The Guardian's Virgin Ward. Caitlin Crews

the mid-November cold outside. It flowed from a distractingly low neck to graze her upper thighs, leaving an unnecessary expanse of smooth skin between its hem and her over-the-knee boots. Perfect for a bit of pickup trade, he thought sourly. And perhaps unfairly.

      That it was how all young women dressed these days wasn’t lost on him. But Liliana wasn’t any young woman. She didn’t have the option to careen about through her early twenties like the rest of them, stacking up questionable evenings and choices and then writing it all off as “experience” once she settled down into a dreary suburban existence somewhere. Her sins would be neither forgiven nor forgotten—they would be trotted out at every opportunity by tabloids and business rivals alike. She wasn’t like all the other, interchangeable girls cluttering up the living areas of this flat.

      She was legendary. And she was his.

      His responsibility, he amended after a moment. A searing, unhelpful moment with nothing but her intoxicating beauty in his head.

      “Is this how one dresses here in the toilet of New York City?” he asked edgily, letting his gaze move with cold disapproval from her face to her toes. Then back. “The better to blend in with less-fortunate women on street corners? I must applaud you. How enterprising to attempt to avoid the predators milling about the gutters out there by dressing as if they could simply buy you instead of bothering to go to the trouble of mugging you.”

      Liliana sucked in a breath. Izar felt something like remorse—another emotion he was largely unfamiliar with, and he certainly didn’t care for the experience now—swell in him when her bright gaze dimmed, but she only squared her shoulders. As if she thought she was tough enough to fight him head-on.

      Izar didn’t care to examine how that notion careened around inside him. The way it left marks.

      Liliana frowned at him but didn’t break the way she would have even six months ago. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just call me a prostitute in the first conversation we’ve had live and in person in a decade.”

      “I said you appeared to have dressed like one. Is this a costume party? That could certainly explain the number of tarts on parade, yourself included.”

      She pressed her lips together. He didn’t want to think about her lips.

      “You’re a very small and unhappy man, aren’t you, Izar?”

      “When confronting my wayward ward in a flat built on lies and a fake name she thinks makes her fireproof and somehow invisible at once?” She finally blinked at that. That belligerent chin of hers dropped a few notches. He was aware that there was no reason these things should have given him quite so much satisfaction, as if he’d scored some kind of decisive victory. “Yes. You could call this unhappiness, if you wish. If I were you, I would be less concerned with my happiness and more concerned with your own hide.”

      “I’ll be really, really scared when I get your letter on the subject three months from now, I promise,” she told him after a moment. With deep and unmistakable sarcasm and no apparent recognition of the precariousness of her situation.

      “Careful,” he warned her, and he hardly recognized his own voice.

      She sniffed. “I’m not afraid of you.”

      “Then you are even more foolish than you appear.”

      He saw some sort of strong emotion he couldn’t quite identify wash over her then, making her stand straighter and cross her arms beneath her breasts which was...not at all helpful.

      She—is—your—ward, Izar snapped at himself.

      What was wrong with him that he couldn’t seem to remember that tonight? She and her stake in the company were his responsibility until she turned twenty-five or married, whatever came first. The weight of that had been at the forefront of his thoughts since the day her parents had died. It was why he’d dedicated himself with such ferocity to the business all this time. Why had it deserted him entirely tonight?

      But he knew why. It was the way she stood before him, beautiful and wholly unimpressed with him, which was a true novelty. It was that mouthwatering expanse of her thighs, bared for all the world to see. Worse, for him to see. It was the sad truth that, apparently, he really was that twisted, after all. That ruined, from the inside out, exactly as he’d always suspected.

      “I told you I would bodily remove you from this city the moment you became any kind of scandal,” he bit out at her, and it was an effort to keep himself from raising his voice. He didn’t entirely succeed. “Congratulations. You lasted longer than I thought you would, but that day has finally arrived.”

      Liliana frowned. “You told me that when I was eighteen and setting off for college. Newsflash, I survived. The city didn’t burn down around me and your precious company is fine. No luxury brands have been harmed by my attempt to have a life, Izar. You can exhale.”

      Yet another unfamiliar sensation washed over him then, and once more, it took Izar a long moment to recognize it. It had been a while since anyone had gotten under his skin like this. Or at all. Not since his days on the pitch, in fact, where he’d been a bit of a hothead and his opponents had sometimes used that against him. He’d thought he’d locked that side of himself away for good when he’d left the sport.

      Why Liliana, of all people, should have the power to needle him when no one else alive could or would dare, Izar could not imagine.

      Nor did he care for it.

      When he spoke again his voice rivaled the cutting November winds outside.

      “You remain my responsibility, whether you like it or not. That means that you cannot live in an unprotected slum like this, no matter how bohemian you currently imagine yourself to be. You are entirely too wealthy for these games.”

      “I’m not bohemian.” She laughed as if he’d told her a joke. “At all.”

      “On that we agree. It was one thing to hide behind a false name while you were in school. This is not school any longer, Liliana. How long did you really think it would take for someone to discover who you are and use it against you? And let us be clear. When I say against you, what I mean is against the company, which is the same thing as against me.”

      She shook her head at him as if he was being ridiculous. As if he, Izar Agustin, renowned the world over for his business acumen and corporate vision, was capable of being any such thing.

      “I moved in here five months ago and, so far, the only undesirable person to discover me is you.”

      “That is where you are wrong.” He tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but he saw her stiffen. He tried and failed to regret the fact he clearly got to her, too. “Why do you think I am here?”

      “Because you live to stamp on dreams and ruin lives, I assume. Mine in particular. You know, the usual.”

      “Of course.” It was amazing how hard it was to hold on to his temper tonight, truly astonishing. “And because I was approached by a piece of tabloid journalist scum who told me he intended to run a vile little article on how I took over the company and consigned the much-adored if seldom-seen Brooks heiress to a life of poverty and toil. Right here in this grimy little hellhole.” Izar did nothing to soften his scowl. He didn’t even try. “I assured him that was not possible, as no one would describe your parents’ perfectly good brownstone in Greenwich Village as grimy, much less a hole of any kind. Imagine my surprise to discover that you did not live there, as you had assured me you did following your graduation. In writing. I was forced to track you down. To this place. Which is so much worse than a mere grimy hole it defies description.”

      He didn’t know what he expected. But it wasn’t for Liliana to do nothing for a moment. Then, after another long moment, blow out a breath and roll her eyes as if what he’d said was...annoying. Nothing more than annoying.

      He felt his entire body go taut in disbelief.

      “The Brooks heiress can go to hell,” she announced, and Izar noticed she swayed ever so slightly