Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 458

SCARLETT

I watched Sparrow drive, the wheel loose under one palm, his other hand resting on the gear shift like it had grown there, and I still could not work out why he wanted me trailing after him today.

Given the choice, I would have stayed home with Tasha. I had even planned the whole day around her, sitting her down over breakfast and asking if there was any skill she wanted to learn this year, because if she was going to be married to this man for twelve months, I wanted those months to add up to something. Money and safety were all well and good, but a girl needs a plan, and Tasha had never been allowed to make one.

Sparrow said nothing on the drive. He just kept his eyes on the road and let the silence thicken until I wanted to roll down the window and throw it out.

When the car finally slid to a stop, we were parked in front of a skyscraper so tall I had to tip my head back to find the top of it. And there, bolted across the glass in letters big enough to be read from the moon, was the name. Xander Corporation.

I got out of the car still staring at it. In all my digging, all those late nights combing through every company, every property, every shell and slush fund connected to Sparrow, Xander Corporation had never once come up. I had been certain his legitimate businesses started and ended with clubs and bars, and everything else worth knowing about him lived in the dark.

"Something wrong?" he asked, rounding the hood.

"I just didn't think you owned a building with your name on it."

He started toward the doors. "Are you coming, or are you planning to admire the architecture all day?"

Inside, the lobby swallowed us whole. Glowing floors, gold trim, a reception desk the size of my first apartment. Every person we passed stopped what they were doing. A man dropped his phone. A woman half stood, then thought better of it and sat back down. They all spoke to Sparrow in that careful, brittle tone people use on men they are terrified of disappointing, and every single one of them looked at me like I was a bomb they had been told not to jostle.

I leaned toward him as we crossed toward the elevators. "Did you hire the whole staff, or do they just train themselves to flinch?"

"They're not flinching at me," he said, pressing the button.

"Go ahead." He did not look up.

"Are you the chairman of this company?"

"Yes."

"Then why did I never see it when I was looking into you?"

Now he looked up, just long enough to fix me with that flat, unreadable stare. "I'm impressed by your honesty today. The answer to your question is...because most people don't know, and I prefer it that way."