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)
I can’t look away. For a moment, the club and the people in it are gone, and it’s just me and Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous looking at each other across the room.
Something stirs in my heart.
A name plays on my lips.
A name I refuse to say.
A name that belongs to a ghost.
I frown and quickly stamp the memory down.
“You want to pay for those now or start a tab, honey?” asks the server.
Startled back to the present, I look at her. “We’ll start a tab, thank you.”
“No problem.”
When she leaves, I look back at the dance floor, but the man is gone. I scan the room, but there is no sign of him.
“Who are you looking for?” Imogen asks when she returns and slides into the booth beside me.
“No one,” I say, my skin prickling with goose bumps. “No one at all.”
3
Nico
The couple behind the glass window fucks slowly.
Music fills the room from the state-of-the-art sound system, a steady throbbing pulse meant to seduce. Muted light casts shadows on their naked bodies as they writhe in pleasure.
Massimo and I pay little attention to the peep room on the other side of the glass as we discuss business over good scotch.
While I watch over the family business, Massimo also takes care of our personal portfolios and runs a tight ship when it comes to our investments.
This club is the latest. It’s called Lair and caters to a wide assortment of kinks, but its specialty is voyeurism. Based on the old peep shows, we’ve created a nirvana where, for a price, all your visual fantasies can come true in front of your very eyes.
Compared to our other ventures, it’s not a multimillion-dollar adventure. In fact, money wasn’t the motivation behind it. But since it opened a few months ago, it’s proved very successful.
“You look tense,” Massimo says as we conclude business.
“I’m always tense.”
“Yes, but more so today.”
I glance at the undulating bodies on the other side of the glass but feel nothing.
Usually, I like to watch. Hell, I like to do a lot of things. But lately, nothing gets me hard like my plans for revenge.
Except for last night.
When I finally let Bella see me at the club in Manhattan. In the seconds our gazes collided, it set off an unexpected eruption of dark anticipation in my mind, one that had a physical reaction I wasn’t expecting.
I got hard as fuck.
I’ve been watching her for months without her knowing. Emotionlessly. Detached. Hungry for revenge. Yet the moment our eyes met, my body tightened with a physical longing that haunted me all night.
Later, in the shower, I made myself come thinking about it, hoping I could fuck my hand and forget.
But this morning, I woke up hard and carried the tension in my shoulders all day.
This ridiculous reaction tells me it’s time to move forward before my feelings get any more twisted.
Massimo reaches over and refills my tumbler with scotch from the bottle on the table. “The families are growing restless. Not to mention, Luca Bamcorda. You will need to announce your plans to marry soon.”
“I will.”
He looks surprised. “Bianca?”
I scoff. “No. I’d rather perform brain surgery on myself.”
He lifts his glass to his lips but pauses. “You’re not seriously entertaining the idea of making Bella your wife?”
Massimo thinks my plans to force Bella into marriage is an impossible task. But I’m tenacious as fuck and generally get what I want because I’m prepared to do whatever it takes.
He doesn’t know that I have been moving the chess pieces into place for the past six months. Or that I’m about to unleash havoc in the Isle Ciccula camp.
I take a sip of my scotch. “She’ll be a suitable wife. She is used to the life.”
Behind the glass, the man comes all over the woman’s tits. She kneels before him, stroking his gigantic cock as thick ropes of cum splash across her chest.
Massimo fixes me with a suspicious look. “Last I heard, she abandoned the life and moved to London. Became an artist or something.”
“She works at a gallery as an art curator. She paints on the side.”
Massimo’s brows disappear up his forehead. “You’ve been keeping track of her?”
“Now that she’s the future Mrs. De Kysa, yes.”
“I should’ve known, you tenacious fuck.” He chuckles and sips his scotch. “You really think Vincent Isle Ciccula will go for it?”
“He won’t have a choice.”
“And Bella? I remember her stubbornness even as a kid. She won’t be easy to convince.”
“She’ll do it out of duty for her father.”
“Maybe, but she’ll fight you.”
The idea spins excitement through me. “Which will only make it more interesting.”
He shakes his head. “You’re really going through with it?”
“My plans are set,” I assure him. “All I need to do is press the detonator.”
4
Bella
I stir restlessly in my bed, my mind trapped in a dreamscape of broken memories.