Chapter Ten

Ursin Miller

Anya and I didn't have our meeting. How could we after I risked everything in the elevator? For her. And for my demented need to control her. But she gave in to me, and I had to wonder, was she the one in control and not me?

There was another layer of complication. I ruined her family. Indirectly, of course. Her father's choices ruined her family. And mine. My mother had a broken heart until the day she died five years ago, as would I.

I thought of these dark things while waiting in my library for Anya. A glance at my watch and I noted the time. Seven in the evening. I'd been waiting here for hours for her, scripting the conversation. The thing was, this time, I wasn't sure what she'd say. I always knew what people would say, and I always crafted my responses. I crafted ways to get people to speak. It was a skill that served me well as an attorney. This was why I was the youngest DA in the county's—and state's—history.

But now, I felt like a neophyte. Like a wobbling deer out of its mother's womb figuring out the world it had been spat into.

The doorbell rang, and all my ruminations, my inner voice flagellation stopped. I turned my gaze to my opened laptop. There, I'd found the home monitoring app and there she was, standing at my front door. Anya wasn't in her stupid tie-dyed maxi-dress as she was earlier. She'd changed into something plain, fitted. Jeans or denim shorts, I couldn't tell. She wore them for me.

I stood from my desk chair and walked on bare feet to the door. Like Anya, I also wasn't in my lecture clothes. Jeans and a t-shirt gave me the freedom to move, though my blazer was my armor. What weapon could she unleash on me to require the protection? Not nearly the painful truth I would unleash on her. She should have worn her fighting clothes.

At the door, I paused a moment. My heart thrummed in my chest, and I took in a deep breath. Setting my jaw, I unlocked and opened the door.

I took her wrist and pulled her inside. "I can't have anyone see you coming here. Did you park down the street like I told you?"

I closed the door and relocked it. God, I was so paranoid. But I should be. This was wrong. We teetered on ruin, especially me and my career, yet I trusted her implicitly. I truly was insane.

"No one saw me, Mr. Miller."

"For fuck's sake." I raked a hand through my hair, still damp from the third shower I'd taken since I arrived home at two in the afternoon. "I've made you fucking come."

"Sir?" Her dark eyes widened, cheeks pink, getting pinker.

"When we're alone, call me Ursin."

She dropped her gaze. Goddammit. Why did she let me bully her? Jesus. We bullied each other. Except she was more nefarious. She terrorized my mind and my emotions. I merely taunted her physically. She proved she brushed off my words as if they had no affect.

She wasn't fucking scared of me. She knew exactly what she was doing. And I was obsessed with her.

"Ursin…" My name was obscene on her plump, glossy lips.

Oh, she wore makeup just for me. Little bitch.

Anya stepped closer, her lean, tanned legs flexing beneath the tiny denim shorts. I was right about the shorts. She touched the V point of my V-neck t-shirt, and her eyes lingered there for a moment. "Maybe I should call you Sin?"

I grabbed her finger, stopping her. If I didn't, those denim shorts would be on the floor, as would every garment she wore. And her knees.

"Don't."

Frowning, she pulled back her hand and dropped it to dangle at her side like the other. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Jesus. I didn't know what I was doing. But I turned and walked down the entryway, spine straight, head up as if I knew. "Follow me."

Once we were in the library, I marched toward my minibar and poured two fingers of scotch in a glass.

"Do you want a drink?"

Anya watched me, her legs crossing on the club chair facing my desk. My gaze moved to her feet. No sport sandals. Instead, she wore plain black flip-flops, the straps delicate, and her toenails painted bright pink. Damn. I looked away, back at my drink.

"No," she finally said. "I don't drink."

Right. I remembered her saying as much at the club during our first real dangerous incident. "So, it's true then."

"I won't lie to you, Ursin." She paused. "I wouldn't."

I took in her words. But she had been lying to me. After I replaced the crystal topper on the decanter, I walked back to my desk and sat, facing her. In her overt nervousness, she smiled, but it faded.

"Get real with me, Anya." I drank, surveying her, ignoring all my urges to take her in my arms, and kiss her senseless. My primal need to be inside her and fuse with her was a hair-trigger away from being reality. But we needed to say the things we weren't saying before anything else could be explored.

She dropped her gaze, the color then draining from her face. And I just waited.

"I know you, Mr. Mill—Ursin. I mean, I've known of you for a long time." Her eyes shifted up and met mine. "I know you were part of the DA's team that put away my father, Gomez Montelongo, for life. But I didn't know it was you until after I'd already signed up for the summer session lecture. I thought another professor was going to teach it."

Every word she said was truth. I could attest to the validity. And yes, I was supposed to teach the afternoon lecture class but was switched last minute to the earlier one.

She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with my silence. I used the sit-back-and-listen tactic many times. People normally hung themselves when given all the space to talk.

"My mother didn't want me involved in the case or anything to do with my father's trial, so I lived with my grandmother the whole time."

I took another sip.

"And the thing is, I think you knew it was me, and that was why you've been an absolute dick to me from the first moment we met in class." Her lips pressed together, though she might as well have been smirking.

She fucking knew I knew. And she was right. About everything.

"Am I right?" Her voice wasn't timid then.

But did she know he killed my father? Where was that in her confession?

"Your father was a bad guy, Anya."

"I know." Her eyes dropped again, and her strength of moments ago was gone. "I hate him for what he did."

I leaned back, my whole body firing up. Did she really know what hate felt like?

"That's why I want to be a criminal investigative journalist. To expose bad guys like my father." She uncrossed her leg and moved to the edge of the chair. "That's why I need to pass your class. I have a job lined up, but it depends on maintaining my 3.5 GPA."

"Have you visited your father in prison?" I couldn't focus on the classwork when I needed to know her ties to her father. I needed to know if she really hated him for what he did.

She shook her head. "No. I'll never see him. I changed my last name because I don't want to be associated with him. He's dead to me."

"Do you really want a dead father?" I furrowed my brows.

"He's better off dead, but that's too good for Gomez. He should live and think about what he's done until he takes his last breath." Her jaw clenched, and her face was stone cold.

I knew the look of hate, and I knew the sound of truth. Anya didn't lie. And now I had to relieve myself of my truth no matter how dangerous or insane I sounded.

"You know what I want?" I met her gaze, heat growing between us. She nodded. Yes, she knew. But I wanted to say it to her, let the words sink in. "I want you in my bed."