Her head bowed just an instant, a knight accepting a king's just praise.
The word mine roared in Drake's head again, reverberating, nearly flooring him with surprise.
If it had been years and years since he'd wanted things, he had never wanted people. Not specific people.
He didn't have lovers, he had sex partners.
He didn't have friends. He had employees.
He hired the best at what they did, paid them more than market price and let them do what they did best.
Women came and went, rarely staying in his life for more than a night or two. He didn't pay for sex. He didn't have to. The women who came to his bed understood very well what he could offer. A thank-you gift the next morning was always sent from Tiffany or Fendi or Armani, chosen in rotation.
Having one woman in his life-even if he'd wanted one, which he didn't-would be insane.
He had his layers of security for a reason. He had enemies. Smart, ruthless enemies, some stretching back twenty years. A woman he cared about would have a huge bull's-eye painted on her forehead, a fast and easy way to break through his defenses. She would be the softest target in his world.
There wasn't a woman alive who would be willing to live beneath his heavy blanket of security, never being able to walk around, never being able to do her own shopping, not even allowed to go for a walk, because he sure as hell would never allow his woman to be a target.
And what would be the point of being able to buy all the clothes and jewelry you wanted if you could never be seen in them?
Not to mention the possibility of children.
God, just the idea of having a child made him break out in a sweat. He'd seen too many children die violent deaths. He'd go insane if there were a child of his somewhere out in this cold and violent world, a target for someone bent on vengeance.
So occasional safe-very safe-sex with occasional partners was as close as he ever got to another human. He had very little recollection of the women who'd trooped through his bed. If he closed his eyes, he could remember little details. A mole on the underside of a breast. A shaved pubis. Pretty knees. An artistic tattoo. That kind of thing.
That was it, though. The women the details had been attached to-gone. He couldn't remember their names or their voices. He could barely remember their faces even right after fucking them.
But he remembered her face. Oh, yes. Every detail.
Everything about her was so perfect. Just … perfect. Large eyes the color of the sea, hair that seemed to have a thousand colors in its glossy depths, pale, perfect skin.
And an air of melancholy over all that.
She bewitched him. She didn't know of his existence, but hers filled his life in an instant.
Grace Larsen was indeed her name, and she came to the Feinstein Gallery every other Tuesday afternoon, as Drake found out soon enough. When he got home he made it his business to know everything about her. So every other Tuesday afternoon, Drake was there, too. In an alleyway, in the shadows, hidden and alone, watching through a small window that only gave him a narrow view of the gallery and that afforded him only isolated snatches of Grace.
It was folly, it was insanity, but he couldn't have stayed away had a gun been pointed at his head.
And now one was.
He was going to pay the extreme price for his folly.
At the sound of a round being chambered, he reacted instinctively. He had superb hearing and was able to triangulate the position. About a yard behind him and slightly to his right.
Time went into slow motion, though his body moved faster than thought, instinctively, violently. He still had fractions of a second before the trigger could be pulled, enough time to remove himself from any possible trajectory.
Drake was a ground fighter. He dropped instantly to the cold, oil-stained concrete. Whoever the man was, Drake knew he was concentrated exclusively on the shot, therefore his balance would be top-heavy. All the attention in his body would be concentrated in his eyes and hands. He probably wasn't even feeling his feet.
Drake had trained himself to be aware of all parts of his body in combat, but he knew that ability was rare. He dropped, shot out his leg; his heel hooked the shooter's foot and brought the man down with a foot lock.
He'd learned SAMBO from one of the Russian masters. Once he got an opponent on the ground, the man was his.
The man toppled and fell. He was as tall as Drake had instinctively calculated from the source of the sound, but the shooter was heavier than Drake had imagined. He fell badly, right on Drake's left knee. A blast of pain shot through his knee, red-hot, almost unbearable. For a second, he wondered if it was broken, then dismissed the thought. If it was, there wasn't anything he could do about it.