Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
If only. I didn’t even let myself daydream about freedom anymore, no longer sure what I would do if my life were my own.
Finally, I burst through the heavy wooden doors leading outside and ran down the sidewalk as a summer shower started ruining my perfectly coiffed updo. It didn’t even faze me at this point. I climbed into the waiting limo, hoping to leave before my mother got in. Sadly, the ridiculously cumbersome train with its lace appliques that matched the dress took too long to pull in after me.
God, I hated this dress.
I simply wanted a moment alone to process what had just happened and the swirling emotions running through my veins. Some were familiar. The relief at not marrying Marksen Dubois was palpable, but so was the fear of what my mother would do, and the disappointment of not leaving my childhood home.
Then there was something else, something less familiar, a gnawing need that I had felt when Manwarring had grabbed and kissed me.
His kiss hadn’t been sweet like I’d expected Dubois’s to be.
It hadn’t been gentle or even indifferent. It hadn’t been anything like what the other girls had described when they talked about kissing their boyfriends. His kiss had been controlling, his lips and tongue had devoured mine, and I’d felt a strange magnetism drawing me to him like I wanted more. I could still feel the way he made my entire body tingle.
I had felt nothing like it before.
That couldn’t be it. I had to be misinterpreting my body’s reaction. A single kiss with a man I didn’t know should not—could not—have had such a potent effect on my body. I should’ve been enraged that he had the audacity to kiss me, not wondering when he would do it again and if it would always feel like that.
Mother pushed her way into the limo and settled herself on the plush black leather seat directly across from me. Instantly, the limo was filled with the jasmine-and-rose stench of her Guerlain’s Shalimar Eau de Parfum.
Her mouth was distorted in an odd, misshapen, duck-lipped expression, the closest she could come to pursing her lips since her latest Botox and filler injections.
“Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?” She drew the bottle of Dom Pérignon Rose 1959 out of its sterling silver ice bucket and poured herself a glass in one of the crystal flutes that had been chilled. It was a rare, expensive vintage I had meant to drink to celebrate my wedding and my escape from her drunken tyranny.
She drank like it was just another bottle.
“Please explain to me what just happened.” I kept my tone as even as possible.
Manwarring had said something to her, something that had made my mother call off the wedding. I had no clue what could have been so important that she’d do that and not at least try to save face and continue the ceremony.
“You tell me. You are the whore whose lover just ruined a very lucrative merger.” The word whore slapped me in the face, and cracks formed in my porcelain mask.
“I have never met Mr. Manwarring before. I was ready to let you and Mr. Dubious handle it until you said the wedding was off. What did he say to you?” I demanded.
If my mother noticed my slip in calling Mr. Dubois by the nickname I’d had for him since she’d informed me of my engagement, she said nothing.
She narrowed her eyes at me. I don’t think I had ever talked back to her like that, at least not out loud.
“He has information that would embarrass the family. He’ll keep our secret as long as he gets what he wants. For some reason, he wants you. You will marry him and make sure his fortune and reputation are tied to ours so he can never use what he knows against any of us. You did whatever it was you did to inspire him to find this information. It now falls to you to safeguard it.”
“I don’t think he cares about his reputation, Mother.” I looked away so she couldn’t see my eyes roll.
Even now, there was a limit to my bravery. “If he did, he would have brought this to your attention before the wedding. He wants a scandal, not a wife.”
The dress she’d picked out for me was suffocating, and the lace was making my skin crawl. I pulled at the lace appliques, desperate for some relief. The lace practically disintegrated in my hands as I pulled one of the flowers off and tossed it aside.
“What are you doing?” I winced at her screech. “That is a couture gown!”
“I’m sorry. Were you going to want me to wear this dress to my next wedding?” I asked, already well aware of her response.
She had chosen this dress because it was the fashion at the exact moment I was being married. It would be out of date by tonight.