Page 10

No, thanks.

It’s bad enough I have to confront Desmond, let alone become his bride. I don’t know what made him change his mind all these years later. It’s not like I could go back to being a virginal Offering even before I moved on and had my fun with some of the guys I met outside of Harmony Heights. True, he was the boyfriend who tried everything to get me to sleep with him before the Claiming, but, oh, did he fucking lose it when rumors spread that I slept withsomeone—and he knew damn well it wasn’t him.

I haven’t seen him since the Monday after the graduation party at Sebastien Reynolds’ house. I didn’t know that someone heard me and Adrian fucking in the guest room, or that they watched me and my wild hair walk out on my own. So excited to spread the word that a future Offering was giving it away already, they didn’t stick around to see who was in the room with me.

Everyone thought it had to be my boyfriend. Only Desmond knew he left me behind with Adrian, so after he called me a whore and dumped me in front of the entire lunchroom the following Monday, he accused Adrian of being the mystery guy I fucked.

Only he was Adrian Heller, the head of the Heirs, and the boy who bullied me so consistently over the years that not a single kid in our school believed I would ever sleep with him.

The damage was done anyway. I was branded the school slut, Desmond wanted nothing to do with me, neither did Haven, and after I went to confront Adrian about telling the truth…

Yeah. I was gone the second I hit eighteen and, technically, my father couldn’t stop me. Now, ten years later, I’m back in his house, walking into the living room to meet?—

“Desmond.”

My body goes cold the same way it used to when he had his lips on me. Just seeing him standing in the middle of the room, head tilted just enough to show his contempt for our much smaller home, eyes immediately undressing me as he looks me over, head to toe… being face-to-face with Desmond St. James for the first time in a decade has me thrown back to the last time we met.

Ew.

His grin turns to one of approval as he stalks toward me, arms outstretched, waiting for a hug that I know better than to deny him.

His arms close around me. A hint of whiskey mingled with a dark cologne fills my nostrils. It’s dangerous in a way that only adds to my uneasiness, though I force a smile to my face as he reluctantly releases me.

Desmond fucking St. James. His face is sharper than it was, his dark hair shorter. It’s still slicked back, like how I remember, and his suit fits him very well, damn it. There’s still a miasma of ooze coming off of him, making him oily—or maybe that’s just the expression on his narrow face as he reaches out his hand.

I take it, and he guides me toward the couch where we both sit down.

He speaks for the next ten minutes, telling me all about his life. I learn where he went to school—the same local, private college that all of the Owed attend—and how he did follow in his father’s footsteps, getting that ol’ nepo push right to a top-floor office once he had his degree.

He doesn’t ask me about myself. Of course not. He never seemed to give a shit about me when we were dating, always filling the silence with his thoughts, his hobbies, his future. Even now, when I try to add something to the conversation, his jawgoes tight, his eyes flat, as though I’m offending him by just speaking up at all.

He hasn’t even used my name, I notice. Does he know that I’m Loni? That I’m the woman he’s set to marry in less than a week? He must, but I could be a robot for all the attention he shows me.

And, like a robot, he decides he can order me around.

“Gilda told my father that you had your final dress fitting yesterday afternoon.” He flicks his fingers at me. “Go on. Get dressed. I want to see it.”

He waits expectantly for me to do just that.

I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, staying seated. “Oh, um. I thought it was bad luck to see a bride in her gown before the wedding.”

“And? Go do what I said. I want to see what I paid for.”

That’s weird. “My dad is the one who bought the dress.”

I know because he wrote a check to Gilda for the final alterations. He paid for a stock dress that looked like something I might wear, then hired the Owed-affiliated seamstress to tailor it to fit my body.

“Of course he did. I’m taking his dirty daughter off his hands. The least he can do is pay for the wedding. But, Loni, baby… that’s not what I meant and we both know it.”

I want to see what I paid for…

I tremble. Holy shit. He meansme, doesn’t he?

Considering he reaches out, trailing a finger suggestively from my knee up toward my crotch, I’m pretty sure I’m right.

His lips curl. “Know what? Where’s the dress? Your room? Perfect. We’ll both go there, and I’ll watch you put it on. And when you change out of it again, I’ll see how good the rest of my Offering performs for her fiancé.”

I slap his wandering fingers, the same way I once did when I was seventeen. “Desmond, I don’t think that we’re supposed to?—”