Page 53 of Handsome Devil

“Good!” She slammed the door in my face, shouting through the wooden barrier. “Losing a few fingers is a small price to pay to relieve myself of you.”

“You will never be relieved of me,” I said to the door.

Since when did I speak to fucking inanimate objects? I hadn’t let anyone treat me this way, not since Andrin.

This transaction was taking on a bizarre path, and I was going to put a stop to this chaos.

I tapped the side of my thigh furiously, numbers and variables swimming in my head. “I will chase you to the end of the earth and beyond. No force in the world can keep me from you. I have earned your company fairly. The sooner you accept there is no way out of this arrangement, the better.”

No answer.

She had won this round. Forcing her into walking around with security would push her over the edge, and I wanted to lure her back into the safe zone. To the place where she’d let her guard down, open her legs for me, and give me what she owed me—offspring. A family. An heir.

“They’ll kill you.” I drove my fist to the door, cracking it.

“Sounds like a plan. If I die, you’re not invited to the funeral.”

My jet was fueled and ready to take off in forty minutes for Europe, and I was standing here bickering with a woman nine years my junior, trying to convince her not to get murdered.

“I’ll be gone for less than forty hours.” I braced my elbows on either side of her door. “You’re not to move out of this fucking apartment until I’m back. I’ll be here Thursday, by three p.m. I’ll expect you to be waiting for me in a wedding gown and with a much better attitude. Is that clear?”

No answer.

I could punch this door down. Break it. Scare her even more. I could remind her that I held the key to her mother’s destiny.

I could.

But as a man accustomed to moving in the darkness, I had good instincts, and my instincts told me to stop pushing.

I turned around and stomped away.

The clock said three forty-five.

I wrung my fingers together, unfurled them, then dragged my sweaty palms along the pearl-white satin of my gown. My stomach churned with a mixture of anxiety, panic, and trepidation.

Tate was late. Very late.

Our appointment at city hall was an hour away, and he still wasn’t here.

I knew my boss like the back of my hand, and though he was an arsehole of massive proportions, he was incredibly punctual.

“We can clear up all this second-guessing if you pick up the phone and call him,” Cal pointed out gently, standing above me.

She dragged a soft bristle brush along my scalp before repeating the movement with a hair wax stick across my dark, straightened hair. I’d had no time to book hair and makeup, soCal watched a tutorial on how to give me an updo before coming here, because my hands were shaking too badly. She was doing a fine job at it too.

Despite resembling my fair mother quite a bit, I’d inherited my father’s hair. Growing up, I often wished my hair was thinner, straighter, more manageable. Now, it felt like a gift. A way of seeing my precious, terribly missed dad who passed away too young.

“I’m not calling him.” I crossed my arms and scowled at the mirror in front of me. “It’s in my interest that he doesn’t show up.”

“I doubt he got cold feet, girlie,” Dylan said behind us, breaking in a pair of white glitter pumps for me by walking across the room. “He seems like a man on a mission.”

The heels were sent by Tate yesterday, along with the dress, a bouquet, and some jewelry.

I was surprised the delivery guy had made it to the door. Even though I told Tate I would not tolerate any security, I had spotted Row and Rhyland patrolling the building hourly.

I’d be touched if I didn’t know he was mainly preoccupied with my uterus, which he needed for producing an heir.

“I mean, he has snipers on rooftops around your building.” Dylan withdrew the curtain an inch, peering through the window.