by LJ Shen
I pinned him with a look that wiped the smug off his face. He had some extra cash lying around, and we both knew where it came from.
“You have extras,” I shot dryly.
“Brilliant.” Preston Bishop flung himself back on the headrest. “Captain Ethic’s here to save the day.”
“I’d settle for ruining yours. Which reminds me—you have extras, too,” I deadpanned, just as the door to the study flew open.
Kristen, my masquerade date, world-class BJ giver, and a royal pain in the ass, stormed in, her eyes as wild as her hair. Since I carefully chose my female companions with zero flair for dramatics, I knew she was privy to what the gentlemen in the room hadn’t found out yet. Nothing else would get her so worked up, and she did, after all, work in finding out important information.
“Really, Wolfe?” She wiped blond strands of hair from her forehead, her eyes dancing in their sockets. Her shabby appearance explained why Sterling came rushing through the door behind her, muttering redundant apologies. I shooed my housekeeper away, focusing on Kristen.
“Let’s take this outside before you burst an artery on my marble floors,” I suggested cordially.
“Don’t be so sure I’ll be the one shedding blood in this exchange,” she said, wiggling her finger at me. Poor form. That was the thing about girls who came to the big city from a small Kansas town and became successful career women. That girl from Kansas? She’d always live inside her.
My office was on the west wing of my mansion, next to my bedroom and a handful of guestrooms. I led Kristen into my bedroom, leaving the door open on the off-chance she was in the mood for more than talking. She paced, hands parked on her hips. My king-size bed stood out as a reminder of the place I never had her in. I quite liked fucking women in compromising positions. Sharing a bed with someone else was not an idea I’d ever entertained seriously. I’d learned people come and go out of your life frequently and without notice. Solitude was more than a life choice. It was a virtue. A vow of sorts.
“You screw me the night of the masquerade and then get engaged the next day? Are you fucking kidding me?” Kristen finally burst, the words gushing from her mouth as she pushed my chest, giving it her all. She did a better job than Francesca, but her wrath still left me unimpressed—and more importantly, unmoved.
I shot her a pitiful stare. She knew as well as I did that we were about as far from monogamy as humanly possible. I promised her nothing. Not even orgasms. They required minor work on my part and, therefore, were a terrible waste of my time.
“Your point, Miss Rhys?” I asked.
“Why her?”
“Why not?”
“She’s nineteen!” Kristen roared again, kicking the leg of my bed. Her wince told me she’d just found out that, like my conviction, it was made of steel. I had quite the taste for expensive, unlikely furniture, something she’d know if she’d ever been invited to my house.
“May I ask how you became privy to my personal business?” I wiped at the speckles of saliva she’d left on my dress shirt. Humans, as a concept, were not among my ten favorite things in the world. Hysterical women were not even in the top thousand. Kristen was being highly emotional, considering the circumstances. She was therefore a liability in my way to the presidency and serving my country.
“My agency retrieved images of your young bride moving into your mansion, complete with pictures of her watching like a princess as your staff carried her many, many bags. I’m guessing she’s a soon-to-be trophy wife. Speaks five languages, looks like an angel, and probably fucks like a siren.” Kristen continued pacing, pushing the sleeves of her smart suit up her elbows.
Francesca, despite her many shortcomings, was not unpleasant on the eye. And she probably did have extensive sexual experience, considering her very strict daddy had been a continent away for most of her youth, leaving her to her frivolous ways. Which reminded me, I needed to arrange for her to get drug tested and checked for STDs. Slipups were not an option, and public disgrace would earn her a spot on my shit list, a place her father could confirm was less than picturesque.
“Are you here to ask questions and answer them yourself?” I shoved her shoulder lightly, and she fell to an upholstered cream seat below me. She growled, darting back up. So much for trying to calm her down.
“I’m here to tell you that I want an exclusive Bishop piece, or I will tell everyone who is willing to listen that your new blushing extremely young bride is also the daughter of the number-one mobster in Chicago. I’d hate for it to be tomorrow’s leading headline, but—as you must agree—gossip sells copies, right?”
I rubbed my chin.
“Do what you gotta do, Miss Rhys.”
“Are you serious?”
“As serious as someone can be without filing a restraining order against you for attempting to blackmail a member of the senate. Let me show you to the door.”
I had to give her some credit—Kristen wasn’t here to grieve the untimely death of our fling. She was all business. She wanted me to compromise the governor in order to save my own ass and give her a scoop that would likely get her an offer from CNN—or TMZ—the next day. Unfortunately for Kristen, I wasn’t much of a diplomat. I did not negotiate with terrorists—or worse, journalists. In fact, I would not even negotiate with the president himself. Francesca had pointed out at the masquerade that Nemesis had slayed Narcissus, teaching him a lesson about arrogance. She was about to find out that no one stomped on her husband-to-be’s pride.
The irony, of course, was that Francesca’s father was the very person to teach me that lesson.
“Huh?” Kristen huffed.
“Tell the world. I’ll just spin it as I’m saving my fiancée from the big, bad wolf.”
I was the big, bad wolf, but only Francesca and I needed to know that.
“You didn’t even like each other at the masquerade.” Kristen threw her arms in the air, trying another tactic. I carefully placed my fingers on the small of her back and led her to the doorway.
“Affection has nothing to do with a good marriage. We’re done here.”
As I rounded the corner to the entrance, I caught a glimpse of brown curls tossing in the hallway. Francesca had been roaming, and she most likely heard the conversation. I wasn’t worried. As I said before—she was as harmless as a declawed kitten. Whether I’d make her purr or not was entirely up to her. I wasn’t especially keen on her affection and had other places to find it in.
“So, just to be clear, this is over?” Kristen stumbled next to me as I led her downstairs and out of my premises.
“Sharp as a fucking spoon,” I muttered. I wasn’t against taking mistresses, but I could no longer risk a high-profile affair. And as Kristen was a hungry journalist, everything about her screamed scandal.
“You know, Wolfe, you think you’re so untouchable because you had a lucky streak. I’ve been in this business long enough to know you’re too conceited to get much further than you are today. You’re a real piece of work, and you think you can get away with even more.” She stopped in front of the door to my house. We both knew this was her last visit here.
I smirked, shooing her away with my hand.
“Write the piece, sweetheart.”
“This is bad publicity, Keaton.”
“A good Catholic summer wedding of two young, high-profile people? I’ll take my chances.”
“You’re not that young.”
“You’re not that smart, Kristen. Goodbye.”
After I got rid of Miss Rhys, I went back to my study to dismiss Bishop and White, before I made my way to the east wing to check on Francesca.
Earlier this morning, her mother showed up at the gate holding some of her daughter’s possessions, screaming she wouldn’t leave until she saw her daughter was okay. Although I told Francesca that whatever she didn’t have time to pack would be left behind, pacifying her parents trumped teaching her a valuable lesson about life. Her mother was blameless in the situation. So was Fra
ncesca herself.
I pushed my bride’s bedroom door open and found that she had not returned from her wanderings. Stuffing my fists in my cigar pants’ pockets, I sauntered across her room to look out her window. I found her in the garden, crouching in a yellow summer dress, muttering to herself as she stabbed a trowel into a flowerpot, her small hands swimming inside a pair of oversized, green gardening gloves. I cracked the window open, half-interested in the nonsense she was spewing. Her voice seeped through the crack of the window. Her ramblings were throaty and feminine, not at all hysterical and teenager-y as I’d expected someone in her situation to be.
“Who does he think he is? He will pay for this. I’m not a pawn. I’m not the idiot he thinks I am. I’ll starve until I break him or die trying. Wouldn’t that be a fun headline to try to explain,” she huffed, shaking her head. “But what’s he gonna do—force-feed me? I will get out of here. Oh, P.S. Senator Keaton—you’re not even that good looking. Just tall. Angelo? Now he’s a gorgeous specimen, inside and out. He will forgive me for that silly kiss. Of course, he will. I’m going to make him…”
I closed the window. She was going on a hunger strike. Good. Her first lesson would be about my apathy. The blabbing about Bandini did not concern me, either. Puppy love could never threaten a wolf. I made my way back to her door when a carved wooden box sitting on her nightstand caught my attention. I ambled over to it, the echo of her words from the masquerade bouncing in my head. The box was locked, but I instinctively knew she’d taken out another note, desperate to change her fate. I flipped her pillows on a whim and found the note underneath them. My beautiful, predictable, stupid bride.
I unfolded it.
The next man to feed you chocolate will be the love of your life.
I felt the sneer carving on my face and wondered, briefly, when was the last time I smiled. It was about something silly Francesca had briefly told me on the landing at her house before I bent her father’s arm into giving her to me.
“Sterling!” I barked from my spot by my bride’s bed. The old maid rushed into the room, the frantic wandering of her erratic pupils telling me she expected the worst.
“Send Francesca the biggest Godiva chocolate basket available with a note from me. Leave it blank.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” she squealed, slapping her knees. “She hasn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, so I will do that right away.” She dashed downstairs to the kitchen where she kept a Yellow Pages bigger than her frame.
I pushed the note back into place, rearranging the pillows in the same, messy heap I’d found them.
I cared more about fucking with Francesca Rossi’s head than I did her body.
Now that was my idea of foreplay.
TWO DAYS OF NOTHINGNESS TICKED by, soaking like blood on the walls of my room.
I refused to communicate with anyone. Even the in-desperate-need-for-love garden was left unattended, including the plants and vegetables I’d potted after Mama paid me a visit the day after Wolfe took me. She snuck seeds of begonias in the wooden box. “The most resilient flowers, Francesca. Just like you.” Then Ms. Sterling caught up with my hobby and brought me some radishes, carrot, and cherry tomato seeds, trying to lift my mood and perhaps encourage me to expend some energy and consume something more than tap water.
Sleep was short, tormented, and interrupted with a nightmare: a monster prowling in the shadows behind my bedroom door, baring his teeth in a wolfish grin every time I looked its way. The monster’s eyes were mesmerizing, but his smile was frightening. And when I tried to wake up, to unchain myself from the dream, my body was paralyzed to the mattress.
There were two things I wanted desperately—for Wolfe to understand we couldn’t get married and for Angelo to realize that the kiss was a misunderstanding.
Ms. Sterling brought food, water, and coffee to my bed every few hours, leaving silver trays filled with goodness on my nightstand. I drank the water to keep myself from fainting, but the rest remained untouched.
I especially ignored the huge basket of chocolate my future husband had sent to me. It sat in the corner of the room on the fancy desk, collecting dust. Even though the low sugar in my blood made white dots explode in my vision every time I made a sudden move, I still somehow knew that the expensive chocolate would taste of my own surrender. A flavor so bitter, no sugar could sweeten it.
Then there were the notes. The cursed, exasperating notes.
I’d opened two out of the three, and both pointed at Wolfe as the love of my life.
I tried to tell myself that it was clearly coincidental. Keaton might have had a change of heart. Perhaps he decided to worm his way into my good graces with gifts. Though something told me that man had not taken one uncalculated step in his life from the moment he took his first breath.
Wolfe demanded my presence at dinner every day. Never in person, though, but through Ms. Sterling. I continuously refused. When he sent one of his bodyguards for me, I locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out until Ms. Sterling physically kicked the burly man away. When Wolfe stopped sending food—something that made Ms. Sterling raise her voice to piercing levels in the kitchen even though he didn’t budge—I laughed maniacally because I wasn’t eating anyway. Finally, on the third day, Keaton graced me with his regal presence, standing at my doorway with his eyes narrowed to slits of cold menace.
Wolfe looked taller and gruffer than I remembered. Clad in a sharp bright navy suit, he was armed with a sardonic smirk that showed no trace of happiness. Light amusement danced across his otherwise dark eyes. Couldn’t blame him. I was starving to death here, trying to prove a point he couldn’t care less about. But I had no choice. I didn’t have my cell phone, and though Mama had called the landline each day to make sure I was okay, I knew by the shallow and even breaths in my ear that Ms. Sterling was listening to our conversations. Even though she cared about my physical well-being, my guess was she was still Team Wolfe all the way.
The pleas, the plans, and the promises to be good—to be the greatest daughter in Chicago—if my parents demanded I return sat on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to ask about Angelo and if Dad was doing anything to try to get me back, but all I did was answer her worried questions with yes and no.
I pretended to smooth the fabric of my blanket over me and stare at my legs as I ignored him.
“Nemesis,” he drawled with lazy cynicism that somehow—somehow—still managed to stab somewhere deep inside me. “Care to wrap your bones in something a little more dignified than pajamas? We’re going out tonight.”
“You are going out tonight. Unless you’re taking me back to my parents’, I’m staying here,” I corrected.
“Whatever possesses you to think this outing is optional?” He braced the top of the doorframe with his arms, his dress shirt riding up and revealing muscular abs, dusted with dark hair.
He was such a man, and that threw me off. I was still in that tattered seam between a woman and a teenager, neither here nor there. I hated all the leverage he had on me.
“I’ll run away,” I threatened idly. Where would I go? I knew my father would send me right back to Wolfe’s arms. He knew that, too. This was my glorified prison. Silky sheets and a senator as my future husband. Pretty lies and devastating truths.
“With what energy, exactly? You can barely crawl, let alone run. Wear the dark green dress. The one with the slit.”
“So I can impress your perverted old politician friends?” I huffed, tossing my hair behind my shoulder.
“So you can impress your dramatically underwhelmed future husband.”
“Not interested, thank you.”
“Your parents will be there.”
That made me perk up in an instant—another thing I hated. He had all the power. All the information. The bigger picture.
“Where are you going?”
“Preston Bishop’s son is getting married. A pony-looking thing with a pair of nice legs.” He pushed off the doorframe and wa
lked over to the foot of my bed.
I remembered how he’d referred to Bishop’s wife as ‘horsey’. He was conceited and rude, arrogant and vulgar beyond belief, but only indoors. I’d seen him at the masquerade. And while standoffish and rude to my father and me, he was an impeccable gentleman to everyone else.
“It would be a good opportunity to introduce you as the future Mrs. Keaton. Which reminds me…” He produced something from his front pocket, tossing the square, black, and velvety thing across the length of the room. I caught it in my hands and snapped it open. An engagement ring with a Winston Blue diamond the size of my head twinkled inside it, catching every ray of sunshine slipping through the bare windows. I knew every minute in this house brought me closer to marriage with Wolfe Keaton, and escaping wasn’t possible. The only man to save me from my future husband was, quite frankly, my future husband. Begging him to give me up wasn’t an option. Maybe making him see that he didn’t want to marry me was a tactic I needed to explore.
“When are we leaving?” I asked. The “you” turned into a “we,” but he still didn’t look pleased.
I will embarrass you beyond belief.
“Couple of hours. It is my understanding that you’re used to being pampered and catered to, so Sterling will get you ready.”
You will regret the day your filthy eyes met mine across the table.
“Take that back,” I said.
“Excuse you?”
“Take that dig back. Stop holding my upbringing and the way I’ve been brought up against me,” I demanded.
He smirked, then turned to leave.
“I’m not going.” I tossed the engagement ring across the room. Though he could have caught it in his hand, he chose not to, letting it drop on the floor. Fighting for something—least of all for me—was beneath him.
“You are unless you want your phone privileges taken. The landline could be cut off. Not to mention, I’d hate to be forced to pierce your pretty veins to hook you up to a feeding tube,” he said, drifting out of the room before pausing at the door. His back was still to me when it began to vibrate with soft laughter.
