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“Pretty little thing, isn’t she?”

The urge to beat Hexley to a pulp flashes through my mind, but I’m consumed by other wicked thoughts. My pulse hammers in my throat. Something hot and shameful stirs in my belly as I think about how hard she’ll fight the invasion when it comes. How she’ll clench, wrapping that sweet pussy around my–fuck.

I shove it down. Pulling away roughly, cool air meets the slick heat still coating my fingers. I leave her there, breathing hard. I nod to Graves and he quickly steps in, handing her the panties and skirt.

Her lip trembles but she won’t meet my eye.

"She’s a virgin," I say, rising to my feet. "Satisfied?"

Hexley exhales like he’s just completed a trade deal. "Good. Then everything proceeds as planned."

Behind me, Graves helps her sit up. "Get her dressed," I tell Graves.

He nods, moving quietly to her side.

Hexley claps a hand on my shoulder as he turns to leave. "She’s your responsibility now, King. Don’t let her forget who gave her to you."

I doubt she will.

And neither will I.

“It’s time.”

I’m starting to think this day will never end.

Graves stands in the doorway of my bathroom, holding a clean, black linen shirt. I’d just stepped out of the shower–a futile attempt to remove the stench of the evening spent with the Dean. With a towel wrapped around my hips, I wipe the steam off the bathroom mirror, revealing my face, and scrape the blade of the razor along my jaw.

“We could skip this, you know,” I suggest. “No one would ever be the wiser.”

“You would know.” The sympathy on my oldest friend’s face tries to be kind, but I see the truth: pity. “It’s tonight. Everything is prepared.”

Ignoring him, I dip the razor into the water, rinsing off the blade.

Unfortunately, Graves still wants to talk. “The dinner was…”

“Exhausting? Disturbing? A prequel to a five person murder-suicide?” By the time dinner was over, I was one second from wrapping my hands around the other man’s throat and putting us all out of our misery. In my life I’ve never met such a pretentious, tone-deaf buffoon. And I knew Rufus Ashby. But our deal isn’t complete until after the wedding, so I need him alive. For now at least. And there has been a purpose to this arrangement all along, that’s the one thing keeping me going.

I almost gave it up after watching him hover over his niece’s exposed body, his meaty fingers preparing to touch her. Whatever happened at the Manor is their business, but once the girl took the oath and survived the hunt, she didn’t just become the Baroness, she becamemine.

With or without a wedding.

“Adeline says everything is ready for tomorrow,” Graves’ voice interrupts my thoughts, in a clear attempt to change the topic. “The flowers are ordered and the sacraments ironed. She’ll pick up Arianette’s dress in the morning, which, by the way, I’m told is exquisite.”

A flash of black tulle bunched on the floor, along with the feel of soft pink lips buried under the dark nest of curls, slams into me. The blade flinches, nicking my throat.

“Dammit,” I mutter, splashing water on the cut and making it sting.

“Careful.”

“For the record, Adeline thinks everything she touches is exquisite.” I roll my eyes at him in the mirror. “That includes you. Did she try to get in your pants again?”

“No,” he makes a face. “She seems to have finally accepted that she's not my type.”

“It is your fault, you know.” I laugh, thinking how a tryst twenty years ago, during a historic hurricane, is still the cause of poor Adeline’s heartbreak. “You fucked her.”

“Timothy!” Graves hisses, looking over his shoulder as if someone could hear me. “That was a mistake during a night of a million, even more unforgivable, mistakes.”

Yes, what happened to Liberty Sinclaire that night is a black mark even for the Royals. Although, ironically, the result of such treachery resulted in Ashby’s eventual downfall. Delicious revenge, the kind usually reserved for macabre fairy tales, but I learned a long time ago that anything is possible in Forsyth.