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He chuckled as he poured another shot of whiskey. His admission unleashed a swell of warmth throughout her belly. Her concern over Bryce’s father’s acceptance came out of the sole fact that Bryce obviously admired the man. She wanted to make a good impression, and it appeared she’d succeeded.

“I thank you, Mr. Hampton,” she said.

There would be a time when she and Bryce would need to leave the mortal realm to return to her home. A time when their lives stretched beyond what was acceptable in the human realm, but for the time they spent here, she would enjoy the presence of this man.

“Please, call me Mark.” To Bryce, he asked, “Did you two eat? If not, you should stay for dinner.”

Bryce snorted. “Yeah, that might not be the greatest idea you’ve had.”

Rihanna silently agreed. After all, she was the woman responsible for destroying his mother’s vision of a perfect wedding with Kate Felton. Wounds were too fresh, too painful, to invade a spot another held only a short time ago.

“Besides, we ate—”

The office door crashed into the wall without warning. Bryce and Mark sprang to their feet. Bryce immediately placed himself between Rihanna and an infuriated woman whose face deepened to a dangerous shade of red. Her eyes glinted with rage as she exchanged glares between Bryce and Mark.

“Mary, we were—”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” the woman snapped, cutting off her husband’s attempt to defuse her anger.

Slowly, Rihanna rose to her feet behind Bryce.

Something was off. The air sizzled, electric and…dangerous. Unnatural.

With a placid mask settling over her expression, Rihanna sought the source of the menacing energy. Bryce tried to block her again, but she gracefully sidestepped him. Ice scraped through her veins, the cold both paralyzing and fearsome.

That cold…

The pretty woman standing in the doorway raged, her words scalding but meaningless. ’Twasn’t until Rihanna managed to catch the woman’s gaze that she realized her fury was intensified by another source. Someone else fed this woman’s rage. ’Twas not her own.

Magic.

Power.

Cold.

Goddess, nay.

“She’s a good-for-nothing tramp! Look at her! Shameful to call herself a woman. A homewrecker is more fitting! She’s taken our son from Kate. That poor girl is devastated, I tell you! She doesn’t deserve to be treated like garbage, and it’s because of her”—the woman pointed furiously at Rihanna—“that this has happened! Bryce, I demand you to end this now! You’ll go back to the Feltons and you’ll apologize—”

Rihanna reinforced her glamour. To everyone in the room, it would appear she stood beside Bryce as, hidden behind a shield of magic, she slowly approached the screaming woman.

“Mary, stop. Are you listening to yourself?” Mark barked,storming up to her. “This behavior is beyond reprehensible! It’s an embarrassment—”

“I’m not the one who’s made a fool out of himself!”

As the argument continued, Rihanna carefully moved around the infuriated couple. The heated words could burn, but the temperature in the room continued to drop. Plummet. Until she had to suppress the urge to shiver. Goosebumps spread over her arms, and her growing unease cinched her gut.

Bryce hurried to his parents, trying to calm the sudden jabbing of fingers and his mother’s fist-shaking while her eyes blazed with wildfire.

Then, the source of the woman’s magnified rage stepped up behind Mrs. Hampton. A petite woman she recognized without a doubt.

Kate crossed her arms over her chest, her malicious smile stretching wide as she leaned against the doorjamb. She appeared pleased by the entanglement of cruel words and accusations being thrown between parents and son.

No one seemed to notice her presence.

Kate’s gaze shifted to where Rihanna’s glamoured image stood by the sofa. Her smile turned to a scowl, her malevolent gaze cold and black, her face set with resentment. Slowly, the woman sauntered around the bickering threesome, her gaze never faltering until she stood in front of Rihanna’s image. Rihanna watched the woman scrutinize her doppelganger as she silently came up behind her, keeping her shield intact. Kate’s eyes burned with envy and the purest form of loathing.

Only one other being harbored such detest…