Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
If Nico bloody De Kysa thinks he can tell me what to do, then he’s about to learn a very valuable lesson.
Bella Isles Ciccula is no fucking pushover.
Give up my life in London?
The man is fucking insane if he thinks I’m giving up anything to marry him.
Upstairs, it’s a whole new world. Plush carpet. Marble walls. Chandeliers hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Everything in a shade of white.
But I barely take it all in as I storm down the hallway, ready to lose my shit.
I stop at a pair of closed twin doors. He’s behind those doors. I just know it. I can’t explain how I know or why.
I just know.
Furious, I push down on the elegant gold doorknobs and burst through the doors.
He is sitting behind a large desk looking at something on his computer screen.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I yell.
A mean-looking man with no hair and big arms steps toward me, but Nico stops him with a wave of his hand as he slowly rises to his feet.
“Bella—”
“You chauvinistic jerk!” I spit out, slightly breathless from storming up the stairs because clearly, I am not an Olympic sprinter.
“Domenico, I’m so sorry!” Anastacia pants as she and Imogen grind to a halt behind me.
But I ignore them.
“You think you can snap your fingers, and I’ll do what you say?” I take an angry step farther into the room. “It doesn’t work that way, buddy. If you want a wife who will give up everything she has worked hard for, then I strongly advise that you find somebody else to marry. Do you know how hard I worked to get where I am today? I’ve worked my ass to the bone, that’s how hard. I’ve put in hours that would make you weak just thinking about them. So if you think I’ll give it all up for a narcissistic, chauvinistic asshole who wants to boss me around, then you’re as delusional as you are a manipulative jerk!”
My tirade makes me out of breath.
It also makes me slightly emotional.
Nico simply stares back at me, his arms folded across his chest, his stupidly beautiful face calm and assured.
I hate him.
I hate him so much my bones ache.
Yet seeing him for the first time in ten years, my heart lets out a sigh.
“Why?” I glare at him, my anger deepening when I remember I’m standing in front of the boy who broke my heart.
Nico moves slowly around his desk and clears the room with a nod. Imogen looks at me questioningly. Silently asking me if I want her to leave. I give her a small nod, and she leaves with a pinched-face Anastacia. I turn back to glare at Nico and am only vaguely aware of the two bodyguards leaving when the door clicks quietly behind them.
“I’ve agreed to your sick business deal in the name of peace, at least show me the same respect and tell me why,” I demand.
“Why what?”
I hate that his deep and smooth voice sounds like a sexy voice-over actor.
“Why me? If you need a wife so badly, why didn’t you pick from the legion of women clamoring for the attention of the Heartless King from the North?” I glare at him. “Why pick the girl whose heart you broke?”
The words tumble out, thoughtlessly, and I regret them immediately. The last thing I need is for him to think he has any kind of power over me. Or that him failing to show up on my eighteenth birthday actually meant something to me.
Yet there they are, out in the open. The admission that he did indeed break my heart.
His dark brows pull together but slowly smooth back into place.
He opens his mouth to reply, but I don’t give him a chance to respond because I’m on Angry Avenue, and it’s a one-way street.
Plus, I don’t think I’m ready to hear the answer.
“Expecting me to give up my career just because we’re married is chauvinistic and archaic. We will be married in name only.”
“But we will reside in the United States.”
“Why, if it is in name only?”
“My wife is expected to be with me at all public events. And I travel a lot for business.”
“I don’t care if you travel to Mars for business. I’m not giving up my career to be your Stepford wife!”
“I’m open for negotiation.”
“You say that like it’s something I’m prepared to negotiate, and it’s not.” I step closer and shove a pointed finger in his rock-hard chest. “Let’s get one thing straight, Mr. De Kysa. I may have agreed to marry you, but I won’t be forced to do anything else. Do you understand me?”
Infuriatingly, he unfolds his arms as if he doesn’t have a care in the world and takes a predatory step closer. “You’re just as bullheaded as I knew you would be.” His eyes are impossibly dark. His scent full of the dark notes of musk and testosterone and sin. “It’s good to see some things don’t change.”