It was only the fact that his hands were clenched around discharge papers and a sack of meds that kept him from grabbing her as they walked away from the elevator. The building was nice, still very expensive based on the security at the door and the spacious lobby, but nowhere near what he knew she could afford. Still, she was Lianna Mercier, only daughter of Alain Faure, and she’d brought him home.

Oh, the irony.

He smiled as she fumbled with the key, her hands trembling, and he leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Thinking about what I told you in the car?”

Lianna dropped the keys, cursing, and he chuckled.

“You sure you want this, angel?”

The look she gave him was full of fire, and the heat in her cheeks matched it well, making her blue eyes shine. Opening the door, she held it wide and tilted her head inside.

He shook his head as he walked in, because while she seemed sure about this insanity, he definitely wasn’t. Yes, he wanted her. She was all he’d thought about since he’d been conscious.

Was she okay? Had the Faure family come for her? Would the world make the same assumptions he had about Lianna Mercier and condemn her right alongside her father?

Sitting in that damn hospital bed, he’d wanted to protect her from all of it. To keep her safe from the destruction he’d wrought on Mercier Systems and that fucking bastard who had tried to shoot his own daughter.

But then clarity would return and he’d realize the only question he had any right to ask was when would the police show up to handcuff him to his bed and read off the list of crimes he’d committed against her?

Fuck.

“So,” she spoke from behind him and he turned to find her in the shadows near the front door. The skirt and top were subdued, barely hinting at the curves underneath them. Probably work clothes.

He wanted to rip them off her, and bend her over the elegant gray patterned chair at the edge of her living room, but the stinging tug of sutures in his back as he rolled his shoulder reminded him that he wasn’t capable of that. Yet.

“So…?” He smiled, watching as her weight shifted between her heels.

As nervous as a rabbit ready to run.

“Would you, um… how about I make us a drink? Rum?” Lianna smiled at him and walked into the open kitchen, flipping on a light before she pulled a cabinet open.

“Sure.” David moved to the bar that served as the separation, ignoring the chairs she had neatly tucked underneath as he set his things on the top. “Do you have the same bottle we drank?”

Her body stilled, a distinctly different bottle clutched in her delicate fingers as she lowered it. “No, I don’t. Do you not drink—”

“Whatever you have is fine.”

The tension in her eased a little, shoulders relaxing, movements not quite so sharp, as she gathered glasses and dropped ice cubes into them, but the moment she turned to face him again she stiffened slightly. Her throat worked, eyes dancing across her almost empty countertops, and then she set the glasses and the bottle of Kraken rum onto the bar. “I don’t even remember the brand you had in…”

“Your cell?” he finished, tilting his head to watch as the flush returned to her cheeks and a nervous smile spread over her lips.

“Right.”

“Let’s sit down.” Snagging the bottle, he left her to get the glasses as he moved toward her living room. Floor to ceiling windows let the late afternoon sun stream in, and he took the gray chair, which forced her to choose between the couch and the matching chair on the far side of her coffee table.

She chose the couch, in the seat closest to him, and arranged two coasters with the precision of a hostess.

Before she had the chance, he shifted forward and poured the rum as silence settled over them. Reality had a funny way of showing up when he least appreciated it, and as David stared at her on the couch — he could hear it knocking. Picking up his glass he took a long drink, savoring the spice on his palate before swallowing. “We don’t have to do this, Lianna. I can walk out right now.”

“No.” Shaking her head, all that golden blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders, she sat back on the couch with a heavy sigh and drank. Brows pulled together, she had her thumbnail between her teeth a moment later.

“It was Sailor Jerry.”

“What?” Her eyes lifted to him, a little too wide.

“The rum,” he answered.

“Ah, yeah, there was a girl on the bottle.”

He nodded, looking around her apartment. No photos, no knick-knacks, nothing that made it hers. It looked like it could have fallen out of some trendy upscale magazine. All clean lines, inoffensive colors, except for the artwork. A huge painting hung where most people would have had a television, and there were two others on the other wall. None of the three seemed to match, and his eyes were drawn to the one in the middle, a splash of different paints across the canvas that seemed to be more an accident than anything he would call art, but he wasn’t the one with a degree in the subject. Still, it was like she didn’t live here at all. Anyone could have walked in and made it their home. “Who painted that?” he asked, pointing at the messy one.

“Pollock.”

“Jackson Pollock?” he asked, turning to look at it again.

“Yeah.” She shifted on the couch, her knees pressed together as she leaned forward. “You know his work?”

“Not really, I just recognize the name. Must have cost a lot, right?”

Lianna shrugged and sat back again. “I’m not sure, he bought it for me.”

“Your father.”

Nodding, she took another drink before sitting up straight and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t want to talk about him, okay?”

“You just want me to shut up and fuck you?” He grinned when her mouth dropped open for a split second before she struggled to compose herself. “If that’s what this is, just tell me. I’m not going to argue.”

“That’s not what I said.” The blush was back in her cheeks, her legs squeezing together, and he would have bet money she was wet.

“Then what is this?” he asked.

She finished her drink and reached forward to pour another, so he followed suit. Upending his and offering it for a refill. “You promised me answers.”

“We can talk and drink all night. I’ll tell you whatever you want, we don’t have to fuck.” It felt good to say it aloud, to confirm it for himself and her.

“That’s not what I meant,” she groaned, and he laughed a little, leaning back in the chair to stare at her high ceilings, painted with the orange of the evening sun.

“Then what do you mean, angel? Because I already described everything I want to do to you. I want to make you scream for me again, I want to make you come again, and then I want to wake you up and do it all over again. You told me not to lie, and I’m not going to, but I have no fucking idea why I’m here right now unless you’re planning to kill me for the evil shit I did.”

With the sun behind her hair she was glowing like an actual angel, the golden light turning her hair into a halo, the pale blouse shining. If wings had sprouted from her back, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

She sighed softly, tilting her glass back and forth. “I don’t want to kill you. I mean, I thought about it. In the— in the cell I thought about it a lot. I’ll admit that, but all I’ve thought about since they got you into the hospital was how much I wanted you back.”

What the fuck? Those words surprised him more than spontaneous wings ever would have.

“But why?” he asked.

She made a frustrated sound, kicking her heels off onto the carpet before pressing her bare toes into the weave. “Why are you making this so complicated?” she snapped.

“Why the fuck are you bringing the man who kidnapped and hurt you into your fucking house?” The question made him clench his fist, and once he’d asked it he felt the same protective urges he’d felt in the hospital. Only now he wanted to protect her from himself, because he was the danger. Talk about complicated. “You should have called the damn police, Lianna. I deserve it.”

“I want you here.”

“That’s not an answer.” He leaned forward, wincing when he pulled the healing muscles in his back. Another swallow of rum was the only medicine he needed right now, the pain meds would put him on his ass. “I hurt you. Badly. I did things that… You shouldn’t let a man like me within a hundred feet of you.”

“I don’t care,” she muttered into her glass as she drank again.

“You don’t care? What the fuck, Lianna? You deserve better than that! Better than me!”

“I don’t WANT anyone but you!”

He may have raised his voice, but she yelled, anger flashing in her eyes and he leaned back on the couch, as his mouth hung open. Useless, and stunned.

“Fuck!” she shouted again, standing up and taking her glass with her as she walked away from him. “I thought you understood this. I thought you got it, but I guess I was wrong. Shit, maybe I am crazy.”

“Got what? What am I supposed to understand?” he asked, feeling more confused than he’d ever felt in his life.

“THIS!” Gesturing between the two of them, she let out a short scream and then thrust her hand into her hair, pouring the rum down her throat as she swallowed twice, three times. “Oh my God, I’ve lost my mind. I’ve really lost my mind.”

“Would you just explain whatever is going on in your head so I don’t have to play this guessing game? I promise you I’m terrible at it.” He waited until she faced him again and then he tilted his head toward the couch. “Come on, sit down and talk to me, angel. I like the way you look with the light behind you.”

For a moment she only stared, beautiful concern passing over her face, before finally returning to her seat. David shifted in the chair, trying to hide the way his cock hardened as the light slid across her thighs. He could taste her on his tongue again, from the hospital, from the cell — and all of it felt wrong. Being here felt wrong. She should hate him. Hate would be so much easier to handle than whatever this was.

Fuck. This was not what he was good at.

“Talk,” he commanded, and her body tensed.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, nursing the last of her drink.

He shrugged the shoulder that didn’t cause his back to twinge. “Why do you want me here?”

“Because you know everything and you won’t lie to me about it.” Lianna stared down at the glass in her lap, letting the shadows grow across her apartment floor as he waited to see if she’d say anything else.

“I won’t promise I know absolutely everything, but I know a lot.”

“You know more than I do.”

“You don’t know much, pr— angel.” Clearing his throat, he took another sip and sat up straighter, hoping she hadn’t caught the slip but the look in her eyes said she had.

“Why are you calling me angel?”

He chuckled. “You’re avoiding talking to me about what you think this is.” Gesturing between the two of them he set his glass on the coaster to refill it, and did the same for her, well aware they’d be drunk in no time if they kept this up — which may not be the worst end to the night.

“You first,” she taunted, lifting her chin as she started drinking again. The girl wanted to get drunk, but he couldn’t exactly blame her. She’d brought a nightmare home for a nightcap. Getting drunk was pretty much her only sane decision of the day.

“Alright, fine.” David took a breath and tried to think of how to phrase it without sounding like a psychopath. “I knew your father called you princess, so that’s what I called you. I did it on purpose to mock you, and because at first I saw you that way. You were the heir to his company, and you were wealthy, privileged.”

“Right.” She gestured around the room like it explained everything.

“I thought you knew. About what he was doing, about the Faure family, all of it. I thought you were in on it, his pretty little clone. Getting ready to fill his shoes.” David shook his head, remembering how the realization had slowly crept up on him that she had no idea why she was suffering, no idea of the terrible things her father had done. “When I finally figured out how innocent you were, I’d already done— shit.”

He drank more, deciding he agreed with her unspoken decision to just get trashed. It would be easier that way to make it through whatever the fuck this was.

Forcing a breath he said the words out loud, “I’d already taken you, fucked you, hurt you, done so many fucked up things to you and enjoyed them… I couldn’t believe — didn’t want to believe you’d been innocent in all of it. It made me the bad guy, ruined my whole revenge plan, tainted it. And then I couldn’t believe someone like you could belong to him.”

“I don’t belong to him,” she whispered, and he could hear the rage in her voice. Towards her father, not him, which was satisfying and somehow troubling at the same time.

“I know. I really don’t know why he kept it all from you. I don’t know why he hid it from—”

“Michael said it was because he wanted me focused on the company. Apparently my father thought if I knew about the family my goals would change, and he wanted me to learn the company first. Before he, you know, told me how he did it.” Her voice trailed off, eyes dropping to the sleek wood and glass table.

“Ah.” He paused, not sure what to say as he ran his fingers across the condensation, tracing patterns in the tiny water droplets. “Well, once I knew you were innocent I couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t stop thinking about it, about everything I’d done to you, everything I still wanted to do… and the image of a fallen angel just fit in my head. You had been so pure and so good, and I had pulled you down and defiled you. Ruined you, and then I went ahead and took away everything else because I’m a bastard.” David swallowed, and then eased the lump in his throat with more rum. “So, when you told me to stop calling you princess, I was fine with it. I’d been calling you angel in my head for a while.”

She was smiling when he looked at her again, the sun lower in the sky, painting the room in that red-orange haze that turned her hair to golden fire. “It’s weird, but I thought you looked angelic when I pulled off your mask. I’d been expecting something monstrous, but you reminded me of baroque paintings of—” Lianna stopped and rolled her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re surprised to find out you’re attractive.”

“Tell me more.” He grinned and she huffed, but she still laughed a little as she relaxed back against the cushions.

“Anyway, I thought the same thing. That after all the evil you’d done, you still looked angelic.”

“Even Lucifer was a fallen angel,” David replied.

“And we all know looks can be deceiving.” Lifting a shoulder she toyed with her glass, moving it between her fingers as it rested on one of her thighs. “But I know why you did everything you did, and I get it.”

He lifted an eyebrow, to the best of his ability, and stared at her for a second. “You get it?”

“Yeah.”

“You get why I fucking assaulted you? There’s no excuse for—”

“Would you stop trying to play the fucking martyr here? Christ!” Lianna groaned, and he growled under his breath. “Yes, I do understand why you did what you did. Was it fucked up? Yes. Was it wrong? Yeah, it was fucking wrong, but like you said you thought I was in on it all. You wanted to make me suffer, and you did.”

“This is exactly why you should just tell the cops everything. Shit, it’s why every day I expected them to show up! It’s why I gave you my fucking information!”

“But you stopped, David.”

“I stopped after I’d wrecked you, and even then I just got drunk and fucked you again. I could have let you leave that night, I could have opened the fucking doors, and instead I chased you down and dragged you back, and fucked you again.” He groaned, putting the glass down so he could rub his face with both hands. The conversation wasn’t helping at all, it was making it worse. Making him remember everything he’d done to her, and fuck if it wasn’t making him hard as a rock.

“This isn’t going to work.” He pushed himself out of the chair and took a few steps backwards towards the door. “Look, I appreciate you not going to the cops, prison would be terrible, but this is wrong. I don’t deserve your fucking forgiveness, I deserve for you to—”

“All I had my entire life were lies.” Lianna cut him off, standing up with the glass at her side. “They were pretty lies, beautiful lies, that gave me a beautiful life. I had money, privilege, and anything and everything I wanted. It was everything good, everything wonderful, and my father hid every shred of darkness from me. I didn’t know about his family, I didn’t know about what really built his company… I didn’t even know how my mother actually died.”

David flinched, remembering his own mother. “I know.”

“And you?” She took a step toward him, and then another. “You’re only four years older than me, so… what? You were seven when my father killed your mother? When my father alienated yours from the world and shut you both out?”

He felt his jaw clench tight, memories clashing inside him as he tried to stick to his new plan. The plan to get the fuck out of Lianna’s life and leave her in peace.

“And for all those years all you knew was your father’s pain, caused by one man. And you learned all of his secrets, every dark and fucked up thing. You grew up knowing every shred of evil he’d ever committed, and knowing that all of it had led to your mother’s death. That I had led to your mother’s death.” Lianna stepped closer to him, and he had the strongest urge to run from her as she moved nearer. “All you ever had was darkness, David, and all I ever had was light. Two sides of the same coin, and when you took me, when you did everything you did, you saw my light, and I saw your dark. That is what I meant. That’s what we have.”

Her fingers wrapped around his hand, and he didn’t pull away, which felt like a damnation all on its own, but when she stepped in and moved to her toes to kiss him and he leaned into it — that was when he resigned himself to whatever hell the universe decided to send him to after this life.

This was worth it, she was worth it.