Page 112 of Ruthless Rustanovs

COMING back for her sister’s wedding was not a mistake. It wasn’t, Thel told herself over and over again.

After all, Willa wasn’t just her sister. She was her best friend. The woman who’d helped get her through the worst time in her life. The best person Thel knew in the entire world. She deserved nothing less than a maid of honor doing her best to make her special day go off without a hitch.

So far, so good. The wedding had been beautiful, Willa’s and Sawyer’s families managing to get along despite years of acrimony and not one, but two court cases between them.

Proving that times had truly changed, even in their little antebellum town, quite a few people from her time at Greenlee High happily attended, including Sawyer’s friend Donny Lacer, the football player who’d been too chicken shit to do more than make secret passes at her because of the color of her skin.

“You know I’m the one got them together,” he told her, flirting with her openly now. “They met again at my family’s dealership. Guess seeing her again was what finally led him to claim that son of theirs.”

Little did Donny know that wasn’t remotely how it played out. But the real story was just too impossible for most people who weren’t either touched by some kind of special power, or the granddaughter of a siren raised by a woman who actively communed with spirits, to believe.

So Thel just said, “Good for you, Donny.”

Donny furtively looked around. “Folks seem to be accepting it. Maybe it’s not too late for us.”

Thel had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

He was acting like they were some kind of romantic story cut short, whereas all she really remembered about Donny was his many drunken passes.

And that time he’d refused to buy her and her starving sister a meal because he didn’t want to look like a traitor in front of his former asshole friend, Sawyer.

Sawyer had changed for the better. Donny, Thel could tell, had not.

She pushed his arm away with a cutting look. “Donny, either go get yourself another beer or go home. Ain’t nothing for you here.”

She walked away before he could answer. Feeling much the same way she used to when a man got too close and she knew one of her bodyguards was watching. Like she had to get away as quickly as possible, before the Beast found out about it.

But Bair wasn’t here. Her whole trip to Florida had probably been unnecessary. Possibly just her crazy mother stirring up more drama. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

The fact was, Thel wasn’t in her 20s anymore. No longer a fresh young thing, easily manipulated. It had been six years. Long enough for Bair to find a new pet. A prettier one with real breasts who never got sad.

So why was Florence still singing, tossing her heart back and forth with every ominous note?

She hadn’t dared to sing in weeks now, for fear of that song coming out of her mouth. But it was getting hard to talk. Like the song was clogging up her throat.

She started over toward her sister who was sitting on a picnic blanket with her new husband. Maybe she needed Thel to do more bridesmaid stuff, she thought hopefully. Helping with the wedding had been the only thing keeping her sane since she came back to Greenlee from Florida.

However as she approached, Willa looked up at her and Thel could plainly see the worried look in her eyes. Willa had been trying to get her alone for a “real talk” ever since she came back, and Thel had a feeling her sister would try to force the issue again before leaving on her honeymoon.

So instead of going over to Willa, Thel headed towards the five-piece band they’d hired to play instrumentals during the reception.

Without any introduction, she gave them the universal sign to stop playing. They did, probably thinking she was about to give a toast.

But when she opened her mouth, instead of words, a battle cry against Florence’s dark soundtrack came flying out. The most uplifting song she could think of to describe her sister and new brother-in-law’s love: Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be.”

It had been so long since she sang anything that wasn’t opera, but the song came out of her like a thing possessed. Fully realized, with each word appearing in her head easy, like it’d been there all along.

The band quickly started playing behind her without a word of protest. And eventually the boats began gathering around her rocks. Guests getting to their feet to dance as she sang and sang, so many songs dedicated to her sister’s love.

The siren manifested bright that day, keeping her voice strong, long after her body became exhausted with the effort of belting out upbeat love standards without any breaks in between.

But eventually the siren began to taper off, letting Thel go with the words for one last song.

A slow one. “Endless Love.” Meant to be sung by two, but a solo arrangement flowed effortlessly off of her tongue.

That is until she saw the man approaching from her grandfather’s old field in the distance.

When she saw him, the siren let her go abruptly. Her voice cutting off mid-note as if she’d been strangled.

Bair.

Bair Rustanov was coming toward her like a gathering storm, his large body bearing down on the sweet picnic reception.

Six years had passed, but he looked…exactly the same.

Long inky hair, obviously oversized muscles barely contained by a perfectly tailored suit.

And the same eyes, glittering hard and angry like black diamonds.

He came to a stop at the edge of the picnic blankets, staring at her with the infamous Rustanov sneer.

Everything had gone still around her. The wind.

The band. The wedding guests. Even her sister, who now stood at the halfway point between her and Bair, stared at him like a bridal statue frozen in time.

Her sister, like their mother, could literally see ghosts but she’d never, Thel knew, encountered anything like Bair Rustanov.

“Who’s that?” Thel heard her nephew say somewhere in the distance.

“That’s Mr. Rustanov, dear, Thel’s husband. He’s been looking all over for her. And now he’s finally found her,” Marian answered.

The wedding guests then turned as one to stare at Thel, who had never told anyone, not a single soul including her sister, that she was married to a beastly Russian billionaire.

And Marian said, “Now, sssshhh everybody! This story’s going to be sooooo good!”