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)
Unless his new bride is involved in our world, she’ll either run when she finds out or become a liability.
And guess who will have to clean up the mess?
Massimo pushes an invite into my chest.
“Here’s your invitation to the wedding reception he’s throwing her tonight.”
“He’s aware I’m getting married in the morning?”
“Don’t worry, Sleeping Beauty. It’s an early dinner. Plenty of time for you to get your beauty sleep before your big day.”
28
Bella
I know something is up the moment he gets home.
As soon as he walks through the elevator doors, he heads straight to the cellarette to poor himself a scotch.
With his back to me, he growls, “My father got married.”
“Married?” I exclaim from the couch where I’m drinking a glass of wine and scrolling Instagram.
“Funny, that’s exactly what I said,” he mutters before taking a mouthful of scotch.
Agitation rises off him like steam.
“Have you met her?” I ask.
“No, we’ll meet her tonight,” he says gruffly, shaking off his jacket and throwing it on the couch. “He’s throwing a wedding reception for his bride at Zanzibar.”
Zanzibar is a restaurant in the Lower West Side.
My brow lifts. “But tomorrow is our wedding day? I was going to spend the night with Imogen. She’s booked a room for us at The Plaza. We’re going to drink mocktails and talk about all the different ways you can hide a body. You know, stuff I might need to know in the near future.”
He throws me a dark look. “Plans change.”
I sit up straighter. “Are you telling me the wedding has been called off because Daddy has come back to town with a new wife?”
My upbeat tone seems to irritate him further. “No.”
I sigh, disappointed. “Are you sure? I mean, I’m happy to wait.”
He stalks off, muttering, “You need to get dressed. They’re expecting us at six.”
“So that’s it?” I jump off the couch to follow him to the bedroom. “I’m expected to cancel my plans with my bridesmaid on the night before my wedding?”
He throws his shirt and tie on the bed. “Yes.”
My mood plummets. “I don’t remember agreeing to be at your beck and call when I agreed to this arrangement.”
“It was implied.”
“Hardly an argument that would stack up in court.”
He stops by me on his way to the bathroom. “So sue me.”
He stands shirtless in front of the sink and begins to shave.
I feel positively combative as I stand in the doorway watching him. The injustice of everything that is my current life seems almost too overwhelming to make sense of right now.
And now we’ve gone and thrown sex into the chaotic mix.
I think about all the sex we’ve had in the past twenty-four hours, and my body flushes from my head to my toes.
We haven’t had time to discuss what it means to our fake relationship.
If it means anything at all.
“Why are you so upset by your father remarrying?” I ask.
Nico continues to shave as he says, “Because it’s reckless and impulsive. We don’t know who she is or who she might be associated with.”
“So vet her.”
“You say that like I haven’t spent the entire day doing exactly that.”
“And what did you find? Is she associated with anyone?”
“No,” he says in a low, angry voice. “But the searches aren’t finished. Besides, that’s not the point.”
“Then explain it to me.”
He rinses his razor under the faucet before shaking it off and sliding it across his skin with cutthroat precision.
“The older he gets, the more unpredictable he gets, which is a giant pain in my ass. He would never have done this as don. It opens the family up to too many threats. Yet here he is living like a man who doesn’t have a closet full of skeletons.” He cleans the shaving cream off his blade again and resumes shaving. “When it all falls to shit, I will be the one who has to clean it up.”
“There’s one thing you haven’t considered,” I say. “What if it doesn’t fall to shit? What if they find their happily ever after?”
He pauses to give me a doubtful look. “We’re De Kysa men, we don’t have luck with love. It’s something I accepted a long time ago.”
And there it is.
The giant elephant in the room that has always been with us but we’ve chosen to ignore—why Nico never came to find me on our eighteenth birthday.
And why he hates me so much.
But Nico’s current mood is so volatile that bringing up past hurts will only be as helpful as turning on gas near a naked flame.
Which isn’t the deterrent it should be.
I cross my arms and lean against the doorframe. “Is that why you didn’t come for me on my eighteenth birthday?”
Nico stops shaving but doesn’t look at me. He braces against the sides of the sink, and I feel his mood darken even further. Tension tightens in his broad, muscular shoulders. He drags in a deep breath to steady his temper.