by Amber Bardan
“Oh my god, look at you, Emma.” She ran a finger under her lashes. “I can’t take it.”
I laughed and wrapped an arm around her. “Yeah, you can. You popped out two babies au natural, you can handle one little wedding.”
“I did, didn’t I?” She sniffled.
Poor girl hadn’t slept a full night in three months, with my cheeky niece and nephew each demanding nightly feeds at separate times. I’d given her full license to be completely emotional, even today.
“You did, and you’re mad. When my time comes, I’ll be asking for drugs from conception.” I shot her a wink, then smoothed down the front of my gown. A warm thrill ran through me. These were all things I could do now.
Marriage—family—babies.
Avner’s babies. Now it was my turn to almost not take it. My vision blurred.
Angelina laughed. “Oh, babe. Look at us saps.”
A knock rang through the room.
“Come in,” I called.
“Someone wanted to say hi.”
I spun around at the sound of Rebecca’s musical tone.
She pushed a wheelchair into the bridal chambers.
Maya.
Hair arranged artfully on top of her head, dressed in an elegant maroon gown. I crossed the room and crouched down and gave my almost mother-in-law a kiss, then took her hand. “Didn’t anyone tell you, you’re not supposed to outshine the bride?”
Maya’s soft gray gaze met mine, and she gave my hand a small squeeze.
My heart gave a flutter, as it still did every time she responded in these new ways.
There was long way to go to recovery, but a breakthrough occurred when Rebecca joined her mother at the center.
My attention moved to Rebecca. I offered her my biggest smile, but refrained from touching as she preferred. “You look gorgeous too.”
She did.
Avner’s sister was a stunner. She wore a dusky blue lace dress that brought out her lovely eyes.
Her cheeks warmed. “Thank you, but don’t worry, no one is at risk of outshining the bride.” She glanced at her mother. “There’s something we’d like to give you.”
She reached inside her clutch and came out with a small white box.
I took it carefully and opened the lid.
A gasp rippled through me. “No, I can’t.”
“It’s your something old.”
“Rebecca.” I looked at her. “I can’t take this, it’s your mother’s ring—it’s yours.”
“Honey...” She shook her head, in her no-nonsense way. “This is how I choose to pass it on, so please do me the honor of taking it.”
Emotion swelled. I pinched my nose. Oh crap, now I was about to go full crybaby.
“Thank you.”
“Alright, well, we’ll see you out there.” She smiled gently. “Try not to take too long, my poor brother’s sweating bullets.”
She left, and Mr. Morrison entered. “Well, look at you.”
The music started. My heart jumped. Angelina took the ring to give to Avner, and went first.
I held onto Mr. Morrison’s arm. He led me out of the chamber to the corner where we’d been told to wait until the next song, where it’d be my turn.
I sucked in giant gulps of air.
He patted the hand I had tucked in his elbow. “Nervous?”
“Overwhelmed.” I squeezed him. “Thank you for doing this, Mr. Morrison.”
He gave my hand another pat. “Of course, you’re our favorite non-child.”
My throat went thick.
The track changed. We rounded the corner. Everyone stood up. Faces swarmed. I couldn’t recognize half the people here—how’d it all get so big?
We moved down the aisle. My strong, reliable heart pounded to the music. We reached the front. I smiled at Rebecca and Maya, then at Mrs. Morrison holding baby Josh and baby Leila.
One more step, and Mr. Morrison released me.
He turned, and everything inside me, every twitching nerve, went silent.
Just like that first time, I caught sight of his traveling jaw. A sharp jaw that had knocked over every inch of my body in moments of pure delight.
His scent hit me like a jolt of static. Spicy, and so musky and male, and this time it was the scent of home.
My home.
Our home.
He smiled, and grooves made crescents either side of his mouth. My body grew so jellied, every bit of clothing and jewelry I wore seemed weighed down.
Most especially the coin at my neck.
“It’s not the family you come from that has to define you, but the one you choose to keep.”
This man. This man in front of me, and the people in the row behind me, this was the family I’d chosen.
And the one that made me whole.
* * * * *
To purchase and read more books by Amber Bardan, please visit Amber’s website here or at http://www.amberabardan.com/.
Keep reading for an excerpt from DIDN’T I WARN YOU, now available at all participating e-retailers.
Available now from Amber Bardan and Carina Press
Go back to where it all began with Haithem and Angelina’s story in DIDN’T I WARN YOU.
Not everything dangerous is bad.
From the moment Angelina laid eyes on him, she fell into a fantasy. Mysterious, foreign, gorgeous, Haithem offered her what she needed most—a chance to feel again.
But Haithem is much more than he appears to be. He lives in a world of danger where everything comes at a price.
For Angelina, that price is her future.
He’s ensured the life she’s left behind is in tatters. Made her family believe she’s dead. He talks about protecting her, about keeping her safe, but she can’t distinguish his truth from his lies. She can’t separate her pleasure from his betrayal.
Haithem warned her. He told her he’d make her heart race, her body come alive, and her most primal needs rush to the surface. His for the taking.
He didn’t say she’d come to love the devil who’s destroying her, even as he keeps her prisoner.
Read on for an excerpt from DIDN’T I WARN YOU.
PROLOGUE
LONG FINGERS CLOSE around my throat. Not squeezing, not hurting, but commanding. I look at him. This man I love. This devil I adore. He’s gorgeous—dark hair, darker eyes, olive skin, body and features all chiseled hardness. But that’s not what makes my veins jump under his hand. That’s not what makes my skin slick with sweat.
There’s more to this man than meets the eye.
His thumb strokes my pulse, gleaning secrets right out of my blood. His mouth curls to the side, forming a smile that reveals he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Didn’t I warn you, Angel,” he says, and his thumb moves up to my chin, “that it’s not a good idea to love me?”
My pulse leaps from erratic to chaotic. I can’t answer, only listen in horrified fascination to what I know will come next.
He traces the groove below my bottom lip. “Didn’t I warn you my love would be bad?”
Shivers run hot then cold over my skin.
“Didn’t I tell you, you’d pay for my heart?” He touches my mouth, dragging my bottom lip down.
My body sings, my blood hums right down to my womb. I can’t resist him. He did warn me. He truly did. But I was greedy. I wanted him anyway.
I didn’t understand how bad he could be.
He’s the devil. Tempting me with what I desire most. Luring me to an irresistible destruction. A destruction I’m so close to I can smell it—taste it—touch it. Pain grips me, my insides bruise with it. My family believes I’m dead. The life I’ve left behind lies in tatters because of him. Because
he keeps me.
He won’t let me go.
He tilts my face, brushing his cheek against my ear. “I promise it will be worth it.” His stubble chafes my earlobe, stinging and electrifying. I’ve felt those bristles scrape against my neck, my breasts, my thighs. There’s not an inch of me that hasn’t felt the sweet torture of their abrasion. “Can’t you see it?” he asks. “The future where you’re mine?”
My eyelids drift shut. I know it’s only the hand cradling my face that’s holding me up. I can see that future. I see it with fluorescent intensity. Life with the lights turned on. Life where living means more than existing. For everything he’s taken from me, he’s given me back more. He breathed a soul back into me. Without it, without him, I’d be a walking corpse.
I see our future. I ache for it, yearn for it, despise myself for it.
“Say it, Angel. Say, Haithem, I’m yours.”
For all intents and purposes, I’m a prisoner—captive—perhaps even a slave. Because I have no choices but the ones he gives me. Yet, he gives me this choice—or at least the illusion of a choice—to choose him.
To love him.
As if making a choice had ever been an option. The moment I met him, I may as well have been branded.
ONE
One month earlier.
TROUBLE. NOPE, I DIDN’T love trouble, even if my foot did have a tendency to find its way into steaming piles of it. Like the time I failed my driving test, swerving for ducks only to plow right over a letter box. Yet, when trouble walked in—snug suit jacket clinging to too-broad shoulders, the sharpest gaze I’ve ever seen ripping through the café—my attention homed right in on trouble.
His chin jerked toward the person next to him. The other man slipped ahead, responding to the silent command by making his way to the back of the room.
I stared. A little more. He just needed to move about thirty degrees clockwise and—
He shifted, blasting me with the full impact of him front on. His gaze met mine the way lightning meets the sea. Electric. Black eyes burned a trail over me. The dark of his irises flicked between darker lashes, taking me in and peeling back the world.
No more café. No more dry Melbourne heat pushing sweat from my scalp into my hair. No more job interview in forty-five minutes. Only the sharp angles of a face that could have been cut from granite.
Oh, sweet god of chin dimples.
I swallowed, the bitter linger of coffee bouncing off the back of my taste buds. Those eyes tracked the movement, almost as though he’d caught the secret slide of my tongue against my palate.
The table jerked. A cool spray splattered my neck.
The world burst back into focus—scraping chairs, humming voices, waitress walking right into my table...
“I’m so sorry.” She slammed the tray down not two inches from my open laptop and set the empty glass of juice, the contents of which trickled down my chest, upright. “It’s my first day.”
I ran my hands down my throat, attempting to halt the slide of liquids to my brand new job-interview attire. “It’s okay.”
She tugged napkins from the dispenser. “I’m really sorry. There’s orange juice on your shirt.”
I scooped the napkins out of her hands and patted over my chest. Yep, of course she was right. A slash of orange streaked between my first and second buttons.
I took a breath. “It’s okay. May I have a soda water?”
“Of course.” She scooped up the empty coffee cups from my table and collected the tray.
I glanced at the laptop, blessedly spared a juicy coating. The cursor flashed at the top of the article I’d been working on.
“Aged Care Crisis—How everyday Australians are at risk of homelessness.”
A laugh burst from my lips, and I clamped a fist to my mouth. The laugh turned to a nasal snort. Homelessness, not funny whatsoever. Yet the idea of turning up at Poise magazine, orange stain between my boobs, sweat I could literally feel spawning some kind of frizz demon in my hair, well, it would be no shock if they suggested I perform a little investigative journalism on the matter.
Like the deep-undercover, pushing-around-a-shopping-cart kind of investigative journalism.
“Here’s your soda water.”
“Thanks.” I took the bottle and cracked the lid, then poured some out onto fresh napkins.
“Can I get you something else?”
My belly piped up like the over-excited child it tended to be. But I hadn’t lost a dress size for nothing. “Just another coffee, please.”
I wiped at my blouse, undoing the top button for maximum stain access. Dammit, juice managed to soak into my bra. My nice white one, too.
Excellent.
Tiny bumps rose where I wiped, a shiver rippling through my extremities. I looked up, dropping the napkins.
He stood right where my gaze had left him—facing me. As though he hadn’t taken a breath since I’d stooped looking at him. His brows pushed together, as though maybe he were lost. I glanced behind us. People sat around tables. The man he’d been with earlier was nowhere to be seen.
I turned back to chin-dimple dude. His eyes moved just a fraction. It took a moment to realize where he’d stolen a peek.
I’d left my shirt open.
Heat flooded every limb, but something else, too. Something that made my spine go straighter and made my chest snap farther out. His gaze flew back to mine, and he smirked. An expression so close yet so far from a smile my chest hurt from it. Everything went liquid hot. My insides pounded warm and fluttery, yet also heavy.
There stood trouble all right. I experienced the full breadth of that trouble as a sucker punch to my vagina.
Did he want to see my boobs? That was a thing I could do. They’d have an “out the back” here, wouldn’t they? Like an alley or something? I could handle soft-core flashing. Why not? No one else had seen them since—let’s not even think about when.
Suddenly, he looked over me and strode through the café.
He walked right past me.
My arm almost shot out to stop him.
I forced my palm onto the table and let him go. My heart pitter-pattered around my rib cage. Air rushed from my lips. I knew this feeling...excitement. The real, actual kind. Not the supposed-to-be type. A slow smile widened until it stretched my cheeks to an ache. Well, that was nice. I could still feel that. It’d taken a while, but I was glad the feeling still lived in me. I’d almost given up.
Haithem
THE NAPKIN SCRAPED over the underside of my jaw before I scrunched it in my palm. She was a problem.
A problem that plowed through me like a train the instant I’d entered. Stealing the concentration from my mind.
Who the hell is she?
A billion possibilities swarmed. Had someone sent her to watch me? The waitress set a cup on her table. She smiled in thanks, cheeks dimpling. No, of course not.
Just a girl drinking coffee...
Yet, the thump under my ribs didn’t slow. Now even sweetly smiling women sent suspicions coursing—this is what had become of me. The men at my table babbled nonsense that didn’t bear listening to. I was about to educate them exactly how things would be.
But her.
She tossed her head again. A hand through her hair and chin to her shoulder. Did she think I wouldn’t notice?
Or did she want me to?
If so, I should find out why. I dropped the napkin into an empty glass. How did things proceed like this? In the day. In public. I rubbed my fingers against my thumb. When was the last time I’d met a woman in daylight? Or one who wasn’t ready, hand out, rules set?
From where we sat, I had the gift of her profile. It wasn’t enough. Her bottom lip caught between her teeth, then popped back out.
My balls contra
cted. Went full and heavy. I might excuse myself for a moment, go over and—
No.
I expelled a breath. Whatever she was up to, she was too young for it. The girl was too young for me. Even if I couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made me fidget. Or made me want to crawl out of my skin just to get to her.
“Haithem,” Karim whispered.
This wasn’t the time for distractions.
Today’s company was a precious few that knew who I was and craved something from me other than spilling my blood. That didn’t warrant complacency. I focused on the men across from me. They already knew I was the real deal. The sweat beading across Steve Parker’s nose, and the way his tongue darted to the corner of his thin lips revealed negotiations would be wrapped up by the time I finished my tea. Steve’s partner, Brad, was harder to read. He didn’t sweat, didn’t shift, but I didn’t miss the tension corded in Brad’s neck, either. They knew what was going to happen—that they were about to be the first people in the world to gain access to something that until now had only been dreamed about. I’d have them folding before they knew bargaining had begun.
“So, do we have a deal or not? We’re losing patience.”
My chin lowered at Brad’s question. Direct. Good, things would move even quicker.
“There’s no reason to lose patience. Considering the personal risk I’m taking just in being here, I’m sure you can appreciate my reluctance to commit until all my terms are met.”
My gaze shifted over Brad’s shoulder. Dammit. She baited me again, pale eyes boldly flirting in my direction. Her cheeks were flushed, and her lips parted as if she’d been running or was freshly fucked—or perhaps just wanted to be...
Karim cleared his throat. I presented Steve my final offer. Time to finish this. There’d be opportunity for play later. Five years of hell and we were about to make the deal that would change the world—yes, change the world—and cement the price on my head. Normally, this kind of business was done at night, in empty construction sites or parking lots. But I’d learned that sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight. To anyone listening, this would sound like any average business lunch.
