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Chapter Eleven

SKYLA

Joshua looks at me like he knows what he’s going to say will piss me off.

I don’t want him to say it. For once in my life, I just want something to be simple. Something to go the way I want it to go. The last thing I need is another hitch in the plans, and yet he seems determined to deliver one.

Joshua’s gaze locks with mine. “Grady and Emily are going to be coming to the wedding reception.”

My stomach drops. My insides might as well be trying to turn themselves into knots as I think about meeting the man who controls his life.

This could end in disaster, and I could end up dead.

Grady Granville is not the kind of man who takes people lying to him lightly.

Not that I’m about to tell Joshua how concerned I am.

I close the ledgers I’m looking through, setting them to the side as I look up at him. “Excuse me?”

“We talked about this. They have to believe that we’re actually in love, which means, the two of them are going to be at the reception, and you’re going to have to sell the fact that we’re a couple.”

Joshua shrugs off his leather jacket and slings it over the back of one of the chairs near the door.

It makes my eye twitch.

I’ve never met a man who is less likely to hang up his jackets when he gets home. Within the last two days, there have been two others thrown over chairs and abandoned there.

I should set them all on fire or cut them into small pieces and use them to choke him out.

He scowls at me as he kicks off his shoes, sending them into the wall. “Did you hear me?”

“I heard you but right now, I’m wondering when the hell you hired a maid to take care of the house.”

“Since when the hell do you get to tell me what to do in my own home?” He drops down into a chair on the other side of the table from me, pulling the gun from his shoulder holster and setting it between us.

The warning is subtle and it’s one that has me wanting to lunge across the table and get my hands around his neck.

The stupid fucker would probably like it, though. I can see it in the look in his eyes. He’s waiting for the chance to put me in my place, but I’m not going to give it to him.

Not yet, at least.

And yet, when he looks at me like that, I think about all the ways I could be bent over his knee right now.

Joshua leans forward, his forearms resting on the table. “Now, I asked you a question, and I’m looking for an answer.”

“Would you like me to set my gun on the table too? We could play a game of mine is bigger than yours and see who comes out on the other side.” I smile and drum my nails on the table. “Because I think we could play a fun game if you really want to.”

His eyebrow lifts like he’s considering it.

Heat rolls off him in waves and for a moment, I want to push him more. I want to see how far I can take it before one of us loses.

Though, that could end up with me dead and him having to marry Emily Granville.

That might be worth it.

“Go get in the car.” He stands, slipping the gun back into the holster. “We have things to talk about, and if you’re going to try and hurt me, I’d rather not have to mop the blood off my own floors.”

With a snort, I push back and follow him out of the room. “You think I would hurt you?”

I mean, I could. In more ways than he can probably guess. But for some weird reason, I find myself not wanting to.

I want to strangle him, sometimes, sure, but I don’t really want him hurt or gone from my life, God knows why.

I huff.

He opens the door to the garage and presses his thumb to a fingerprint scanner.

A little black box on the wall unlocks and reveals several sets of keys.

He takes one. “Your prints have been added in as well. You can take whatever car you want when you need it.”

I stare at the keys before looking at the collection of cars in front of us.

He heads to some black truck with dark tinted windows and unlocks it.

The damn thing is lifted and is going to require some circus act to get in.

“You know, if you want something that screams coke dealer, this is it.” I wrench open the passenger door before stepping up onto the tire and grabbing the handle. I haul myself into the truck and glare at him. “Maybe you should consider a rope ladder.”

Joshua smirks and hits a button on a remote that lifts the door. He backs out of the driveway and heads to the highway.

We take one of the exits.

I frown. “Where are we going?”

“There is still one part of this agreement we need to take care of.” He touches his ring finger with his thumb.

He parks in front of a tattoo shop. “Let’s get our wedding rings, shall we?”

I sigh and exit the car.

When we are both wearing matching ring tattoos, we get in the car and head for the highway again, but we’re not going home, apparently.

As we leave the city behind us, I sit beside him, wishing that I had told him I would rather stay home.

He turns up the music, the heavy bass of the dance music filling the car and drowning out the need for any sort of conversation. Thankfully.

I don’t know what to say to him. I would rather be spending time alone in Vermont than making conversation with a Vitale.

It’s bad enough pretending to be married to him. Not that I need to pretend too hard to be attracted to him.

As much as I fight it, he has this weird hold over me I can’t seem to escape.

It doesn’t help that the spicy smell of his cologne is addictive as it fills the truck, making me press my thighs together.

Memories of him inside me, his skin on mine, flood my mind.

I scowl and look out the window before a low thrumming sound draws my attention back to him.

His fingers drum against the wheel as he weaves through the traffic, further and further from the city until we’re parked on a cliffside.

There’s a metal fence and some picnic tables just beyond the parking lot that overlooks the city.

I unbuckle and hop out of the truck first, sitting on top of one of the picnic tables closest to the fence.

His footsteps echo against the cement behind me before he sits down beside me.

His thigh brushes against mine, and I hate the rush of heat it sends through my body.

Or maybe I just hate the fact that I don’t hate his touch at all.

Joshua pulls a blunt out of his pocket and holds it out to me. “Conversation lubrication?”

I bite back a laugh, rolling my eyes as he lights it and takes a drag before handing it to me. “So, your boss and his spoiled brat daughter are going to be at the wedding reception we have no business having in the first place?”

He takes another drag, holds the smoke in for a few seconds, then blows the smoke out in rings, sending one through another with ease. “You agreed to do this. Are you backing out now?”

I’m not.

I should, though.

This pull he has on me will end up being my death sentence.

“What happens if I do?”

The look he gives me is flat, his eyes haunting. “I destroy your family.”

“I could destroy yours.” I lean closer to him, taking the blunt. “It would be nothing to kill your brother, but I would do it slowly. Kill him little by little, to make it hurt as much as possible. A bastard like him doesn’t deserve a quick, easy death.”

“I’m not going to argue with you.” Joshua stretches out his long legs in front of him.

“Logan is nothing but a problem, and he always has been. However, he has his uses, which makes disposing of him a little more difficult right now. Good at charming the feds and keeping them away from me, bad at being a person.”

“Golden child problems.”

“You sound like you know them.” He watches me, gaze dropping to my mouth as I inhale the smoke and hold it before blowing it out.

He reaches out and runs his thumb at the corner of my mouth. “Lipstick was smeared.”

My heart slams against my ribs. “Yeah, that happens.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “There is no backing out of this deal.”

The tone he uses sends a shiver down my spine.

There’s a dark aura that surrounds him, luring me closer and urging me to run away at the same time.

I knew better than to agree to the deal, but that darkness drew me in. Still does.

That same darkness that seems to call out to mine.

And that is even worse because he can never know the true me.

He’s dangerous, but not in the same way my family is. We control a few cities. He has power over half the country.

He could kill me without flinching if he really wanted to. And he’d maybe make me enjoy it, too.

I hand him back the blunt. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for us to keep pretending like this. Grady Granville isn’t the kind of man you fuck around with.”

His jaw tightens. “Neither am I.”

“What else do you want?” I pick at the loose thread stemming from one of the rips in my jeans. “You could have anything else you wanted. Hell, marrying Emily wouldn’t even have to mean anything to you. You could be free to carry on doing whatever you liked.”

“I could do that married to you.” He gets up and moves to stand between my legs.

His hands plant on the table on either side of my thighs, the blunt dangling from his lips as he leans in.

“I could fuck whoever I wanted. I could bury your family if I wanted to. I could keep you locked up and chained until you were finally ready to tell me what the fuck else it is you’re hiding from me and why you want Grady nowhere near your family.”

I swallow hard, a warm flush running through my body.

How can he scare me so much and turn me on like this at the same time?

I really am fucked up in the head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and if you even think of going near someone else while we’re pretending to be married, I’ll cut off your cock and choke you with it.”

His hand comes up, curling around my throat as he holds me in place, his gaze searching mine. “You’d get off on that, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t think you get to know what I get off on.”

He takes the blunt from his mouth and drops it to the ground, smashing it beneath his foot before hauling me into him.