Page 84 of Deviant Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 4)

EMMIE

For a holiday with a bunch of adults, I’m having a surprisingly good time. Although that might just be seeing the infectious happiness on my dad’s face.

Today has been everything I hoped for both of them.

It was relaxed, full of love and laughter. Dad even managed to get his friends to mostly behave. Although the fact that they’re all here with their own girlfriends and wives helped to keep them in line.

It’s late when I finally fall into bed, and I’m exhausted after being up early with Piper and the other women to get ready. I caved and allowed Biff to do my makeup while Danni set to work curling all our hair.

By the end of it, even I could admit that I looked like a fairly normal bridesmaid. Pretty, even. It was weird seeing myself dressed up without the heavy black eye makeup and dark red or purple lips.

The dress we picked for me fit like a second skin, accentuating my curves and making me look like… well… a girl.

That being said, I was more than happy to shed all of it the second Piper gave me the nod.

The curtains at the window billow with a gust of ice-cold air.

The weather today was perfect for the Christmas wedding Piper planned. The hard frost this morning meant the early morning photographs were more than festive with what looked like snow covering everything, then this afternoon the sun was so bright it was hard not to squint the whole time.

I grab my phone and start scrolling through social media, looking at the photos Stella and Calli have uploaded from the annual Cirillo Christmas Eve party that I was thankfully far, far away from.

I’d like to think that Stella and Calli wouldn’t have even asked me to go, given the circumstances but I have a suspicion that they’d ignore the beef between Theo and me and demand I be there, if for no other reason than their own entertainment.

I think back to the one and only time I’ve been inside the Cirillo mansion, the night Theo’s coach house burned to the ground. I didn’t want to go inside for obvious reasons. Reasons that were well-founded when he did appear. The second he saw me there in his house, I really thought the vein in his temple was going to pop.

It was a good job he wasn’t half an hour earlier to see me sitting with his siblings, because I can only imagine that that really would have tipped him over the edge.

A loud muffled moan from above hits my ears and I wince, having a really good idea about what’s happening upstairs.

Ugh, gross.

Both Zach and Biff’s and Spike and Kas’s rooms cover mine. It could be coming from either. Or both.

I shake my head, wishing I could close my ears when someone giggles.

“Jesus,” I mutter, continuing to scroll, looking at all the wealth that screams from every designer piece of clothing and lavish jewellery.

Embarrassingly, I slow my scrolling when I get to a photo with Theo standing right in the middle, talking to some blonde-haired girl I don’t recognise.

She looks like the most perfect Barbie doll, and I can only imagine how good they’d look together, side by side.

An uncomfortable wave of jealousy flows through my body, making my stomach knot painfully.

That’s the kind of girl Theo should be with. He knows it too.

Probably why he’s standing with her, moron.

I roll my eyes and force myself to keep scrolling.

It doesn’t help, because the image of Theo with his hair perfectly styled, wearing his sharp black suit is burned into my eyes.

The only thing better than him looking deadly in that outfit was when he was standing before me in nothing. Okay, I’m lying. I’ll take him in sweats any day, too. The way the fabric hugs his…

I shake my head once more, desperately needing those kinds of thoughts gone.

Above me, something—a bed, I’m assuming—starts banging.

“Oh, for the love of God,” I mutter, my own body beginning to burn a bit hotter at the thought of what everyone else is clearly up to.