The Devil's Favourite Obsession

”Who would want to destroy my life?”

She did not say it to Bill. She said it to the air between them. To the cold feeling on her spine. To the long row of nights that had brought her to a back table in a cafe on Hartwell Lane.

”So many times I kept thinking. Who could create a fake video of me. Who hates me that much.”

Bill did not interrupt.

”My classmates. The girls. The boys. They had hated me without reason for years. I could not understand why. There were other orphans in my year. No one bullied them. No one made a video of them. Only me.”

She paused.

”And then I thought of Nelson.”

”Nelson.”

”My old manager. He had asked me out. I had said no. He had not taken it well. For weeks after, he found small ways to humiliate me at work. I was sure for a time that he was behind the video. That it was his revenge for the rejection.”

She looked at Bill.

”You are saying someone else might be behind my deepfake video?”

”Yes.”

”Someone I might not even know?”

”Yes.”

The word did not arrive softly enough.

Bill lifted his hand. He moved it across the table toward her. The movement was meant as a comfort. Cixi saw the hand coming. She moved her own hand back by half an inch. Small enough that Bill could pretend not to have seen it.

He pretended.

She did not, even in this chaos, want to bring harm to the man across from her. The sniper had not been a joke. Cassian had not been joking when he said the word. Cixi did not know if there was a sniper on a roof in Hartwell Lane. She did not know if there was a man in a car. She only knew that she did not want to be the reason another professional in her life had to stop meeting her eyes.

Bill withdrew his hand.

”You need to be careful, Miss McLore.”

”I know.”

”The person behind the video has, I am almost certain, already guessed we are trying to find him. The hacker’s exit told them as much. I cannot say what he will do next. It is easier to fight an enemy you know. It is harder when the enemy has no face.”

Cixi sat with the sentence.

She turned it over in her mind the way a person turns a coin in their hand to see the other side.

It is harder when the enemy has no face.

”Cixi.”

”Yes.”

”We need to go public about the video. To get help from the government. That is the only way I can protect you. And it is the only way I can get the Crime Department to investigate properly. But only if you want to.”

Cixi’s mind reeled. The scenarios began to lay themselves out like cards on a table.

If she went public, the media would be behind her in a day. They would not stay polite. They would dig. They would find every photograph that had ever been taken of her. They would find every job she had ever held. They would inevitably find the address of the suite at the Crown Estate where she had slept the previous night.

The Crown family name would be tarnished.

Cassian.

What will Cassian think of me?

What if no one believes me?

A small shiver ran down her spine at the thought of Cassian’s disappointed eyes. The thought was disproportionate to the rest of the worry. The thought was also the most insistent.

She had started to shake one leg under the table without noticing. She caught the movement. She stopped it. She lifted her chin and met Bill’s eyes. ”Give me some time to think.”

Bill nodded. ”But the sooner we take action, the better.”

”Yes. I will. I need to think this through.” She drew in a small breath. ”Thank you, Officer Bill. For helping me so much. And — please tell the hacker I am sorry. On my behalf.”

Bill nodded again.

She was not in any mood to eat or drink. Bill had ordered her an ice-cold lemonade before she had arrived, and she could not refuse. She lifted the glass. She sipped. The lemonade was sharp and cold, and lifted her chest by a small, careful fraction.

Bill paid the bill and offered to drop her off at home.

She declined. She said she would take the bus.

She walked out of the cafe and crossed to the bus stop.

The black SUV pulled up to the kerb before the bus arrived.

Ofcourse it did.

Mark stepped out of the front passenger seat. He walked around the bonnet. He opened the back door for her without a word.

This time, she did not delay.

She slid into the car.

The door closed behind her.

The first thing that hit her was the scent.

Warm. comfort. Alluring. Masculine. Cedar and tobacco. The same scent that had been on the silk pillow she had woken up under. The same scent here in the back seat of the car.

The scent was a man.

Cassian Crown was sitting beside her.

She stared at him before she could stop herself.

He looked at her. His eyes found her pale grey eyes and held them. A small smile sat on his mouth. The same small, slow smile he had given her over the phone, except now she could see it.

He looked delighted.

Cixi’s eyes dropped from his eyes to his mouth.

His lips.

The lips she had not allowed herself in the morning to think about. The lips that had been on her in the dream. The lips that had crossed the line in her body and had not given her body permission to stop reacting to them since.

The heat moved up her neck and into her cheeks.

She could not stop looking at his mouth.

Her own weird brain, in the small bright corner that always did this, chose this exact second to remind her of the terrace.

The dream.

The walk to the railing afterward, because she could not sit still in the bedroom.

The push.

The fall.

And then blank....

If Olga was right — if Cassian had been the one who caught her — then the question Cixi had been refusing to ask herself all morning had only one answer. He had been there. In the garden. Under the railing.

How?

How was he in the bedroom in the dream and in the garden under the terrace at the same time?

Had it been a dream?

Had he done — in the dream that had not been a dream — the things to her that no man had ever done to her?

She pressed her thighs together.

Her breathing came in small, uneven catches.

The car was moving.

Cassian was watching her.

He lifted one finger. He brushed the pad of his thumb across her cheek where it had turned red.

”You are burning.”

Cixi brought her own hand up to the other cheek. She pressed her palm to her skin as though checking her temperature for a fever.

”Impossible. I had a very cold lemonade.” Cixi didn’t know what nonsense she was talking. But Cassian had a way of making her feel more than nervous...

Cassian did not answer. Without warning, he leaned in.

He pressed a single, brief, soft kiss to her lips. A kiss that arrived and was gone before her brain had organised what to do with it.

Her stomach fluttered. Her toes curled involuntarily inside her shoes. She cursed him, silently and at great length, for a kiss that short.

Cassian had not missed the curl of her toes. The press of her thighs. The catch in her breath. The single second her eyes had spent on his mouth before she remembered to look anywhere else.

He sat back in his seat.

”You taste of lemon.”

Cixi’s eyes shot to his face.

”I drank lemonade.”

”It was good lemonade.” Cassian was looking at her lips.

Cixi clenched her hand. She tried to convince her heart to beat at a normal pace.

As if that were not enough, Cassian added, ”I would like to taste the same lemonade once more.”

Cunning Cassian, Cixi muttered under her breath.

”How are you?”

The sudden change of question confused her for a small second. She came out of it.

”I am ok.”

”You do not look scared after you were pushed from the terrace.”

”I — I do not know what happened. It felt as if I became unconscious the moment I fell.” She looked into his eyes. ”What were you doing at the Palace? And did you come to my room yesterday?”

”Your room?” Cassian raised one brow. He was looking at her in amusement.

Cixi cleared her throat. ”I meant your room.”

Cassian grinned. ”Our room. And why do you insist that I was in the bedroom with you?”

Cixi’s head turned immediately to the front of the car. To Mark. To the driver. To see if they had heard what Cassian had just said.

They pretended not to have heard.

Cassian followed her eyes.

”I am going to make you shameless.”

Cixi’s jaw dropped. ”I am fine the way I am.”

Cassian pulled her into his lap. He leaned down to the nape of her neck.

”Are you sure? You are missing so much. I do not like that you are missing the fun part.”

Cixi gulped. She tried not to look affected. She whispered, ”There are people here.”

”I do not care.” His mouth was at her neck. ”They will not dare to look at us.”

His whisper sent a vibration through her body.