Page 15 of Twisted (Never After)

She throws back her head and laughs so loudly, the other people on the patio glance our way.

I ball up the napkin she threw earlier and toss it back, shoving away the guilt once again. This time I hope the memory stays away for good. It’s done, and just because I liked the way it felt to have someone’s eyes on me doesn’t mean that I likehim.

She sits forward again and brushes her hair off her shoulder. “If I were you, I’d take the opportunity. I bet he fucks like a god. Older men always do.”

“That’s because you’re a selfish bitch.” I grin.

“There’s nothing wrong with putting yourself first.” She shrugs, looking at me with an accusing glare. “You should try it some time.”

Her comment sobers the amusement buzzing through my chest, and I frown at her.

“So that’s what has you zoning out every couple of seconds like you’re drugged?” she continues. “You’re thinking about Julian Faraci?”

“My father wants me to get married.” I rush the words out so fast, I choke on the sudden knot in my throat. I reach out and grab my glass again, downing the last few sips of my Bellini before twisting my head around to scan the room for our server to ask for another.

I’m already buzzed, but not nearly enough for this conversation.

“Oh.” Riya’s voice is flat.

My heart squeezes. “Yeah.Oh.”

“Like…to a stranger?” Her head tilts with her question, but there’s no point in pretending we don’t both already know the answer.

I swallow and nod, a flash of Aidan running through my mind. The guilt settles thick on the back of my tongue. “Well, I don’t know,” I amend. “I was too busy trying to breathe through the shackles being placed on my arms and legs to ask questions.”

“What’s he going to do, line up suitors and have them duel for your hand?”

“I’m not a prize at a fair.” My stomach burns.

She scoffs. “Tell him that.”

My palms grow clammy and I wipe them off on my lap, unsticking my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “He’sdying, Riya. He’s never asked much from me, and I…” Blowing out a breath, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “He just wants to make sure I’m taken care of.”

Riya hums, her head bobbing. “So you give up your life for his?”

“He’s my only family,” I whisper, my fingers tightening until they feel like they might break. “He’s all I have left.”

“You still have yourself,” she answers back. “You shouldn’t have to give that up too.”

Her words cut like a serrated knife slicing through my gut, because it feels like there’s nothing I can do to keep my world from free- falling off its axis.

But that’s not exactly true.

If I can just get my father to see that Aidan is a good man, that he’stheman for me, then maybe I can keep everyone happy. And in order to do that, I need to suck it up and go ask for help from the last person on earth I want to deal with.

I need to go see Julian.

Chapter6

Julian

Ipinch the bridge of my nose as I listen to Tinashe Moyo, the man who runs the other side of the world for Sultans. Right now, he’s in our compound right outside Girga, Egypt, spearheading the effort to keep on archaeologists who have been preapproved from the Egyptian government to dig. To find the lamp, we need to first be able to get into the places where it could be, and it’s far easier to bribe the people already there than try to sneak in people and keep them under the radar. It’s hard enough smuggling thingsout.

But there’s no one else I’d trust. Tinashe first started working for me when Sultans took over the artisanal mines in Kimberley, South Africa.

Over the past few years, I’ve brought him in to lead all our new operations, to be my eyes and ears when I can’t physically be there to see or hear myself. He ensures that everything goes according to plan, that the rough diamonds make it from beneath rock all the way to one of our warehouses. Some end up here at our headquarters in New York, and others end up around the world in our smaller manufacturing houses, being cut and polished before being formed into beautiful jewelry that’s sold to the masses.

Tinashe has become paramount to Sultans running like a well- oiled machine, and I don’t think we’d be as overwhelmingly in control of the percentage of the diamond trade that we are if it weren’t for him.