Page 82 of The Darkness is Calling

I don’t know if he does it because he knows I need a little space to focus on my answer, or because he enjoys hunting me.

Something in his gaze tells me it is the second option. Especially when he slips his hands into his trouser pockets and tilts his head to one side, studying me as I try to put distance between us.

I swallow dryly, my body warming at the sight of him, so powerful and beautiful.

A Pakhan capable of having the world at his feet, famous for the violent way he obtains everything he wants. And now he looks at me like a predator circling a fragile gazelle.

“So?” he insists when he sees I don’t answer.

“Because I am engaged to someone else.”

He takes a step forward. The cold mask covering his face cracks for a moment, and through the fissures I see something fragile, almost painful, before it vanishes immediately.

“And you don’t want to break the engagement?”

Does he truly believe that?

“Do you love him?”

This time, the question comes harder, through his clenched teeth.

“No. But I can’t break the engagement, even if I wanted to.”

He frowns, and I see him slip into that cold Pakhan mode, the one trying to extract the truth.

“Why?”

“Because I made a commitment.”

He narrows his eyes for a few seconds, trying to understand my words.

“What kind of commitment?”

“To see the wedding through.”

“And if you break it?”

I hesitate for a moment, but his gaze does not let me back down.

“I lose everything.”

“More precisely?”

“The gallery and almost everything my father built.”

After a second in which he seems to wait to see whether I am serious or making some terrible joke, he lets out a restrained but arrogant laugh, one that cannot help irritating me.

I really don’t think this is the time to mock me.

“That piece of shit really thinks he’ll get all that?”

I blink, confused.

Actually, is he laughing at Oliver?

“Yes,” I answer in a tone as serious as the subject itself. “I mean, his family’s lawyers...”

“Him,” he cuts in sharply, and every trace of a smile disappears from his face. “He asked this of you.”