Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
It was not appropriate for anyone other than a man to wear all black to a wedding, and that was only if they were wearing a tux. It made a person look like they were going to a funeral. Hence, her gold dress. Jen pulled it off well.
Anton didn’t miss the wink tossed in Jen’s direction from one guest in particular. Rory, that was. He gave the bull credit where it was due. Rory kept to the rules about not dating his boss’s employees. Anton had an idea how difficult that had to be for Rory, considering the bull was half in love with Jen already and barely knew the woman.
Rory had his loyalties, though—to Anton. Bending the rules wasn’t in Anton’s usual nature, but this one time, he decided to do just that. Rory more than deserved it.
Anton felt Ivan’s hand land to his shoulder as Jen came to her designated spot. His eyes weren’t on her, though. No, he was totally spun looking at the figure behind the sheer fabric at the entrance.
Viviana.
Of course, he already knew what her dress looked like. Rushing waves of ivory lace that fit her sexy curves like a glove. The mermaid style skirt flared out at her knees, but not too drastically that it took away from her.
Anton knew her lips were painted crimson red—his absolute favorite shade on her mouth. Grace and class dosed heavily with her sin and sexuality. He had already seen her darkly painted eyes, intensifying the demure stare she usually leveled on him. He’d seen the sleekness of her up-do and the half-face veil that edged along her nose.
Yeah, he’d seen it all.
Fuck those people who believed it was bad luck for a man to see his bride before the ceremony. And especially fuck the ones who thought that after a man had seen his bride in her full glory before walking down the aisle that it wouldn’t have the same kind of emotional impact on the man.
Yeah.
Fuck those people.
They didn’t know what they were talking about, clearly.
When Viviana stepped through the entranceway, Anton lost any and all ability he had to think, speak, or even fucking breathe. His mind felt light and heavy at the same time, much like his heart. A sting pricked at his eyes, his vision blurring momentarily before he blinked the wetness away. A knowing smirk—one that undoubtedly matched his own—curved her red lips.
Love.
That’s what Anton felt watching Viviana willingly making her way down the aisle to become his wife. Just love.
Anton could finally say he truly understood what that was, now. Sure, he had always said he loved Viviana, and that she was and always would be his, no matter what. But now he got it. Really, really got it.
It was the same kind of glue that held his parents’ marriage together through their darkest times—and there had been a few. It kept a man faithful, devoted, and so sure of her, himself, and them together.
There was no need for Anton to wonder what love really was anymore. It was more than a four letter word—way more than the feeling it invoked.
It was his father’s frail hand, plagued with sickness, holding onto his mother’s as they stood together. It was the man who died protecting his daughter and the father who loved her enough to let her go.
It was, like Anton had told Viviana earlier, every person in the room looking at her while she looked at him and he looked back.
It was brown eyes watching him from under her lashes
It was the camber of her smile in the morning.
It was feeling her heartbeat miles away.
It was love.
And together, they were so much more than the arrangement.
Guns - Part One
Foreword: Guns (Part One) takes place during The Life at the period in which the couple was at the lodge in Vermont. It was a piece cut from the story as it didn’t add anything to the plot as a whole, other than it being an interesting scene and insight to Viviana’s ability with handling a gun. We found that out later, anyway.
“Ready?”
Anton waved a hand at Rory’s call in signal for the skeet to be released. When the circular object tossed high and fast into the air. The rifle was up to his shoulder in a flash, a keen eye lining up the sights to the moving target as his body automatically adjusted for the direction it flew, and his finger curled on the trigger.
“Gonna lose it, Boss,” Joe said from behind him. “You don’t shoot well to the left.”
Anton laughed lowly. “Fuck you. I don’t miss. Ever.”
With those words, he pulled the trigger back, ignoring the kickback from the gun and not even bothering to watch if he hit the target or not. Confidence was all a part of the game, he knew. Sure enough, the sound of the clay skeet exploding in the air resounded, raining down shards over the lake.