The Devil’s Keepsake by Somme Sketcher

Poppy

It’s a blur of black-clad guards, marble floors, and glass walls, then we’re in a sprawling office overlooking the whole of downtown Boston.

Sensory overload. I haven’t seen, touched, or felt this much since Lorcan Quinn drugged me and tossed me in his Museum.

I take careful steps around the office, drinking in the sleek black desk, and the smashed window of a drink’s cabinet, all while Lorcan darkens the doorway, staring at me.

“What happened?”

“I got thirsty.”

Footsteps coming from down the hall make me flinch. I’m not on solid ground here; the bedroom in the museum has become somewhat comfortable, in a sick and twisted way. The familiarity of every antique, floorboard creak, and cabinet has given me a false sense of security. It’s instinctive to have my wits about me in foreign territory.

Lorcan’s cousin appears by his side, staring at me. Antoin.

“What is she doing here?” he says, boring those amber eyes into my face. I lower my gaze, knowing that it’s not a question he wants me to answer. Just off the brief encounter I had with him before, I took an instant disliking to him. He’s cold. Unsettlingly so, and there’s no denying the tension that lingers in the space between him and Lorcan.

Lorcan’s words are laced with a challenge. “Looking over the books. Problem?”

“No women allowed,” Antoin growls.

“No women we know are at Stanford studying business,” he shoots back.

When Antoin visibly recoils, a sense of satisfaction washes over me. In my new twisted reality, I like how quickly Lorcan jumps to my defense. Protects me.

“Well, the Peruvian’s are in the boardroom. We are all waiting for you,” Antoin says, pinning me with one last glare before stalking back down the hall.

Lorcan turns his attention back to me. “Eileen will be in shortly with everything you need.” Then he’s gone.

I sink into the plush leather seat behind the desk. I’m daydreaming about what it’d feel like to have this much power for less than a few seconds before an older woman stomps through the door, a sour expression on her face and a stack of files in her hands. “All the accounts for the last four years,” she says, casting a wary eye over my thin T-shirt and summer skirt, before stomping out the same way she came.

Rude bitch.

But I’m not brave enough to mutter it, even under my breath, in case there are cameras.

Turning my attention to the stack in front of me, my heart soars for the first time in weeks. Genuine excitement for something to do, numbers to crunch, and data to pour over. And I’m not stuck between the four walls of the Museum!

Time passes in a blur of yellow and green highlighters and tapping numbers into the calculator I found in the top drawer of the desk. It feels so good to use my brain, instead of mindlessly gawking out of the museum window, or flicking through the same four books I’ve read a million times.

I’m so lost in the accounts that when Lorcan knocks against the door frame, I jump. He’s staring down at me in amusement, hands in his pockets. “Having fun?” He strides to the drink cabinet and pours himself a whiskey.

I can’t help but grin. I am having fun. This is what I love to do, it’s what I’m good at. But I blink the blurriness from my eyes and rearrange my features. Lorcan Quinn isn’t going to get the satisfaction of knowing that I’m enjoying myself.

“I’m enjoying the fact that your accounts are an absolute shit show, yes.”

His amused smile hardens into a scowl. “Meaning?”

“Come here.”

Our eyes lock, his narrowing. Yeah, I never thought I’d be beckoning the Devil to come closer either, but here we are. Suddenly, the penny drops and I realize why he’s regarding me with such suspicion. I tug open the top drawer of his desk and pull out the pliers. “Here,” I snap, letting them clatter on the desk. “I wouldn’t even know how to use them.”

Without saying a word, he rounds the desk and hovers over my shoulder, filling my nostrils with his manly oak scent and filling my stomach with butterflies.

I swallow the lump in my throat and zone in on the papers in front of me. “Look,” I say, running my finger over the names highlighted in green. “These are the guys that haven’t paid you for three months or more. You know that, right?”

When I glance up for an answer, I’m thrown off at how close he is, so I turn back to the paper, heat rising in my cheeks. “And, uh—” I tap the names highlighted in yellow. “You collect ten percent from these guys, and they’ve been paying just fine. But all of their profits have increased by over one-hundred-and-thirty percent in the last three years. Yet you are only still taking ten percent based on their old earnings.”

“Meaning?” Lorcan repeats, his voice low and gruff in my ear.

I decide to put it bluntly. “Meaning you’re being ripped off.”

He slams his palms against the desk and the sudden noise makes me shriek.

“Sorry,” he growls, stalking towards the floor-to-ceiling window.

I watch his broad outline against the sunset, the golden rays skipping over the roofs of the city and illuminating his large silhouette. The king of Boston, looking down at all that he owns. All that his family has taken by force.

I should be reveling in the fact that he’s getting ripped off. So I don’t know why a pang of sadness streaks across my heart.

Before I can question myself, I join him at the window.

After a few moments, he speaks. “My brother controlled the finances.”

“The one who—”

“Yes.”

“And now it’s all up to you.”

“Numbers aren’t exactly my forte.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I take in the hard lines of his face. His ticking jaw. Maybe it’s the forgiving glow of the sun setting. Maybe I’m delirious from being let out of the Museum. But I don’t see the Devil, I see a broken man.

“So, what is your forte?” I all but whisper.

“Breaking kneecaps.”

I snort. The feeling of pity is gone as quickly as it came.

After a few beats, he says, “And ruining my father’s reputation.”

He lifts the tumbler to his lips, closing his eyes as he takes a large gulp.

I don’t know how I think I am, taking it from his hands and setting it on the desk behind us. And I don’t know what’s got into him, letting me do it.

“I’m sure you haven’t ruined his reputation,” I say softly.

His Adam’s apple bobs. “When they were alive, all I did was spend the family’s money on pointless antiques and hookers and vacations. Now they are gone, I’m still hemorrhaging money, only in a different way.”

My voice is firmer this time. “If you don’t like the cards dealt to you, then change them.”

He turns to study me with an overwhelming intensity. Like he’s seeing me for the first time. “I dealt your cards for you. You ran away to the other side of the country but it didn’t change your fate.”

Bitterness washes over me.

When he closes the gap between us and crushes his lips against mine, it happens so fast that I almost choke on my own breath.

My bitterness becomes bittersweet. I melt. I melt into his soft lips with their sweet whiskey taste and melt into the hard lines of his body. My hand curls around the lapel of his collar, pulling him even closer—needing him closer. That voice in my head, the screaming voice that constantly scolds my body for feeling reacting to his touch, is strangely silent. Or maybe I can’t hear it over the thumping of my heart against my chest or the ringing in my ears.

The passion floods through my body, electrifying every nerve under my skin.

I don’t even hate how I need him, how I crave more of his lips and the touch of his rough hands tangled into my hair.

When he pulls away, I’m dizzy, high off the sudden dopamine hit.

He lets me stagger backward, and I rub my finger over the burning trail his lips left on mine. I catch my breath, looking up at my captor from under my lashes.

His chest rises and falls, and his blistering gaze scorches every inch of my skin. It’s a more intense version of the way he looked at me the other night, right before he decided not to claim my innocence. A tangle of confusion and anger and sadness.

The tension rises, hot and heavy and suffocating between us.

If I don’t break it, I’ll drown. “I—”

“I have more meetings,” he says, dragging his eyes from me and wiping the taste of me from the corner of his mouth. “My driver will take you back to the estate with a full security detail.”

His shoulder brushes mine as he stalks to the door. “Lorcan—”

“Miss Murphy,” he interrupts, stopping under the threshold. He regards me with dark eyes. The fury in them reminds me that he truly is the devil. “Don’t.”

“Don’t?” I choke out, searching his face for any semblance of the man who just kissed me like I was the only woman on the planet.

He nods, curt and assertive. “Don’t,” he says again through gritted teeth.

Only one word, loaded with the heaviest threat of all.

Don’t fall in love with me.