Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
His wife.
Me.
I gulped.
He’d never looked at me like that before.
Not once.
And I’d never known a day in my life when someone had so intensely stared straight through my soul. Studying him, you’d think that every answer to all life’s questions were found if you drowned in one thing—my eyes.
I’d been jealous of Raven for a brief second, and now I barely remembered my own name, because Louis wanted me, he was walking toward me, he commanded the room.
For me.
He drank what I gave him.
For me.
A pawn.
A lover.
A gamble.
I straightened my spine and stared right back. If Louis De Lange wanted to pretend this marriage was a performance, then I’d give the world the best damn show they’d ever seen and have them eating out of the palm of my hand.
Louis moved like he owned the floor—like every stare in the room belonged to him.
And in that moment—they did.
He demanded people pay attention.
He was stunning in his suit. His dark hair curled at the base of his neck kissing his collar, his full lips pressed into an amused smile and his crystal blue eyes were temptation itself. His beauty was part of his skill set, I learned in those brief seconds, just another weapon in his arsenal that he knew how to use like the sharpest of knives.
And I wondered how many women had begged him to slice.
He slipped between guests with the ease of someone born into bloodlines and boardrooms, all tailored arrogance and untouchable polish. When he reached me, his hand didn’t take mine—it claimed it. His fingers threaded through mine like it had always been that way.
A breath. A pause. A caress against my bare wrist—soft enough to make my pulse skip, hard enough that my knees wanted to betray me.
He leaned down, lips ghosting just beneath my ear. The hitch in my breath betrayed me just like my suddenly shaky hands.
“You’re staring,” he said, warm breath dragging over my skin. “You should smile. People are watching.”
Then he turned, cupped my waist like he meant it, and kissed my cheek with the slow, practiced affection of a man who had charmed entire countries into surrendering their daughters.
Laughter erupted behind us. Dante nodded in approval. The suits relaxed.
Louis kept up the act like he was born for it, whispering something into my hair that made an older woman beside us swoon into her champagne. He lifted my fingers to his lips in the most calculated display of fake affection I’d ever seen.
And worst of all?
It worked.
The crowd adored him. Ate up the performance. Fell in love with the lie.
Hell, I’d believe it too if I wasn’t so heavily involved in it, if I hadn’t endorsed it so beautifully.
The tinkle of a crystal wine glass breaking filled the entry way. I jumped a foot and nearly into Louis’s arms. He pulled me close for a brief second as I imagined it was real. The shelter of his arms was nice. Too nice.
Don’t get close.
You’ll lose yourself in him.
Think about yourself.
I yanked my hand back the second the attention shifted and I knew we were safe to act normal. “You don’t get to do that.”
He arched a brow and leaned in until his breath was hot on my neck. “Do what?”
“Touch me like that. Make it feel so real.”
Louis’s face didn’t change, but his eyes flared with something unspoken. “I told you not to tease me. Not to touch me unless you wanted it to be.”
“I’m not my sister,” I snapped, breath catching.
He tilted his head, smile hollow. “Trust me,” he said, voice like cut glass. “I know.”
“Louis!” Ace crooked his finger at him and tilted his chin, silently conveying, hey we need to talk.
Great, just great. The world suddenly felt too big, and I? Too freaking small for it, like everyone noticed yet didn’t notice me all at once. Did I bite off more than I could chew? Was I ready and what was it about Louis around my family that suddenly made me lose confidence? Maybe it was the ease with which he walked through the crowds—like he’d done it so many times before that it was meaningless being next to the five families, rubbing elbows with the cappo’s men while senators discussed state secrets. I grew up around it, and I still found it jarring at times, which was why I partied and found myself constantly hiding away or skipping events altogether. Being present meant being fake, being fake was exhausting, and escaping meant I could finally breathe for a minute.
Raven suddenly sidled up beside me as the crowd pulled Louis and Ace into a conversation with one of the Nicolasi uncles. My sister sipped her champagne, eyes never leaving the way Louis charmed, laughed, and moved like he belonged to all of them.
“Wow,” Raven said, not bothering to lower her voice. “You guys got close fast.”