowed her to touch him. Needed her to touch him.
“Valere is going to be a problem,” she told him as they turned toward the suite. “He speaks out often against the Breeds’ role in the private sectors of law enforcement and security. Once he leaves the island, he’s going to find another way to hurt Lawrence Industries.”
Seth was silent for long moments before he spoke. “He and his father were very strong supporters of the Council. Though they covered it well. Finding proof of their activities to nearly impossible. They were the ones who originally pulled my father in. I swore while my father was alive, Roni would never learn that he had known all along what was happening in those labs. And he supported them anyway. Once I took over, after his accident, and learned the truth, I could barely stand to be in his presence.”
Seth remembered watching the news flash of his half-sister, Roni Andrews, when the press had attacked her in her hometown of Sandyhook, Kentucky. Wild-eyed, terrified, she had been a younger version of the maid Aaron Lawrence had seduced and fallen in love with years before. She had disappeared, and all the Lawrence money hadn’t been able to find her. Until that news flash. Until Aaron learned his daughter was the lover of a Breed. And he had been terrified. He had lost his son because of his involvement with the Council. He didn’t want to lose his daughter.
And he hadn’t. In the six years Aaron had lived after that, he had grown close to Roni. Before he died, she had called him dad. And Aaron Lawrence had died a happy man. He’d seen his first grandchild. Felt his daughter’s love. And he knew Set
h would never tell her the horrible secret he carried.
“She knew,” Dawn said softly, glancing up at him as they neared the suite. “Within days of his arrival Taber had the information, and Roni found it. He can’t hide much from her. She knew the worst of him, Seth, and she loved him anyway, because he was out of it. Because he was trying to be a father.”
Something, Dawn admitted, she hadn’t understood, but she had accepted Roni’s decision. The other woman found it hard to hate. She had her husband, her mate, Taber. And the happiness they found together had helped her forgive. Taber had helped it as well by encouraging it. The love the two shared went both ways.
“She never told me.” He nodded to Styx as the Breed opened the suite door when they neared it.
There was now a Breed posted at the door and two on the balcony outside his bedroom. Styx was confirming their positions outside as they stepped into the house.
“Dawn.” Styx’s heavy brogue had her turning back. “We’ve had verification of an unauthorized transmission from the house while the two o’ you were in the meeting. Jonas is tracking it but he’s requesting that you remain indoors at all times.”
Dawn tensed. She nodded shortly and watched as Styx turned and closed the door behind them.
“Whoever it is won’t give up,” she murmured as she turned back to him. “It’s not over, Seth.”
“And they’ll be caught.” He shrugged as he slid the jacket from his shoulders and paced across the sitting room. “Men like this make mistakes eventually, Dawn. They’ve tried half a dozen times already and failed each one. They’ll slip up here.”
“Or put a bullet in you?” She whispered her worst fear.
“It won’t be the first bullet I’ve taken.” He shrugged again as he turned to her. “I don’t intend to cash out now, sweetheart. Not after all this. I’m careful, and I have a damned good security force. We’ll let them do their work.”
She nodded, slipping off the high heels she wore and moving to him as he sat on the loveseat facing her.
She moved into his lap, curling against his chest, feeling him surround her again. She lived for this.
Seth chuckled against her hair and she let a smile curl her lips.
“We killed ourselves this morning,” he reminded her as her lips found his neck.
Dawn licked delicately, tasting his flesh and feeling her juices preparing her. The heat was easing; it wasn’t as destructive to the senses, but the need for him was still there, a part of her soul. That would never change, she knew that. His touch, his presence, was integral to her happiness, her survival.
“Maybe I can wait until tonight,” she purred. “But only because I’m really hungry, and I know lunch is coming soon.”
“How do you know that?” He tilted his neck, allowing her tongue to run over it, her teeth to nip.
“I smell it,” she drawled, moving from his lap before he could catch her.
She paced across the room, wrapped her arms around her breasts and turned back to him. She was still nervous, unbalanced. The feeling had returned that morning. That vague sense of panic that rolled through her, that left her grasping for a reason for it.
The memories weren’t easy to deal with, but she had spent years under Dayan’s cruelty, watching those discs, over and over again, seeing them in her dreams even if she didn’t feel the pain of them. The memories were no surprise to her. They cut at her. There was no escaping that.
“What’s wrong, Dawn?” He leaned forward and watched her intently. “Are there more memories returning?”
She shook her head. She could see the concern in his eyes, the flicker of inner rage that the memories existed to begin with.
“I thought this feeling of panic would go away.” She tried to laugh, but knew the sound fell far short of the mark. “It hasn’t. I want to slide into bed with you and hide until it’s over. Until there’s no threat, no reason to fear for you.”
“We’d spend our lives beneath the covers,” he told her somberly. “Neither of us can do that, you know that.”
Of course she did. She had known that all along, but it didn’t make it any easier. It didn’t ease the fear welling inside her.
Seth sighed heavily as he rose to his feet and moved to her. “We’re going to be okay.”
“You suddenly have a crystal ball?” She sniped as his hands settled on her shoulders. “You don’t know that, Seth.”
“No, I don’t know that, Dawn.” Frustration flashed in his eyes. “I know we can only do the best we can. I’m careful. I can’t, and I won’t, do more than that.”
She shot him a glare as she moved from his embrace. “I’m not asking you to.” She rubbed at her arms, fighting the chill that seemed to move over her body. “Something feels off. It feels wrong, and I can’t put my finger on it. I hate that, and I hate not knowing what to do to combat it.”
“Your training didn’t cover emotions, huh? Damn, go figure.”
“I’m the smart-ass in this relationship, Seth.” She smirked. “Don’t take my place there and I won’t take yours in the boardroom.”
There was a bark of laughter before he moved, caught her up in his arms and planted a long, luscious kiss on her lips.
“My little smart-ass,” he murmured against her lips. “You’re definitely the expert there. But I still know how to spank.”
“That threat is getting old.”
He chuckled again as a knock came to the door.
“Lunch, children,” Styx called out. “Ye may be missin’ the cho’olate dessert though. Seems they ha’ forgotten it.”
The door opened and the tray wheeled in. There was a smear of chocolate at the corner of Styx’s lips.
“They forgot it, huh?” she asked as Seth released her.
Styx smiled. “’Tis a shame it is. Such forgetful staff ye seem to ha’, Seth.”
Seth snorted. “Wipe the evidence off your mouth, Breed, before lying to me about dessert.”
Styx did so with amazing panache. He winked at Dawn. “I may ha’ saved yours,” he admitted. “But ’twas a hard decision to be makin’.”
The chocolate fiend. She shook her head as he left the room again.
“Lunch.” Hunger was definitely driving Seth this afternoon, and not just a hunger for her body. “Board meetings make me hungry.”
And panic killed her appetite. Still she moved to the small table at the other side of the room with him and took her plates. Only one dessert was present. Chocolate truffle cake, Styx’s favorite of course, and wine.
She ate, but the feeling only grew. She tried to joke, to tease, to allow Seth to soothe that ragged feeling of impending doom, but it didn’t totally abate.
Later, as they dressed for the party, she flirted and she tried to seduce. She almost succeeded before Seth drew back and stared at her soberly. “We have to face whatever’s coming,” he told her then. “Hiding from it won’t save us, Dawn. It only makes the fear worse.”
She stood there in the expensive evening gown he’d bought her, with his jewels gracing her, his touch warming her, and Dawn found she was terrified. She found that, unconsciously, she was praying.
God protect him. Because she knew that losing him would destroy her.
“We stay close together,” she whispered.
“Always,” he promised.
“We don’t leave the house.”
“We stay right inside, away from all opened doors and windows.” He crossed his heart before turning and moving to his dresser.
When he returned, he shocked her by going to his knees, taking her hand and sliding a ring on her finger.
“And you’ll marry me when this is over,” he told her.
The ring was obviously old, obviously horrendously expensive. The diamond wasn’t huge, but it was by far one of the clearest, most perfect specimens she had ever seen. Surrounding it were several dark, swirled tiger’s-eye stones, new insets.
“The ring was my mother’s, my grandmother’s, and my great-gran
dmother’s. Lawrence wives wear the diamond, always. But tradition stands that a new stone replaces those surrounding it with each successive bride. And I chose tiger’s eyes. Because they remind me of your eyes, your strength and your heritage. This ring has been waiting for you for nearly ten years. You’re my life, Dawn. Will you share it with me, since you own it?”
And she cried again. A tear slipped from her eye and her lips trembled. “Always,” she whispered. “Oh God, Seth, I’ll always love you.”
CHAPTER 23
That party was well under way when Seth and Dawn stepped into the ballroom. He led her across the floor to the small, raised dais, where the band had set up, and stepped up to the microphone as the Breeds assigned to his protection moved closer.
All eyes turned to them. The board members and their families had expected an announcement during the house party, but Dawn knew that this wasn’t the announcement they were expecting.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Friends.” His lips quirked as he looked out on the crowd. “I want to thank you all for being here, for your patience during the board meetings, and for once again filling Lawrence Island with your laughter and your presence.”
It seemed as though the whole room held its collective breath as Seth held Dawn’s hand and stared out at them.
Dawn watched the room as well. She could feel herself looking for something that she couldn’t put her finger on. A reason for the panic that tightened her stomach and her heart.
“I would like you to join me in celebrating the most momentous occasion in my life now,” he continued, his big body moving closer to hers as he stared out at the crowd. “Today, Miss Dawn Daniels has consented to be my wife.” He lifted her hand to display the ring she wore as Dawn felt her heart melt.
His voice was rough, rasping. His eyes as they stared at her were cloudy and dark with emotion, his expression tight with it. She stared back at him, and despite that edge of waiting, of almost fear rising inside her, she smiled and accepted the kiss he placed against her lips.
Who knew tough man Seth Lawrence could be so romantic. That he would have a stone reset in a family ring only months after meeting her. That he would buy soaps around the world so he could share the unique scents that reminded him of her, or that he would pick up silks, satins and lace in panties as delicate as a dream for her to wear.
And now he stood in front of his friends and closest business associates and claimed her as his heart. He didn’t see her as a Breed, he saw her merely as his woman, and that knowledge brought a lump to her throat and the betraying emotional tears to her eyes.
“To Seth and Dawn.” Craig Bartel lifted his glass in a toast as all the others followed.
“To Seth and Dawn,” they all called out while glasses were handed to her and Seth to toast the event as well.
It was magical, a dream come true. Dawn felt like Cinderella after Prince Charming slipped the shoe on her delicate foot and declared her his woman for all time. She felt as though she had finally found a place where she mattered, where she belonged. No, she thought as she stared into his eyes. She knew she had. Right here, she had found the one place in the world where Dawn Daniels was a woman rather than a creature or an animal.
They toasted once more amid laughter and congratulations before the band struck up a tune and Seth led her to the dance floor once again. He pulled her into his arms, smiling down at her as he swept her around the room, the other guests moving back and giving them this first dance to themselves.
Dawn would have felt self-conscious, even days ago, at having so many eyes on her. Tonight, she felt the panic build even as a sense of euphoria and happiness nearly overcame her.
Maybe that was the problem, she thought. She wasn’t used to happiness such as this. She was used to being content, not ecstatic and definitely not floating with the joy that seemed to strike her at the oddest moments now.
Like now, while they danced in front of several dozen of Seth’s closest friends, all eyes turned to them, and happiness was singing through her veins.
His body moved against hers, one arm around her, the other gripping her hand as the dark chocolate silk of her evening gown flowed around her, curled around his legs, and caressed both of them when they turned.
“Caught ya,” he whispered in her ear as a smile of pure joy curved at her lips.
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah.” He nipped at her ear. “And I’m going to keep you.”
She prayed. She realized that in the past two days she had been doing that a lot. Praying fervently that God wouldn’t take this dream from her, now that it was so close, right there in her grasp.
Her hand tightened at his shoulder and she wished she had managed to keep them in that damned room. She needed him now. Needed him near her, moving over her. She needed him loving her, whispering his need in her ear and stroking her into oblivion.
As the dance drew to a close, Seth moved back, his hand still clasping hers, turned to the crowd and slowly bowed before turning to Dawn.
With an impish smile, she curtsied, long and low, the skirt of her gown swirling around her as she held the position for long moments before straightening again amid the applause and Seth’s wicked wink.
Dawn realized she must be smiling like a loon. She couldn’t seem to control the curve of her lips for the happiness that bubbled in her veins like ecstasy. It fought with the panic, determined to win this battle, to hold itself inside her mind, where it was rarely allowed to materialize.
“Miss Daniels. Seth.” Craig Bartel approached, his fingers curled around his wife Lillian’s wrist as they stopped before Seth and Dawn.
Lillian Bartel was not happy to be there. Dawn could scent her hesitancy, her anger at her husband and her embarrassment.
“Seth.” Craig extended his hand. “Let me tell you, I admired you before, but seeing the beauty you’ve found to love, I must say I admire you even more.”
“Thank you, Craig.” He shook the other man’s hand and glanced at Lillian.
“Miss Daniels, your beauty is only overshadowed by your compassion.” He turned to Dawn and tugged his wife forward. “My wife and I would both like to extend our congratulations.”
Lillian Bartel drew in a hard breath. “And my apologies,” Lillian forced past her stiff lips. “What I said last night was uncalled for, and undeserved. I’m sorry, Miss Daniels. Sometimes, as my husband tells me, my mouth forgets there’s a brain driving it.”
Dawn tilted her head to the side and stared at the other woman. Seth was stiff beside her, unaware of what the other woman had said, but aware that it must have been extremely insulting for Craig to force this apology from his wife.