Glorious Rivals(5)

But Rohan knew: Savannah Grayson didn’t cry.

Wondering how long it would take her to admit defeat in his room, Rohan turned on Savannah’s shower. While the water heated up, he gathered his clothes from the floor of the bedroom and slipped a pair of glass dice out of his pocket.

The indomitable Ms. Grayson had a lot to learn. If she’d been playing long games for as many years as Rohan had, she would have stolen his dice and then gone to look for the sword.

Stepping into the shower, Rohan laid his red dice on a marble shelf and gave his body up to the scalding spray. Rohan had never minded heat. The cold was a different matter—cold water, especially.

The past will drown you if you let it, boy. The Proprietor’s voice echoed through the twisting halls of Rohan’s mind. Like stones tied to your ankles.

Rohan stepped farther into the scalding heat of the spray, taking in it a distinct kind of pleasure. His focus was sharpest in moments like these. I am going to win the Grandest Game.

Power came, always, at a cost. Pain was a reminder of that. And heat reminded Rohan: I was not made to shiver or drown.

Whatever he had to do to win, he would do it.

Footsteps. Rohan marked the sound of them and the length of the stride—Savannah, incoming. Soon enough, she was standing right outside the shower curtain.

“I didn’t say you could use my shower.” Savannah Grayson’s voice was a socialite’s voice, its sharpness the sharpness of diamonds, not glass.

“And I didn’t say you could try to steal my sword,” Rohan replied lazily. It was too bad, really, that her shower had a curtain instead of a glass door. He would have liked to have seen the expression on her delightfully angular face the moment he called her out.

“The sword isn’t yours.”

Didn’t find it, did you, love? Rohan’s smile deepened. “Agree to disagree.”

“Get out of my shower,” Savannah ordered.

Rohan, magnificent bastard that he was, was happy to comply. He turned off the water, swept the red glass dice from the shelf with his left hand, and curled the fingers on his right hand around the curtain. “Careful what you wish for, love.”

Savannah threw a towel over the rod. Hard. Rohan made use of it, toweling off, then wrapping it around his waist before stepping out from behind the curtain. “I do hope you put my room back as you found it after you failed to find that sword.”

Savannah’s gaze roved over his body—chest, abs, down to the place where the towel hugged his hips. “I hope you weren’t expecting what happened to mean anything,” she replied.

Ruthless. Rohan appreciated that in a woman—in anyone, really. “I expect you to hold up your end of the deal in this phase of the game, Savvy, and that is all.”

Per their agreed-upon terms, the two of them would continue playing the Grandest Game as a team until—and only until—the competition had been effectively dispatched.

“There’s no need for concern.” Savannah arched a pale brow at him. “When I promised to work alongside you and then destroy you, I meant it.” She turned toward the mirror, examining her own reflection—an attempt, Rohan was certain, to keep from further examining him.

He brought one hand to rest on the towel around his hips and smirked at her.

“Grayson is going to be a problem,” Savannah commented coolly.

All business. “How fortunate, then,” Rohan said, “that I excel at taking care of problems.” And how fortunate that the Hawthorne brother in question has developed a weakness.

Savannah raised her chin, her newly shorn hair making her pale eyes look that much larger, her cheekbones that much sharper. “What do you know about the girl?” she asked.

Lyra Kane. Savannah had zeroed in on Grayson’s weak point with admirable efficiency.

“What do you know,” Rohan countered, “about how Lyra Kane’s father’s name ended up plastered all over the burnt forest?”

“What are you suggesting?” Savannah could play the ice queen to perfection.

“You have a sponsor, love.” Rohan didn’t pull his punches. “You’re very likely not the only player with one, and I doubt any of them are above playing dirty.” He gave her a look. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“If I wasted my time pointing out your every misapprehension, we’d barely have any left to strategize.” Savannah gave a deadly, elegant little shrug. “I will, however, point out that you are the one more positioned to know other players’ secrets—assuming, of course, that the Mercy is as powerful as you claim.”

An eighteen-year-old American girl couldn’t even begin to fathom the power, the wealth, the reach of the Devil’s Mercy, the organization that had raised Rohan, the organization that he was determined to rule. He’d been given a year to come up with the buy-in, a year to obtain ten million pounds and claim his rightful place as the next Proprietor.

Unless and until he did so, as far as the Mercy was concerned, Rohan was nothing.

“You claim that you want to win more than I do.” Savannah shifted her gaze back to his. “You never told me why.”

“Imagine that,” Rohan replied.

Savannah narrowed her eyes at him. “You know why I’m here.”

Rohan stepped forward, his body brushing hers. “I’ll never pause again,” he quoted, “never stand still, till either death hath closed these eyes of mine or fortune given me measure of… revenge.”