Chapter Eight
Heading to bed last night to find my room fucked with was not on the list of ways I wanted to end the evening. I expected a little tampering, it’s human nature to look without invitation, but it was only supposed to be a drawer not closed properly or the toiletries in the bathroom misaligned.
It wasn’t even the bed. It was the clothes in the closet, the misplaced shirt, the light left on. She calculated it based on how organized I liked to be. She watched me, calculated her move and played it seamlessly.
It’s amusing. But she’ll have to try harder than that.
And whispering in her ear this morning, telling her to strip and get into my bed sank so much satisfaction into my stomach I don’t know how I survived this long without her. It’s been too long since I’ve had any sort of amusement in my life.
She’s been gone since this morning, but I know she’s finished shopping since the bags and boxes arrived thirty minutes ago.
I dial Dennis, putting my phone to my ear and he answers on the second ring.
“Where is my bride?” I growl into the cell.
“Having coffee with Miss Stanton.” He replies immediately, “I have eyes on them right now.”
“Why isn’t she here?”
“Sir?”
I glance at the clock and note barely any time has passed since she left to go shopping. I just assumed it had been a few hours already.
“She finished quickly,” I note.
“Yes sir.”
“She asked to go for coffee?”
“Yes sir,” He answers robotically.
“Fine,” I grumble, “Bring her back within the hour.”
“Yes sir.”
I roll my eyes and hang up, heading through to the kitchen where several people are. The caterers are setting up for the wedding tomorrow, while the planners guide their staff into where things need to go.
The wedding will take place in the Garden room, it’s located in the west wing of the manor house, a sprawling space made up entirely of windows that look out onto the forest that hides the lake. The reception will then go ahead in the Grand room attached to it which is currently being converted to house the many guests that will be in attendance.
I don’t just have the council to appease with this wedding, I have the press too. I have no qualms in telling the world that little Olivia Lauder is now mine.
The wedding is to be witnessed by every council member, old and new, the record noted in the Farrow archives and the tick box checked that I am fulfilling old traditions which will further secure my seat.
I don’t bother checking on the status of things, instead I head to the drawing room. I had an office upstairs, but I’ve always preferred this room above all else.
A fire is always going inside, warming the space through the harsh winter and I guess I spent so much time in here as a kid, it’s become my sanctuary, second to my bedroom.
Except when I push open the door, I find I’m not alone.
My grandfather, Abe, sits in my chair, the old fuck drinking from my decanter. What is it with the people closest to me taking my things!?
“Get out my chair,” I grumble to my grandfather.
But he just grins, the lines in his face sinking in deeper as he does, “Malakai, my boy. Is that anyway to speak to your pops?”
I roll my eyes and despite my demand for him to vacate my chair, I perch on the desk, staring down at him. How does he look older already when I only saw him a few days ago? There’s a milkiness to his eyes, a papery thinness to his skin that wasn’t there the last time I saw him.
“You missed poker night.”
“I was busy wrangling the press. They caught wind of your upcoming nuptials.” Despite the age clearly lining every inch of him, the glint in his eyes tells a different story.
“Oh, I wonder who told them about that.” The press was needed but only one or two, not the army my grandfather has likely tipped off.
“Who knows,” He shrugs innocently, “So, where is she?”
“Who?” I tug at my shirt sleeves.
“Olivia!” He stands abruptly, “I need to welcome her to the family!”
I stifle my laugh. I can only imagine how that might go down.
“She’s out, pops, wedding dress shopping with her friend. She’ll be back later.”
I talk about her like there isn’t a single thing wrong between us but realistically, we didn’t know each other, and I didn’t plan on knowing her further than how I can rile her up and how to get her in my bed. My grandfather doesn’t need to know that though. He’s a real love kind of guy, always has been. My grandmother had been his first and only his entire life. She passed some years back now, but I’d grown up knowing them together. He worshipped the very ground she walked on.
Sucker.
“Well, I’m sticking around,” He shrugs and lowers back in the chair with a groan, “No point heading back tonight when I need to be here bright and early. Will I still be walking her down the aisle? She has no father, right?”
I stifle my wince. I had a hand in her father’s death, even if I wasn’t the one to pull the trigger.
It started when Regina’s uncle wanted more in his business. He owned a long line of luxury hotels and had expanded but the Lauder’s were in his way. He wanted their business too. At the time I needed a wife, and agreed to help him take down his competition. It gave me more places to run my money through anyway.
But as it turned out, Olivia’s father was feeling the pressure and had hired one of my own guys to take out the competition too.
Funny how the world works that way.
But things went wrong, Olivia’s father died, and her sister witnessed it.
That’s how I ended up with sweet Olivia in my grasp.
“Yeah, pops, you’re walking her down the aisle.”
“It doesn’t seem right to walk her down when I haven’t even met the girl!” He tuts, drinking from his glass, “We will all have dinner tonight.” He declares.
Shit.
I barely got her downstairs last night, how the fuck am I to get her down tonight? Throw her over my shoulder and take her there myself?
Now that I think of it…
“What’s that grin for?!” Abe frowns.
“Just thinking about how much you’re going to like her,” I pat him on the shoulder, “Go freshen up, I’ll make sure you meet her this evening.”
It’s a little past three in the afternoon when Olivia returns to the estate. She appears lighter in herself than yesterday, the constant scowl isn’t on her face and there’s a pretty tilt to her lips as she walks through the front door.
It immediately drops when she spots me waiting for her.
“I assume you got everything you need,” I say, even though I know she did. It’s all waiting for her in her room ready for tomorrow.
“I spent your money, if that’s what you’re asking,” She gives me a fake smile, “About five hundred grand of it.”
“Good,” I throw back, “It’s yours.”
Her eyes narrow, “Well that’ll be the first and last time, Malakai,” She starts to unravel her scarf, eyes never straying from me, like I’m a predator she needs to keep an eye on. Show her back and she might just get eaten. “Figured I’d rather use your money over mine when it’s for something I don’t want.”
“You wound me, kitten,” I purr. “And here I thought you were besides yourself to get married to me.”
She rolls her eyes but then she begins to walk toward me, cocking her head as she looks at me from beneath her lashes. Her heels clip on the floor and her tongue peeks out to trace across her bottom lip. Once she’s in front of me, she walks her fingers up my chest, the feel of her this close stuttering my breath in my throat. She smells too damn good, and with those dark eyes, and those thick lashes fluttering delicately she looks like the perfect amount of innocent and sinful.
“Malakai,” she whispers my name, a slight rasp edging her tone, and I swallow, blood shooting straight to my cock. Surely it hasn’t been that long since I last got laid that the mere close proximity of a woman will leave me hard. But I guess it’s just her, this gorgeous specimen of a woman staring up at me with those doe eyes and plump lips.
“It will be a cold day in hell when I want a man like you.”
Her words should be like an ice-cold bucket of water but if anything, it just heats my blood more. What a delicious challenge she’s laying out for me, and she doesn’t even know it.
“You’re playing with fire, darling,” I rasp, “Careful not to get burned.”
Her nails scrape down the front of my throat as she drops her innocent mask, eyes narrowing as she stares through her lashes at me, “You may scare everyone else, Malakai, but you don’t scare me. I vowed to make your life hell and I’ve never not kept a promise.”
“I look forward to it, wife,” I whisper.
“I still have twenty-four hours of not being your wife,” She steps away from me, plastering on that fake smile once more, “You don’t get to use it yet and by the time I’m done, the last thing you’re going to want me to be is your wife.”
I quirk a brow, reveling in this fire she’s burning in my direction. I’m basking in the glow of it, these little verbal sparring matches feeling a little like foreplay. I can only imagine how it’ll be when we get past all these walls.
Explosivecomes to mind.
“I’m going to watch a movie in my bedroom. Unless the house is falling down around me, leave me alone.” She wiggles her fingers as her goodbye and struts away, her hips swaying hypnotically in those tight as fuck blue jeans.
I’m a simple man at heart and the sight of a plump round ass will leave me a little dumb.
She’s long gone by the time I snap out of it.