Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“I don’t think they’re toaster-type people,” I say.
“Hmm, I think you’re right. They’ve probably bought us silverware. Or diamonds.” Her gaze finds mine. “A vineyard, perhaps?”
“Do you care?”
“Not particularly.”
“Material things don’t matter to you, do they?”
“Not in the slightest.” She smiles. “How perceptive of you.”
“Being very perceptive is what keeps me alive. Observing people is what I do best. Well, one of them.” I raise an eyebrow at her, and she rolls her eyes. “I probably know you better than you know yourself.”
She simply scoffs.
“You don’t believe me?” I ask.
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, let’s see about that.”
Her eyes sparkle with a challenge. “Okay, Mr. Perception, tell me about myself.”
My eyes fixate on hers.
Challenge accepted.
I hold her tighter. “I know that right now you’re trying your best to look unaffected by me.”
“I am unaffected by you.” She looks away, but I can see her pulse racing in her neck.
She’s affected as fuck by me.
Just as I am with her.
“You’re playing it cool, but inside, your heart is dancing wildly in your chest because being this close to me means something.”
Her throat works as she swallows thickly, her eyes looking everywhere but at me.
I put my mouth to her ear. “I know that more than once during this dance, you’ve wondered what it would be like to feel me inside you.”
She stiffens in my arms, visibly telling me that I’m right.
“Don’t,” she hisses. She tries to pull away, but I lock her to my body with my arm.
“I also know that if I was to slip my fingers beneath those tiny little panties you like to wear, I’d find an ocean between your thighs.” Again, she struggles. But she doesn’t deny it. “It would only take one word, Bella, and I’d give you more pleasure than you’d know what to do with.” My cheek brushes against hers. “Just say yes.”
My cock is fully hard now.
He and I are both having too much fun.
So the tap on my shoulder couldn’t come at a worse time.
It’s Anastacia.
“You have a phone call,” she says, holding up her business phone.
“It can wait,” I say, not taking my eyes off Bella.
“It’s Tate from Green Scope. It can’t wait.”
Green Scope is a company I’m acquiring. It’s a deal worth millions if it goes through. But it’s time-sensitive, so I have no choice but to take the call.
Both my cock and I feel the disappointment.
I look at Bella. “Do you mind?”
She shrugs like she couldn’t care less, and it annoys me.
Because you want her to care.
I walk her over to the ice sculpture and take the phone call outside on the balcony. I talk business for a few minutes, important shit, but I am too distracted to give it the full attention it needs because I want to get back to Bella, knowing full well the chaos she could be causing while left unattended.
I finish the call as quickly as I can, and when I return to the ballroom, I see Bella dancing with Senator Fitzgerald—a rapacious squirrel of a man, but a good-looking one at that—and my jaw clenches.
I don’t like the way he’s looking at her. Or the way she’s looking up at him with a beautiful smile on her face.
Fuck, is she flirting?
Jealousy spikes in my blood, and my mood plummets, a volatile darkness crawling into my brain.
Just as I’m about to storm over to them, Amélie steps into my line of vision and hands me a scotch. “I see you might have some competition. Here, this should help.”
I grit my teeth, and my fingers tighten around the scotch tumbler in my hand as my thoughts darken.
“Looks like you picked a bad apple, Nico,” she says spitefully. “It’s not too late to back out and choose a more appealing option.”
Amélie is the only person I know who would suggest I find a new fiancée at my engagement party. It aligns with the venom that falls from her lips on a regular basis.
Throwing back the scotch, I drop the glass onto the tray of a passing server and stalk across the vast room.
Interrupting Bella and the senator, I sear my blazing eyes onto Fitzgerald.
“I think it’s time you take your fucking hands off my fiancée.”
21
Bella
Despite my protests, Nico ushers me out of the engagement party and bundles me into the limousine.
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” I seethe, skimming across the leather bench seat.
“I won’t let you embarrass me in front of my friends,” he growls, sliding across from me.
“I pity you if you think any of those people are your friends,” I huff. “Anyway, I didn’t do anything wrong. All I was doing was talking to him.”
“Are you interested in him?”
“Are you insane?”
“Good, then you won’t mind when I cut off his hands.”
I roll my eyes to let him know his threat has crashed and burned. It takes more than that to intimidate me.