Page 11 of Ruthless Claim

Cillian waits until I run out of breath.

“I grew up in the Irish mob,” he says mildly. “I may not understand exactly what you’ve said, but I understand the spirit. I’ve heard worse.”

“Fuck you,” I hiss, with everything I have.

“Not interested,” he says, flashing me a mocking smile. “Now. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either way, your bags are going in the master bedroom and you’re sleeping in my bed.”

“I’d rather sleep on the street,” I spit, irate.

He shrugs. “Too bad you don’t get that option.”

I watch in fury as he picks up my Louis Vuitton luggage like it weighs nothing and carries it down the hall toward what must be the master bedroom.

I follow, switching to French when Italian runs dry and then Spanish because the situation calls for every language available to me, and none of them are making any difference whatsoever.

He doesn’t stop walking, and I hate him so completely and thoroughly that it almost feels clarifying.

He sets my bags down in a bedroom that is obscenely large.

There’s a king-sized bed, more floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the park, cool gray walls, and a door to the en suite that’s standing open.

“There,” Cillian says, turning to face me, looking punchable. “Your things are in our bedroom. Was that so difficult?”

He’s so fucking patronizing.

“You are unbelievable,” I manage to say because the anger coursing through me is making it hard to speak. “You actually think you can just order me around like I’m⁠—”

“I don’t think. I know.” He crosses his arms over his chest and I hate that the gesture makes his shoulders look even broader. “Here’s how this marriage is going to work. You can hate me all you want. You can think of me as some Irish brute beneath your station. You can look down your aristocratic nose at me until you go cross-eyed. I don’t give a shit. But you are my wife now, and that means you live in this apartment, sleep in that bed, and play your part when we’re in public.” A pause. “Understood?”

I nearly laugh.

Does he really think I’m going to listen to him? I’m not his fucking aunt who is a good little dog for Connor. “If you think I’m going to make this easy for you⁠—”

“I don’t expect easy,” he say impatiently. “I expect compliance.”

The only reason why I haven’t hit him is because of my good breeding.

I want to wipe that look off his face and prove I’m not some delicate girl he can push around with two words and a glare.

But I’m also smart enough to know I can’t win this fight tonight.

Not when he outweighs me by at least one hundred pounds and has spent his life doing Connor’s dirty work and has, apparently, already decided exactly how this is going to go.

Lose the battle; win the war.

I lift my chin and look at him icily, letting him see full strength of my displeasure. “Fine. We’ll share the bedroom.” The look of satisfaction on his face makes me grit my teeth. “But if you think I’m going to make this pleasant or I’ll be a dutiful little wife you are genuinely delusional.” My hands ball into fists. “I’ll sleep in your bed because the optics require it—and only because the optics require it—but there will be a line down the middle and you will stay on your side.” I take a step forward. “And if you so much as touch me without permission,” I say, very pleasantly, “I will cut off your balls while you sleep.”

Cillian looks faintly amused by my outburst. “A DMZ down the middle of the bed,” he remarks, staring at it. “I can work with that.”

I nod. “Good.”

“Don’t touch. Don’t speak. Don’t acknowledge each other’s existence unless absolutely necessary,” he continues.

“Perfect,” I say. “We agree on something. Mark the occasion.”

We stare at each other across the bedroom with the battle lines drawn and neither of us willing to be the one who looks away first, because neither of us is built for looking away.

Both of us know this is going to be a war.