I wanted Emilia.

I wanted to kiss her whenever I felt like it.

I wanted to mark her in a million different ways.

I’d told Rosie the truth. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was staying in New York until my dad died, until Josephine became penniless, and until I banged Emilia like I’d wanted to when I was eighteen.

In the elevator up to the penthouse, my phone pinged with a message from Dean.

Just a friendly reminder—I’ll be coming back to New York soon. If I were you, I’d run now before I get to you.

I didn’t even grace his bullshit with a reply. Just walked into his apartment, with its tinted floor-to-ceiling windows, and started packing his shit for him, throwing his expensive suits into his designer garment bags.

We weren’t switching back anytime soon. Not until I got what I wanted.

He was staying in LA.

Whether he liked it or not.

ROSIE SHOOK HER HEAD, HER eyes following my every movement. She didn’t need to do anything—I knew what she had to say.

“Shut up about it,” I warned, cleaning the area around the easel and giving her my back while she sat at the dining table and watched me in my painting corner.

She kept staring at me, not touching her soup.

I didn’t regret almost kissing Vicious. For once in my life, I hadn’t played it safe. I wasn’t cautious. I didn’t paint my life in oil colors. I’d reached for acrylic, quick to dry, and settled on it—whatever it was I wanted with him.

“Fine,” Rosie bit out. “But for the record, I warned you.”

She slid a manila envelope across the white dining table. I opened it and stared at the money, ignoring her while counting it. Instead of feeling happy about selling a painting, I was filled with unease.

Was I about to make a huge mistake by messing around with Vicious? Probably. But I couldn’t deny myself what I wanted, and we weren’t kids anymore.

This was happening.

He was going to use me, and I was going to use him back.

It was a mistake of epic proportions, I knew that.

And just like any huge mistake, payback was going to be painful.

Sadly, it was a price I was willing to pay.

The next morning, I arrived early at the office. I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted everything to be in perfect order.

For the first time, Vicious’s coffee and breakfast were waiting for him on his desk.

I closeted myself inside my office—two doors down from his—and booked Rosie a plane ticket to San Diego. I wanted her to spend Christmas with our parents. Truly, there was nothing I wanted more than to tag along with her and make it an epic family week, but one last-minute ticket was expensive enough, and I needed to be financially cautious. In any case, I was certain Vicious wouldn’t give me the time off.

Sending Rosie to the other side of the country had nothing to do with her warning last night. Right.

After I sent her a text with the surprise ticket, I sorted through Vicious’s email. I responded to requests from charity organizers, cleaned up the junk and flagged messages from investors that he needed to answer himself. His inbox was so career-focused it was almost sad. There was nothing personal except some banter with Jaime and Trent and a clipped question about the merger from Dean. I wasn’t snooping. It was part of my job description to keep his inbox in order.

It wasn’t a part of my job description to check out his Facebook interactions and read through every single exchange he’d had with a female in the last six months, but I took the liberty of doing that too because…well, because I was just hard-working like that.

I yelped and jumped to my feet when I realized he was standing at my door, staring me down like I was his breakfast.

“Trying to watch porn in the office again?” he said while I blushed. “We have security measures for that. Those websites are blocked.”

I let out a nervous laugh and brushed my hair from my forehead. He looked too good to be so evil. Vicious was in another one of his dark suits, but he’d discarded the jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing muscular forearms peppered with a smattering of that LA sun and those scars that made my heart beat erratically.

The only thing I could think about was how we’d almost kissed last night and how I’d silently cursed Rosie while I fixed her soup for her in the kitchen after I’d had to pull away from him.

I quirked an eyebrow at him and leaned back. “Your IT people are doing a terrible job. I’ve been watching snuff all morning.”

He laughed, and his amusement looked genuine. Rare and brief like cherry blossoms in the spring. But just like the flowers, it died quickly.

“I didn’t peg you for a kink girl, Emilia.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “Whatever floats your boat, I’d be happy to be captain.”

“Tacky.” I pretended to gag. “And now I’m ninety-nine percent sure you are a virgin.”

I was teasing him, and I didn’t care anymore. Yes, he was a damaged person, but I now knew there might be reasons for that. No, I wouldn’t ever forgive him for what he’d done to me. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have some fun with him until I dug out of my financial mess. Might as well take him up on every single thing he offered while I could. Because that’s essentially what we were doing. Using one another.

Vicious’s eyes licked my body head to toe, slow and taunting, then landed on my face. “Have your ass in my office in ten minutes. We need to tie up a few loose ends with the merger.”