Not for the first time, she wished the damn SUV didn�t have a privacy screen separating them from the driver. Then again, the types of guys Rudy hired�the same types her father had hired�were paid not to notice. Not to interfere. Not to help, even when someone begged for it.

Charley did her best to remain still, to take up as little space as possible.

�and above all, don�t get noticed�

Even more than the threat of violence, this was the part she hated. Biting her tongue. Holding her breath. Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, a little more each time.

One day, she might disappear entirely.

Fifteen minutes passed. Thirty. They were taking the long way home, a route undoubtedly planned to keep her in a state of constant unease. Charley longed to reach for her phone, to send a text to Sasha, but she didn�t dare move.

She closed her eyes and tried to relax, tried to remind herself that this was all part of Rudy�s game. She�d just started to nod off when the bastard finally decided to speak, his voice so loud and abrupt she nearly yelped.

"Well," Rudy said sharply. "I guess the outing wasn�t a total loss after all."

A slow smile crept across his face, bringing with it a cold dread that lodged itself right in her belly.

"How do you figure?" she asked. "The place was a dead end. I searched the whole thing."

"Sometimes, what looks like a dead end is actually a well-hidden doorway to something much more prosperous."

He reached over and patted her thigh, holding her gaze another beat before leaning back against the headrest and closing his eyes.

The conversation was over.

Charley didn�t need to ask what he�d meant.

The doorway to prosperity was Dorian Redthorne.

And the powerful, sexy, panty-melting gazillionaire who�d given her the most intense orgasms of her life, bought her a jumbo hot dog, and set her whole world on fire had no idea what kind of trouble he�d just invited in for tea.

In Dorian�s mind, there ought to have been a sacredness to the tables around which families gathered to share their meals. He�d never understood how people could so readily dine in the same spaces where they�d played out all their domestic tragedies�news of deaths and divorces, neighborhood gossip, a call from the doctor about an abnormal test result. Arguments about money and religion and sex�too much, not enough. Punishments meted out to errant children�extra chores, a grounding, a beating. Threats.

For Dorian, the blackest, most brutal night of his life had unfolded in the dining room at the manor in West Sussex over an otherwise perfectly pleasant meal of roasted quail. Though the battered remains of the Redthorne family had later emigrated to New York for a fresh start, his father had painstakingly recreated their original family home here in Annandale-on-Hudson, right down to the embossed ceilings and cherry wood wainscoting. And while his brothers had scattered across the country and his father traveled the world in service to his own crown, hardly ever stepping foot in the manor he�d erected, Dorian had made Ravenswood his home, ensuring it was updated as modern advances allowed�plumbing, electricity, everything he needed to live in total comfort.

There were only two areas he avoided�his father�s private quarters, and the dining room.

The few times he�d caught sight of it through the ornately carved pocket doors, all he saw was the blood splatter. All he heard were the screams.

So tonight, while his three brothers shared a late meal at the massive oak dining table, the king himself remained sequestered in his study before a roaring fire, nursing a glass of scotch in one hand, a scrap of black lace in the other, wondering if there was enough alcohol or pussy in the world to dull the sharp blade of the past.

He sipped his scotch, then pressed the lace to his mouth and closed his eyes, chasing much more pleasant memories.

Ah, Charlotte. I never should�ve let you go�

A knock on the study door tore him from his thoughts, and he tucked the panties back into his pocket, calling for the intruder to enter.

Intruders, he realized. All three of them glided into the room, the sight of his brothers standing side by side for the first time in five decades twisting the blade a little deeper. JrNovels.com