She waited until Joshua and Joaquin had turned the corner of the hallway before she approached Elijah’s office. She stopped abruptly as Elijah’s words penetrated. His tone was low. Furious. Scathing.

“How far do you expect me to take this fucking charade, Drake?” he demanded.

Her breath caught in her throat and she pressed her back into the wall as if she could become part of the house. Everything in her stilled. A charade? What charade? What was Elijah talking about? Even outside his office, the air vibrated with anger.

“You take it as far as you can before you’re so sick you can’t take one more minute. That’s how far,” Drake said in a quiet, steady voice.

“That’s easy for you to say. I’ve got her in my house. In my fucking bed. What more do you want? A ring on her finger and a target on her back?” Elijah snarled.

Siena bit down hard on her lip and pressed a hand to her mouth to keep any sound from escaping. A charade. She was the charade. She was in his fucking bed. How could she have let herself be that stupid? The worst I ever had. Don’t know how to suck cock. Never once had he indicated he wanted her to go down on him. Not one single time. Didn’t all men like that? He hadn’t, because he knew she was terrible at it and this was all a charade. A terrible, deceitful charade. A sob welled up and she choked it down, but tears swam in her eyes. So many she couldn’t see for a minute.

“The idea is still sound, Elijah. Nothing’s changed.”

Elijah erupted into a string of Spanish. There was silence for a brief moment. “The world sees we’re forming an empire and this was retaliation.”

“What the hell did you think was going to happen? You knew.”

The world sees we’re forming an empire. He was talking about her grandfather’s business. Rafe Cordeau’s disappearance had left a vacancy in the underworld and now, with her grandfather’s death, there was another huge vacancy. Elijah Lospostos had made the world believe he, as the head of the Lospostos family, was taking over that vacancy. He had done that so easily by bringing her into his home and into his bed.

“Yeah, I knew what was going to happen, but you were supposed to handle it.” That was pure accusation. Snarled. Elijah’s voice had gone so low he sounded like he was growling. The hair on her body rose and she shivered.

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy. Everyone has to make sacrifices for this to work. You know that.”