Chapter 2 : Into the Lion's Den
Rowan’s world shifted.
The man before her was no overgrown playboy in a magazine spread, no party-hearty billionaire. He was raw power, a predator in an expensive suit, who had practiced civilized living in the same way he’d once practiced murder.
Each of his steps sent a shockwave through her body, making her heart thrum harder.
“I asked you a question.” He spoke again, his voice a physical thing across the marble expanse, loud and rough and authoritative in a way that was simultaneously terrifying and sexually wrecking her knees.
“Rowan Hayes.” She managed, voice smaller than she’d meant.
His storm-gray eyes took her in with one sweeping look that was neither sexual nor predatory but still managed to make her feel naked in all of her clothes. It was as if he was analyzing every one of her weak points.
Emma yanked her head off Rowan’s shoulder, eyes going wide. “Daddy, she saved me.”
Rowan saw the shift in Asher. Relief, maybe gratitude. But it was gone before she could be sure, his walls going up once more.
“Give her to me.” He held out his arms, his scarred knuckles stark in the sunlight. His voice was ice on razor wire.
Emma’s reaction was to scrunch even closer to Rowan, into the curve of her neck, her own small hands fisting into Rowan’s blazer. “No! Don’t make her go!”
Someone in the crowd behind the barriers gasped. Cameras and phones whipped out from everywhere. Someone asked, “Is she refusing him?”
Rowan felt the scrutiny of the entire plaza, but Emma’s hold on her torso kept her rooted.
“I don’t think she wants to go with you.” Rowan heard herself say.
The plaza became deathly quiet aside from the distant rumble of traffic. The pigeons paused in their pecking.
His jaw tightened, jaw muscles flexing under that scrubbed stubble. His eyes slitted dangerously.
“You’re coming with us.”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Asher’s voice was deep and gravelly, bass enough that Rowan could feel it in her throat. “You don’t just show up in my daughter’s life and walk away. Not after today.”
Emma whimpered in Rowan’s neck, her voice muffled but clearly audible: “You won’t let her take me, right, Daddy?”
Those words cut through Asher like a knife. Just for a moment, the mask slipped, and Rowan caught a glimpse of something just past the stony surface. Something so raw, so searingly painful, that it made her catch her breath.
But the mask snapped back into place, tighter, harsher than before.
He stalked forward, too close, so that Rowan could smell his cologne, strong and expensive, very male and with an edge that sent its own warning. “Get in the car.”
Her brain was telling her to refuse, to hand Emma over and run. But the child’s fingers were clawed on her, and Rowan didn’t want to test what those storm-gray eyes might do in that scenario.
One of his security guards had retrieved her tote bag and barked at her with little ceremony before shoving it at Rowan. She tucked it against her hip as Emma continued to cling to her like a koala.
A black SUV pulled up, new, all black with darkly tinted windows that mirrored the plaza like shadow boxes. Asher held the door open, fingers around the frame with barely contained tension.
“After you.” It wasn’t an invitation, not from this man.
Rowan ducked into the car; Emma still grasped to her chest. It was all leather and luxury inside, cedar and weaponry. Emma finally relaxed against her but didn’t look up from her sanctuary at Rowan’s shoulder.
Asher slid into the seat across from them, and suddenly the wide car felt cramped. He sprawled like a big cat in the seat, looking too casual, too relaxed, but Rowan knew the violence lurking behind those expensive clothes, beyond that falsely vacant stare. He kept his eyes on them both.
“I didn’t kidnap her.” Rowan had to say something, had to fill the airtight void of silence. “I saved her.”
He looked at her, appraisingly, his eyes boring into hers. “If you hadn’t been there, we’d be sending up a wake for her.”
The reality of his words slapped her across the face. “Then maybe you could say thank you?”
Something like a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t confuse my restraint for gratitude. Gratitude is weakness. Control is the only currency I know.”
Emma turned to press herself closer to Rowan, peeking up at her with eyes much too old for her age. “She wouldn’t hurt me. Don’t let her come back.”
Words. Those exact words. And they chilled Rowan to the bone, made her lungs tight with things she didn’t want to ask, wasn’t sure how to ask.
“Emma, sweetheart—”
The little girl pressed her face back into Rowan’s shoulder and she was done talking.
Asher’s knuckles went white where they gripped his knee. “You may not have had a hand in this. But you’re not coming away from this unscathed. I don’t play games with Emma.”
“You think I what—threw her in front of a truck so I could play hero?” The absurdity of the idea was enough to spark her temper. “You’re being paranoid.”
“I’m alive,” he said, matter-of-factly. “That should tell you something.”
For a moment, Asher Vance was not the billionaire playboy with rock star good looks. For one breath of a moment, she saw the child who’d learned to trust no one but himself and had come to expect betrayal at every turn. The man who’d lost too much already.
The SUV descended through the lobby of Vance Tower and into the parking garage below, leaving the bedlam of the street far above. Now everything was steel and shadows, security cameras blinking red in the gloom.
Emma was heavy in her arms, adrenaline finally leaving her and taking her strength with it. She snuggled in against Rowan, breathing even, eyelids fluttering as she began to doze, the rabbit clutched to both their chests.
Rowan pressed a soft kiss to Emma’s head, unable to stop herself, her heart aching too much for words.
She looked up into Asher’s stare and found herself burnt by it.
“What now?” she asked quietly.
His voice was low, rough with something that might have been regret: “Now you see what it takes to save a Vance.”
