a degree so his narrow eyes looked down his straight nose at her. “How much do you want?”
She dropped her hands to the sides of her dress, palms gently cupped, fingers pointed, but relaxed. No fidgeting.
“This isn’t blackmail.”
“If it looks like blackmail and smells like blackmail...” he scoffed darkly.
“I don’t want it to be,” she clarified, making herself hold her ground despite the twitches of alarm pulsing in her limbs. “I’ve had ample opportunities to steal. I enjoy this position of trust with your grandmother because I’ve never betrayed her. I’ve worked for her in good faith, not to repay my mother’s debt, but to thank her for removing me from my mother’s power.”
“And you no longer owe her that allegiance?”
“I don’t owe it to you.”
His expression didn’t change, but the scent of danger stung her nostrils, making her want to skitter away out of self-preservation.
“Not yet,” she allowed, fighting to keep him from seeing how unsure and frightened she really was.
“Oh, might I earn the privilege of your holding my fortune for ransom? Do tell me how.”
That was sarcasm. She could tell.
Saying nothing, she took refuge in her long-ago training, tucked her heel into the arch of her other foot and squared her shoulders. A smile of any kind was beyond her in this moment, but she kept her expression relaxed, stood tall with a long neck. She tucked in her butt and did her best to project self-assurance and limitless patience.
“What kind of person are you, Luli of the deceitful intelligence?” He sounded scathing, but as his gaze swept down, she thought it caught on her chest, lingered.
She became aware of the weight of cotton across the swells of her breasts. A prickly, heavy sensation made her ultraconscious that she had breasts. A tight, pinched sensation hit her nipples, making heat flush from the pit of her stomach up to her cheeks for no reason at all.
When his gaze came back to hers, something flickered in his expression. Curiosity and something avid. Luli had known about him for years and had studied him online in the same way she read facts about bears and deadly vipers, without quite believing such a creature existed because she’d never seen one with her own eyes. Even so, she knew she ought to be terrified if she ever came face-to-face with one.
She was terrified.
But she continued to stand there. Had to. She held her ground because she had no other options.
“I propose that I work for you in the same capacity as I have for your grandmother.”
“Free?”
“More or less.” She cleared the strain from her throat. She had known this would be a tough sell, given the anvil she had positioned over all that he was poised to inherit. “I would assist in the transition at no cost to you in exchange for other considerations.”
“I have no reason to trust you. Clean up your mess—” He nodded at the laptop. “—and your debt to my grandmother is zero. You’ll be free to go.”
The floor seemed to fall away from beneath her.
“Where?” She carefully modulated her tone so her fear of abandonment wasn’t obvious. “I have no money. If I wanted to live as a refugee, I would have run away years ago.” She was so tired of being powerless. Of feeling as though she owed her very existence to someone else.
“You want to stay here?” He folded his arms, signaling his refusal. “No. I will take control of her fortune, if only to knock your fingers off it. You are no longer needed, Luli.”
“I know that. Why do you think I’m doing this?” It came out with the fervent anger she had sublimated for years, emotions flaring so hot, her eyes burned.
“What do you want then?”
The things she wanted were so far out of reach, she had stopped thinking about them long ago. Love, security, a place where she belonged...those were luxuries. She had to focus on what she needed—a means to support herself.
“I want to move to one of the modeling capitals. New York, preferably.”
“You want to be a model?” He said it with such disparagement, she let her weight shift onto her back foot.
“You don’t think I’m pretty enough?” Panic edged in from all sides. This was all she had!
“Why haven’t you done it already? Singapore has a thriving fashion district.”
“Of Asian models. My look doesn’t fit this market. It’s not a profession where you walk in a door and get a job anyway. You have to build up to it, provide headshots and find an agent.”
He waved at the laptop. “You have options. Why haven’t you made inroads?” He sounded incredulous.
“Your grandmother couldn’t run her business without me. Not the way she liked to run it.” Her conscience grew heavy with the familial obligation she had alluded to a few minutes ago. “And she would never have forgiven me. She was furious with your mother for leaving without her permission.”
The sudden flash in his eyes told her that particular topic was off-limits.
She resisted the urge to tangle her hands together and wring them.
“I’ve been struggling these last few years, aware that she needed me, but also aware that the two advantages I possess—youth and looks—won’t be available to me forever. If I’m going to exploit them, it has to be now.”
“Don’t overlook that cunning brain of yours.”
“Much as I would prefer to be valued for my intellect, who will hire someone without accreditation or even a home and a computer of her own? The work I do for your grandmother isn’t transferable to anyone except you. And my use to you has a very short shelf life. I know that.”
She sighed, trying to keep hold of her composure as she continued.
“Her passing has forced me to secure my future as quickly and expediently as possible. Models with the right look can work anywhere. They’re paid well and agencies help with the travel and residency paperwork.”
“You just pointed out that no one walks into that career.”
“It depends who escorts me, doesn’t it?” She was way out on her wobbly limb now, grip slipping and the whole tree swaying in hurricane-force wind.
His brows went up. She’d watched those raptor wings lift like that several times, expressing his astonishment at the audacious mouse in his sharp-taloned foot, chittering no matter how hard he squeezed her.
He smiled faintly. “I wondered when we were going to get to an offer like that.”
The tip of his finger grazed her temple in a caress that tucked a stray hair behind her ear.
Any further words she might have found became tangled in her throat because his fingertip continued that nascent caress into the hollow beneath her ear, then stroked the soft flesh beneath her jawbone, tilting up her chin before she had realized she was obeying his silent command.
“Pleasant as that inducement promises to be...” His voice grated sensually across her nerve endings. “I won’t be persuaded to let you handle my grandmother’s money. Or me.”
He dropped his touch, sending a chill through her whole body.
* * *
Dragging his gaze off the temptation of her plump, shiny, parted lips took every ounce of Gabriel’s well-honed discipline. He controlled all that he did because he controlled himself. Giving in to impulse, especially the sexual kind, was juvenile.
But the flare of yearning