The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Fifteen percent. The number moved around the table like a current. Faces that had been openly contemptuous went quiet and recalculated. A share transfer of that size didn’t happen carelessly.

”Fifteen percent. Of Crown Capital. Transferred to a woman none of them had heard of a month ago?!” Tamara exclaimed.

”It meant Cassian had been preparing to bring her in formally, permanently, before any of them had been consulted.” Michael replied to Tamara.

No one at the table uttered another word, though the looks directed at Cixi shifted from contempt into something colder and more considered.

Michael turned to Cixi then, and his voice carried the particular evenness of a man who has never needed volume to make a threat land. ”You are at this table because of those shares. Nothing else. My expectation is that once the child is born, you return fourteen percent to my name and keep one for yourself and your child.” He paused before continuing. ”And if you think you can play me and mess with my family business, let tell you something — I have been in this game longer than you have been alive, Cixi. I would think carefully before testing my patience in a wrong way.”

Was he for real? Cixi couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t he told her that morning he believed Cassian was alive? Then how could he threaten her like this in front of the whole family?

What was he playing at? Why did it feel like there was more to this than Michael was letting anyone see?

Cixi held his gaze across the length of the table. The candlelight flickered between them. She could feel the eyes of every person in the room without needing to look.

Then she smiled. Not warmly. The kind of smile that arrives when someone has just confirmed exactly what you suspected about them.

”Mr. Crown.” Her voice sounded almost conversational, but her eyes held a fire. ”You are sitting at the head of your own table, in front of your entire family, threatening a pregnant woman over shares your son chose to transfer...!” She tilted her head slightly. ”Does that not strike you as slightly beneath you?”

The room went very still for one no one talks like that with Michael Crown. He is the one who holds the power over his family members of forty people.

”I did not ask Cassian for those shares. I didn’t even know until this morning.” She kept her eyes on Michael as challenging him. ”When Cassian returns, the two of you can sort out whatever arrangement you like. I want a quiet life. I want to have this child and I want to be left in peace.... So save the speech for your son you didn’t care about when he went missing.”

The smile stayed.

Michael looked at her for a long moment. His expression didn’t change, which told her more than if it had.

Then a laughter echoed in the quiet dining room. Rafael laughed. Not a polite sound, one. But a genuine, full laugh that broke across the silence of the room like something dropped from a height. He leaned back in his chair and didn’t bother explaining himself.

Several heads turned toward him.

He just shook his head, still smiling, and reached for his wine.

”How about I marry Cixi McLore?”

Why did it sound as if Rafael was making an announcement?

Cixi coughed dryly.

What in the world was wrong with the Crown men?

Cixi looked across the table at Rafael with genuine bewilderment. He caught her gaze and returned it with a grin, completely unbothered by his own words showing his admiration for his own brother’s supposed fiancée at a table full of people who wanted her gone.

Rafael was watching Cixi as if she were a fire and finding it entertaining rather than dangerous.

The woman Olga beside Cixi hadn’t moved nor reacted. She sat with that same careful attention, watching Cixi.

Her husband set his wineglass down. ”Mr. Crown.” His voice carried the authority of a man who had spent decades in rooms where volume was unnecessary because the weight of his words did the work.

Cixi turned toward him instinctively. He was looking at Michael; his profile looked sharp in the candlelight. ”The children at your table appear not to have been taught how to conduct themselves in front of guests.” He let that land. ”We uprooted our lives and moved to this city at your request, with the understanding that your son would marry my daughter. What I find instead is a family that cannot manage its own dining room.” He paused. ”You shouldn’t have spoken to me and my wife before talking to your own son. That would have been the courteous thing.”

Then Lorian turned his head and looked directly at Cixi. His gaze moved once to her belly and returned to her face without warmth. ”It appears both your sons have lost their heads over the same woman. One got her pregnant. The other is apparently prepared to raise his brother’s child as his own.” He let the observation settle before adding who believed he was stating a fact rather than delivering a wound. ”This is what happens when a child grows up without a family to teach her where the boundaries are.”

The words hit her somewhere unguarded. Cixi hadn’t expected them to hurt her... It reached deeper than anything Rosetta or Ursa or Michael had thrown at her tonight. She had been managing the table well enough until that moment, but the word family snagged on something inside her, and her eyes went dangerously warm before she could stop them.

She did not understand why her eyes burned or why her throat suddenly tightened as though something inside her was trying to surface and she was fighting to keep it down.

But she refused to stay silent. ”I have a family,” reached deeper than anything Rosetta or Ursa or Michael had thrown at her tonight. ”I have a family.” It came out steadier than she felt.

Lorian’s expression didn’t shift. ”You have a family.” He repeated it the way one repeats something that doesn’t quite add up. ”Has anyone here met them? Does anyone know who they are?” He glanced briefly around the table and looked back at her. ”Or are you planning to hire one in time for the introduction?”