Page 115 of The Billionaire's Fake Wife

37

Sin

She wasn’t supposed to be this smart, this magnificent, this able to match me step for step.

After that rejoinder to my completely unplanned speech—yeah, that’s how much she’s managed to throw me off course—the entire room had gone silent. Anger had crawled down my spine, mixed with fierce pride.

Then the room had erupted in applause.

"Bravo." Arpad had come forward and kissed her on both cheeks. I hadn’t stopped him, only because the tosser’s heart is keen on someone else. Besides, it is a typical Gaelic affectation, one that I’d let him get away with, this once.

Her friends had surrounded her. Saint had held back. Good. Guess he’d gotten the message, finally. Don’t hold your breath.

I’d stepped forward and the crowd had parted.

Had approached my new bride. "Touché, Darling." I’d raised my glass at her, and she’d shot me a look, one filled with so much anger that my dick had jumped to attention. Fuck.

She’d jutted out her chin, held my attention, refused to cave in as I’d glared at her; and that took a lot of courage. Not even the Seven—except Saint, maybe—would have taken up the gauntlet I’d thrown down. She had.

She’d known what I had been up to; that I’d used her love for movie trivia against her. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d said that I was a master at it—an old love, that I had forgotten and which she’d rekindled in the past few days. I was using it to undermine her. It could have very much been code language that I was speaking. I had intended the underlying meaning for her, had no idea if she’d pick up on it. Especially the last movie title I had pulled on her? It wasn't a mainstream Hollywood film but an Indie flick based on a novel. The fuck? Those forgotten loves from my childhood... of reading, running in the countryside. Those had been idyllic days before her father had changed my life forever.

It’s why I had tracked her down, ensured that she’d have to agree to my plans. Only she’d overthrown them completely. She’d turned out to be something completely different. She may be younger than me in years, except she makes up for it by her sheer determination. That hunger for survival which had kept me going all through the time that the Seven and I had almost lost our lives—? I sense that naked intent in her too. She’s my perfect foil. I couldn’t have chosen a better life-partner if I had set out to intentionally find one. I stiffen. The accuracy of my words sinks into my blood, confirming what I already knew. I need to stop this crazy one-track road to my destruction. Need to focus on the end goal. The big finish I have been setting up for so long.

The end of her father, destroying him so he no longer has the will to survive. Which, means one thing—taking away his money, his freedom, his new wife, and any remaining connection to his daughters.

And getting permanently tangled up in her life, with her relationship to him always at the forefront of my mind, is unacceptable. It is time I fuck her out of my system.

I glance up from the window of my bedroom, twist my neck to find her by the entrance. I’d made our excuses and hustled her here.

Not that anyone would have missed us.

Each of the Seven knew what was expected of them. All of the players were assembled on the lawn below. They’d do their bit. It was time I put my own plan in action.

"Shut the door."

She trembles, and I tilt my head.

She firms her lips, turns and slams the doors inward. They close with a soft snick.

"Look at me."

She hesitates.

I wait a beat, another.

"Don’t keep me waiting, Bird."

She pivots to face me. Her fingers curl into fists at her sides. Guess I pissed her off, huh?

I jerk my chin and she takes a step forward. Another, until she reaches the bed.

"Stop."

She pauses.

"Undress."

She stiffens.