Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 78236 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78236 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Rya,” my father warns.
“What? You know it’s what he’s wanted all along.”
Crue stays silent, but I still feel his gaze firmly on me.
“If you will excuse me, I have to use the ladies’ room.” I push out of my seat and stroll to the restroom. As soon as the door closes behind me, I turn the faucet on and splash my face with water to help overcome all these mixed feelings I am having.
Fuck. What is happening?
CHAPTER 61
Crue
“I’ll be a minute,” I tell Honey, who offers me one of her sweet smiles, so innocent compared to her sister.
That mother fucking hell-raiser.
I walk straight into the ladies’ room to find Rya splashing her face with water. She turns toward me, water dripping from her chin.
Even looking exhausted after a long flight, she’s still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
“Get out,” she says tiredly and turns away, reaching for a paper towel and drying her face while I stand there.
“You haven’t asked how my leg is.” I step closer and watch her tense up.
“I don’t care.”
“You haven’t asked if I’ve fucked your sister yet.” She shudders at my words.
“Are you really this deranged? This is a new low, even for you,” Rya seethes.
“You haven’t asked if I’ve stroked myself thinking of you every night since you left me in that chapel.”
Rya’s head whips around to face me. She points her finger at me and gets right in my face. “How. Dare. You. If you think for even a second that I would condone you cheating on or hurting my sister, you are very much mistaken.”
“It’s you who’s hurting her because we both know which sister I would have picked.”
“You tried to force me to marry you. Are you fucking kidding me? I knew there were a few screws loose up there, but come on. When did you think that would ever work?”
“I thought…” I’m at a loss for words.
She leans back and crosses her arms over her chest expectantly.
“I thought…” I can’t seem to say the words I so desperately need to come to me.
As if she can almost hear the end of that sentence, she says, “You thought wrong, Crue. But how dare you use my fucking sister in the process. Do you realize how sick that is, how fucking perverted.”
I grab her wrist, so infuriated that I want to break every bone in her body. But I also want to steal her away so no one else can touch her. The last five weeks have been a living hell without her. I don’t know when it happened, but this fiery vixen is all I can think about, even when my engagement ring is on her damn sister’s finger.
“I have thought about you every fucking night since I left America. I didn’t force this hand. You did.”
“By suggesting you marry my sister instead?” She scoffs out a deranged laugh.
“I wanted you. It’s always been you,” I seethe as I press my face close to hers.
Hot and insufferable.
Devastatingly beautiful.
Overwhelmingly impossible.
I want to reach out to this woman out of habit, but I use a restraint that I never knew I had to not claim what I know is one hundred percent mine.
Now Rya steps closer, coming nose-to-nose.
She’s too close.
Too tempting.
Her voice is full of venom as she speaks, “You were something to pass the time,” she says cruelly. “And here in Italy, who knows, maybe I’ll find another victim to pass the time with.”
“You will not be sleeping with anyone else.” My grip tightens on her wrist enough to leave bruises. But how else do I get through to this stubborn woman?
“You don’t own me.” She shoves past me.
I’m about to snap and shoot every single person in this restaurant.
My rage is a burning inferno.
This woman is insufferable. Intolerable. And fucking mine.
I try to casually walk out behind her, but it’s obvious how furious she is, and I’m probably a toxic dark cloud behind her.
“I have to go. I’m meeting someone. But I’ll come by the house tomorrow. Are you fine with my things?” Rya says to her father.
He nods gravely.
“You’re leaving already?” Honey jumps out of her seat and looks between me and Rya. “Is everything okay?” she whispers as if to not draw attention.
Honey’s a well-trained woman. Completely opposite to this seething harpy across from me who has way too much attitude.
“Everything’s fine,” we both grit out at the same time as our gazes connect again.
“Actually, I think your fiancé is a complete dickhead.”
“Rya!” Mr. Ricci snaps.
I raise my hand to him. “That’s rich coming from the spoiled little runaway lawyer who is so ridiculously good at winning cases but so completely dense when it comes to her own duties.”
“Duties?” she scoffs. “Why, because I refuse to spit out a baby and greet you with your slippers and a cigar every day you walk through the fucking door like a good housewife?”