Page 44 of Merry Fake Bride

As I work, the pipes above clunk softly, indicating that she’s found the bathroom and is well on her way to warming up with a bath.

I should make her something to eat, although it is late. Maybe something to drink instead.

As I’m changing into loose gray joggers and a black tank top, it hits me that Devon doesn’t have dry clothes herself.

Rummaging through my dry basket, I pick out a light blue T-shirt and black joggers, fold them neatly, and carry them through my penthouse to my bedroom.

Padding softly across the thick red carpet, I’m in the process of setting the clothes down on the bed when a squeak of alarm from the bathroom catches my ear.

I shouldn’t look but the door is ajar, and that noise pulls at every protective instinct inside me.

Did she fall?

Is she hurt and she didn’t tell me?

Do I announce my presence and ask her if she’s okay?

Before I can bring myself to speak, she moves in the bath and I glimpse her through the gap in the door, bathed in the golden lights above.

She seems fine at a glance as she leans forward while holding her broken arm aloft.

Her squeal seems to have come from some of the bathwater sloshing over the side and onto the tiles, but that doesn’t bother me.

But then something does.

My breath catches in my throat and my relaxed heart begins to pound furiously as my spying grants me a sight I’m never meant to see.

A sight that equal parts angers and pains me.

Devon’s back is a patchwork of scars ranging from long and thin to short and fat.

They weave from her spine and across her back and then up to a cluster on her shoulder.

Scarring I’d recognize anywhere due to similar scars on my thigh from my father.

Those scars are from cigarette burns.

Who the fuck hurt her?

11

DEVON

Calling this tub a bath is an insult.

The shape of the sides hugs my body perfectly, allowing me to relax without slipping.

At least not more than I did when I entered the steaming water and my cold arm wobbled, sending a splash of water over the edge of the tub.

Thankfully, it’s not a lot, so I make a mental note to clean it up later.

Until then, I relax back and sink down into the hot water until it reaches my neck and I’m fully enclosed in a warm cocoon of water and bubbles with my cast arm resting out of the water on the side.

The rich really do live differently.

Every instinct inside my heart warns me of what a mistake it is to stay in his penthouse and how dangerous it is to be alone with a man.

But something about Kairo doesn’t feel… dangerous.