by Naima Simone
“And what about kindness? Affection? Love? I don’t deserve that kind of marriage? Like you had with Mom?” she whispered.
“And you see how well that turned out,” he snapped. “I’m doing you a favor, Devon. Enter a relationship based on mutual benefits and common ground and if, God forbid, you end up a widow, you won’t be left devastated and broken. Remember that, Devon. Keep your heart out of this. And you will have the best life I could ever gift you with.”
“Dad, are you listening to yourself?” she demanded, disbelief and bone-deep sorrow pulsing in her. “You can’t possibly mean any of that.” She shook her head. Yes, her mother’s death had changed him. But this much? When had he become so...cold? So hard-hearted? “Sorry, Dad. I can’t do it. You might think an arranged marriage is some kind of blessing, but to me it would be hell. I won’t marry a stranger.”
And what kind of man would agree to this archaic and self-serving nonsense? What did he expect from her? More to the point, what did her father promise him to get him to agree to this farce? If he really was one of the country’s most eligible bachelors, then he should have his pick of women. Devon was a realist; she was kind, smart and a hard worker. But she wasn’t the most connected, the wealthiest or the most beautiful. Why her?
“You’ll do it, Devon,” he snarled. “Because I’ve raised you, sacrificed for you.”
“You did those things because you’re my father,” she replied, anger at his attempt at emotional blackmail coursing through her. “It’s what fathers do.”
“And daughters put their families first,” he snapped. Pausing, he drew his shoulders back, visibly calming himself. Turning, he picked up his glass again and drank from it. When he faced her again, he slid his free hand into his pants pocket and quietly studied her. “Devon, you’re going along with this—”
“No, sorry. But I’m not,” she interjected.
He continued speaking as if she hadn’t interrupted. “Because if you don’t, I’ll make sure the funding for that precious community center you love will be rescinded. And I’ll make the rounds with other donors and convince them the center is a bad investment. You know as well as I do that there isn’t a lack of charities where that money can be applied.”
Anger, so hot, so rich she could taste it, broke over her. A tremble quaked through her, and in that moment, she hated him. For rendering her powerless. For reducing her worth to no more than an asset he could trade or cash in. For who he’d become.
Guilt and shame crashed into her, a churning deluge that damn near drowned her. What kind of daughter harbored those thoughts about the man who’d brought her into this world? Before her mother died, she’d hugged Devon close and made her promise to look after her father. Logically, Devon understood that her mother hadn’t meant to place such a burden on a ten-year-old. But that vow had chained Devon to her father all these years. At twenty-six, she still remained with him, worried about how hard he pushed himself, driven by invisible demons.
“Would you really take away my job, the place I care most about?” she asked quietly.
He scoffed, flicking off her question as if batting away an annoying gnat. “I’ve told you repeatedly you don’t need that job. You have your choice of volunteer committees where you could actually bring about change by fundraising and forging relationships with people who matter. But instead, you insist on taking a menial position that anyone with a rudimentary degree could work at. So yes, I would take that away, if you force my hand. Gladly. Because it would be for your own good, which you’re too stubborn to see.”
Her father was right—this wasn’t just about her. Not since he put the future of the community center on the line. For four years, it hadn’t only been a place to utilize her bachelor’s degree in urban studies and her master’s in social work—it was also a haven. The staff, the children, the senior citizens and their loved ones had become surrogates for the family she’d left behind in New Jersey. So how selfish would it be of her to rip funding out from under them just to save herself? Employees would have to be let go. The center would lose programs that served all the demographics of the community, not just youths, but before-and after-school care, and elderly care.
No, she wouldn’t allow her father to harm the center and all the people it assisted and employed.
She also wouldn’t let him determine her future. As he’d taught her, she’d play the game. For now. But somehow, she’d find a way out of this sham. How? No clue.
Yet.
“Fine, Dad,” she said, curling her fingers around the back of the couch, steadying herself against the foreboding that swept through her. As if with those two words she’d sealed her fate. “You win. If you leave the community center alone, I’ll go along with this.”
“Marriage, Devon,” he stated, a vein of steel threading through his voice. “Not only will you marry the man I’ve handpicked for you, but you’ll make him believe this is what you want. You’ll convince him your dream is to be his wife. This discussion stays here between us, Devon. And I mean that. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Dad,” she murmured, the placid tone belying her death grip on the furniture. “You want me to begin my future on a lie. Got it.”
“Devon,” he barked, but the peal of the doorbell broke off what would have undoubtedly been a scathing dressing-down. He scowled. “Who is that? Are you expecting someone?”
She didn’t have a chance to reply before their housekeeper appeared in the room’s entrance. “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt you and Ms. Devon, but there’s a gentleman at the door. He claims you are expecting him. I placed him in the formal living room—”
“Since I’m practically family, I decided not to stand on formalities,” drawled a dark, silken voice of velvet and grit.
She knew that voice.
Heard that voice in her dreams.
No. Oh God, no. It couldn’t be.
Slowly, she pivoted, as if delaying what her clamoring heart and the heat pooling low in her belly already concluded.
But neither her ears, her heart nor the desire lighting her up like the Boston skyline were lying to her. Only one man had caused her body to tighten with a peculiar combination of anticipation, lust, excitement and trepidation. And he stood in her home.
Cain Farrell.
Delight exploded within her, and the beginnings of a tremulous smile tilted the corners of her mouth. She took a small step forward, but then his words penetrated her shock.
Since I’m practically family...
Wait. She jerked to a halt.
He couldn’t possibly mean...
She shot a glance over her shoulder at her father, and the smug smirk confirmed the dread yawning wider in her chest. In her soul.
She returned her attention to the silent, brooding man standing feet from her. Instinct warned her that between him and her father, he was the one who presented the most danger. Not physically. Even though his tall, wide-shouldered frame seemed to shrink the spacious room to a cubbyhole, she didn’t fear him using his size against her.
No, the danger he posed was much more nebulous, intangible.
Swallowing, she again moved toward him, his name hovering on her tongue. But he shifted his gaze from her father to her. And once more, she jerked to a halt.
Those wolf eyes didn’t gleam with humor or admiration or even bemusement.
Loathing.
He stared at her with pure, unadulterated loathing.
Cain Farrell hated her.
And she couldn’t blame him.
Not one bit.
Five
Her.
Betrayal, razor sharp, bit into him. Ridiculous and inexplicable how deep the hurt and bitterness pierced. He’d spoken with her for all of ten minutes, didn’t even know her last name. And yet...
Yet, he’d dreamed about her. Built her up in his mind to be this par
agon of kindness, innocence and...decency. A paragon of all the things he’d believed were gone from this world.
God, he was such a fool.
He’d thought it would be impossible to be as enraged as he’d been in his office with Gregory. Wrong.
He’d been so wrong.
Before, he’d been enraged.
Now, he was furious.
She’d played him. Had probably arranged that little meeting in his mother’s garden. Well, she deserved a goddamn award for the performance. He’d fallen for it. Had she and her father laughed about him afterward? Congratulated themselves on a job well done?
Anger, fueled by disillusionment and humiliation, poured through him like gasoline. And the phony shock and hint of sadness in her emerald eyes was the match that had his control on the verge of detonating. No wonder Gregory Cole’s gaze had seemed familiar to him. He’d stared into those same green, deceptive depths before.
Never again. Never again would he believe what shone from those beautiful, treacherous eyes or those sensual, lying lips.
“Cain, this is a surprise. We were expecting you for dinner,” Gregory greeted, smiling as he crossed the room, his arm outstretched to shake Cain’s hand.
Was he fucking kidding?
Cain stared down at Gregory’s palm until the other man lowered his arm back to his side. Crimson stained Gregory’s cheekbones and twin lines bracketed his mouth.
“You may be blackmailing me into marrying your daughter, but don’t for one second believe that makes us friends. Or even friendly. I warned you what you would get from me. My name. That’s it. Not small talk. Not pleasantries. And not dinners. I came by to meet the person so desperate for a man and a foothold in society that she would allow her father to take criminal measures on her behalf.” He swung his regard back to Devon, gratified to see she’d wiped that attempt at genuine emotion from her face. It didn’t fit her. “And now that I have met her, I want a moment alone with my fiancée. Since you’ve gone to so much trouble, you don’t mind, do you, Devon?”
Gregory glanced sharply at his daughter, who did an applause-worthy job of appearing guilty. Her thick eyelashes lowered, and she didn’t meet her father’s gaze. Nice try, but keeping up pretenses of innocence was unnecessary. That ship had sailed. Just being here in the same room with her father solidified that she was a willing accomplice.
“Devon?” Gregory barked, and though Cain harbored no sympathy for her, he clenched his jaw against the impulsive need to order Cole to watch his tone.
“I have no problem speaking with you,” she murmured, ignoring her father and addressing Cain.
The dense fringe of lashes lifted, and he glimpsed determination in her stare. She would need that determination dealing with him. Because he intended to grant her and her father the same amount of mercy they’d offered him.
None.
“Well, I have a problem,” Gregory snapped.
“And I don’t care,” Cain said, not bothering to hide his impatience and disgust for the man. “Either we talk now, or I leave.”
Gregory’s expression tightened, his facial bones stark under his skin. Cain read the fury in his glare, the taut pull of his mouth and the tense set of his shoulders.
And he relished it.
“Fine,” Gregory eventually growled. “Twenty minutes.”
He stalked from the room, and Cain snorted. If that was supposed to be a show of parental concern, Gregory had failed. A man like him didn’t care about something as tender as his daughter’s feelings or well-being. Hell, he was trading both for more business, more wealth and an entrance into an inner social circle whose doors had been closed to him. No, more likely he worried about not controlling the situation.
Welcome to the fucking club.
As soon as he disappeared, Cain turned back to Devon...and slow clapped, the gesture condescending.
“Well done,” he drawled. “I congratulate you on a stellar performance. Your father must be proud of his star pupil.”
“Cain, I’m sorry,” she murmured.
He snorted. “You’ll have to be more specific. For what? Lying in wait for me during my father’s funeral? For tag-teaming with your father to extort me?”
For making a fool out of me? For making me believe I saw sweetness in you? For every sweaty, hot night I woke up hard and aching for a woman who didn’t exist?
As the too-vulnerable questions whispered through his mind, he locked his jaw and strode past her to the bar he’d spied when he’d entered the well-appointed room. Part of him detested partaking of anything that belonged to Gregory Cole—and that included his daughter.
But the other half acknowledged that this conversation required a drink. And that he needed to keep his hands busy—before they acted of their own accord and mapped the dangerous curves showcased by the simple long-sleeved T-shirt and dark, hip-hugging jeans.
She was like the lily of the valley—elegant, sweet, virginal. But if ingested, poisonous.
Tearing his gaze from her, he poured a finger of Scotch into a glass and brought it to his lips. He downed the alcohol in one swallow. Closing his eyes, he welcomed the smooth burn. It warmed him, spreading as it hit his stomach. Anything to distract him from wondering if those beautiful breasts would spill over his hands if he cupped her. If her nipples would be a slightly lighter hue than her caramel-colored hair, or would they be a deep rose.
He poured another drink to try and convince himself he didn’t care.
Yeah. Not enough Scotch in the world for that.
“Cain, I know you won’t believe me, but I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this...” She faltered, not finishing the sentence, and he threw back the second drink, slamming the glass down as the Scotch hit the back of his throat.
“Into this shit show, you mean?” he supplied, arching a brow. “You offer up that pretty apology as if you have nothing to do with this. As if your selfish demands aren’t screwing with my life,” he growled. “I don’t have much of a choice here, but you? All you have to do is tell your father no, that you won’t go along with it. But you’re not going to do that, are you, Devon? Not when both of you have dollar signs in your eyes.”
She swept her hands over her hair, dragging away the few loose strands that had escaped her ponytail. She turned away from him, giving him her profile to study. The high forehead. The impudent tilt of her nose. The top-heavy bow of her mouth. In another era, artists would’ve competed to paint the elegance of her features and lushness of her body. Now, in this more materialistic and shallow society, beauty like hers earned criticism instead of praise. Which just proved society was dumb as well as blind.
Her curves, dips and hollows would lure men to their downfall like currents sweeping ships to crash against jagged rocks.
Well, screw that. He might find himself shackled to her, but damn if he would be a casualty to his dick.
“No,” she said, facing him again, her chest lifting and falling on the audible breath she inhaled. “I can’t back out of it.”
He’d expected the answer—had known the answer. And yet it still slammed into him, the knowledge reverberating through him like an earthquake. As if there had been a small part of him hanging on to the hope that he’d misjudged her. That he hadn’t been so damn wrong.
How many times would he be a fool for this woman?
Never. Again.
“Even though the thought of chaining myself to a gold-digging bitch and her bottom-feeder father makes my skin crawl, part of me is glad you said that,” he murmured.
Ignoring the jerk of her chin and the slight recoil of her body, he stalked closer, eating up the distance he’d placed between them. She shifted backward, but the couch prevented her from going any farther. And he took advantage of it. Trapping her body between his and the fussy piece of furniture. He stopped just short of pressing his chest to hers, but
near enough that her scent—a sultry combination of honey and sharper citrus notes—teased him. Taunted him. Steeling himself against it, he cocked his head to the side and studied her.
Not caring that both his open inspection and the infiltration of her personal space sped past rude and parked next to inappropriate. There was nothing appropriate about any of this.
“Because now, when I do everything in my power to make your very existence a living hell, you’ll know exactly why you’ll receive no mercy from me. I hope you enjoyed that moment of satisfaction when your father told you he got me on the hook. Because that’s the last time you’ll feel anything close to it again.”
“Does it make you feel better to threaten me?” she asked, and he resented her calm, the evenness of her voice. Like he was the only one drowning in emotion.
God, he wanted—needed—her to go under with him.
“Yes,” he replied, and she blinked at his blunt candor. “But you don’t need to bother with this act on my behalf, sweetheart. Pretending to be the sweet, concerned, honest woman who introduced herself in the garden—it must’ve been tiring, maintaining that charade. No need to keep it up when I can see right through you.” He lifted a hand and gently dragged the backs of his fingers down her cheek, imitating and mocking the touch he’d surrendered to before. Before he’d discovered that soft heart was actually made of stone and yearning for large denominations. “That might be the one thing you’ll enjoy about our marriage. The freedom of no pretense. I’m going into this already knowing you’re a coldhearted, greedy social climber who would do anything to get what she wants.”
Fire flashed in those eyes and, God help him, excitement twisted with anger in his blood, creating an unholy union. Desire—he recognized it, acknowledged it. He might despise everything Devon stood for, but that didn’t prevent lust from locking him in its jaws, from hardening his body to the point of pain.
“Good girl,” he purred, rubbing his thumb over that slightly fuller top lip. He pressed gently, testing the texture, the give. Her gasp bathed his skin, and before he could check it, he bowed his head over hers, their foreheads almost touching. “There it is. I want to see that fire you hide behind a purity we both know doesn’t suit you.”
