Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
She ignores me. “You brought a girl home. Tell me you didn’t.”
“Helen—”
“Oh my god.” She laughs, shaking her head. My sister’s tall for a woman, with thick dark hair, dark Kazan eyes, and high cheekbones. She takes after our mother in so many ways, but she has our father’s harsh intensity. “You’ve been like a celibate little monk ever since you took over the family, and now there’s some girl in the house. Who is she? How much are you paying her?”
“Helen,” I say sharply. “Please don’t insinuate that I brought home a hooker.”
“You have to be paying her. Who else would want to get involved with you?” She grins at me and slumps down into the chair. “Okay, okay, I know, I can’t talk to the lord of the family like that.” She rolls her eyes, cutting me off before I can admonish her. “Just tell me her name.”
“Camille,” I say.
She doesn’t laugh, only looks at me curiously. “Does anyone else know she’s here yet?”
I shrug and gesture at the walls. “You know, which means others probably do as well.”
“And you left her alone?” Helen’s eyebrows raise.
“She’s in my room. Not even Sophia or Anissa would stoop so low.”
“Our cousin would stoop much lower than you think,” Helen says, scowling back at the door. She dislikes Sophia even more than I do. “But you’re right, at least Aunt Anissa has some shred of respect left for the family.”
I run a hand across my face and push my chair back. “Do me a favor and run interference. I want to give Camille more time to settle in before the onslaught.”
Helen looks confused. “What are you talking about? Just put her in a car and send her away. The others don’t need to meet her.”
“That’s not what this is,” I say and lean forward. “Please, Helen. Keep an open mind.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “What is it then? I figured you were just having an affair, but—” She sits up straight. “Is this serious? Like an actual girlfriend? My god, I thought you were a heartless monster, but do you have emotions? Or wait, this is probably some arranged political thing, isn’t it?”
“Helen.”
“Oh my god, are you in love with her? Jenny said she looked Italian but I didn’t believe her, could she actually be—”
I grimace and stand. Jenny was one of the maids we passed on our way inside. “Yes, she is Italian, and no, it’s not only an affair, and no, I don’t love her. This is closer to an arrangement, as you said. Now, can you please go?”
Her jaw drops to the floor and for a moment, my sister is speechless.
Which is a feat in itself.
“Evander, what the hell is going on?” she finally manages.
I tighten my jaw and stand to my full height.
“I am marrying Camille. You’re going to have a new sister-in-law very soon.”
Helen releases a string of curses in Greek, and I wonder if the rest of the family is going to take the news even half as well.
Chapter 19
Camille
I last twenty minutes alone in his sitting room before I start snooping.
I try to justify myself as I go through his medicine cabinet. I’m just trying to learn more about the man I’m going to fake-marry—or real-marry, or pretend-real-marry, or whatever this is—so it’s not immoral to look at all his stuff.
Razor, shaving cream, Band-Aids, toothbrush, nothing interesting.
I’m not really sure what the hell we’re doing, but I’m drifting along like a log on a wave lost in the current, and Evander is the entire ocean.
His closet is better. Enormous and filled with expensive, custom-tailored suits, racks of designer jeans and shoes and shirts, and a hundred ties in black and dark blue. There’s a shelf covered in glittering, no-doubt priceless watches, lit with custom bulbs so the whole display glows like a storefront window.
Evander doesn’t strike me as the type of man obsessed with the way he looks, but his closet suggests otherwise.
And his comment from earlier flits through my mind: in this world, appearance is everything.
The rest of the bedroom is more or less what I expected. A dresser with socks and underwear, loungewear, exercise clothes, extra linens. There’s very little personality, no photographs of family, nothing on the walls but generic oil paintings like the rest of the house. If he hadn’t told me this was his personal bedroom, I almost wouldn’t believe anyone sleeps in this place. The bed is made and the sheets are crisp and tight.
And yet, the bed is big and comfortable, and there’s an old army surplus knife lying on the nightstand. It’s beat up and scratched, with no markings except for a date, 1942. It’s entirely out of sync with the rest of the bland, spotless decor, and I’m afraid to even pick it up.
When I’m done exploring, I end up out on the balcony, staring at my phone.