Chapter 10
Brielle
“One more breath here. Good. Let’s reach up and over. A nice stretch here. Good. Exhale. Now switch sides.” The Pilates instructor lowers her left arm and then swings her right arm up.
“Oh my God, it feels like I’m going to stretch this baby right out of my uterus,” Dani murmurs, making me laugh.
Several of the women in the class glare our way, but I just glare back, making them look away. With my family’s reputation, all it takes is one look for them to go running in fear for their life.
“Well, at least if you do go into labor, you’re full-term,” I point out.
She started going to Pilates with me a few months ago when she mentioned her body feeling stiff from the pregnancy. Since she’s a newbie, when we go together, we go to the beginner class so it’s safe for her.
Unfortunately, this is also the class all the pregnant women in Harbor Point seem to go to. Being surrounded by happy, pregnant women isn’t easy, but I always thought that maybe, one day, this would be me. Now, I’m not so sure anymore.
“Yeah, but the doctor said she’s on the smaller side, so she’d like for her to bake as long as possible.” Dani rubs her belly, and I can’t help the envy I feel toward her.
She has it all. The loving husband, a precious little girl on the way. She works for her family’s real estate development company alongside her brother who values her thoughts and opinions.
Meanwhile, I have brothers who want to protect me yet don’t really know me. A fake boyfriend, who will soon become my fake fiancé and then my fake husband. And thanks to Kane, starting a family is out of the question.
He thinks I’m going to give him an heir once we’re married, but little does he know that I’m on the pill, and I have no intention of getting off it.
I considered getting the shot or something more permanent, like an IUD, but the pill is what I was prescribed when my gynecologist found cysts forming on my ovaries, and she recommended that I stay on it since it seems to be working.
We finish our session, and then Dani and I head out to grab a coffee at Lattes and Words—the coffee shop and bookstore Nicole owns.
“There she is!” Nicole exclaims when we walk inside. “I was beginning to think you’d dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Dramatic much?” I mutter, walking up to the counter.
“Not when we hang out almost every Friday night and I don’t hear from you.”
“She had a date,” Dani chimes in.
“Oh!” Nicole’s eyes light up. “Not with Theo, I hope?”
“No.” I clear my throat, preparing to drop the bomb. “With Kane Morgan.”
Nicole’s eyes go as wide as saucers. “The one-night stand?”
Dani whips her head around to look at me in shock.
“Don’t repeat that to my brothers,” I warn.
I might be close with my sisters-in-law, but their loyalty lies with their husbands.
Dani shakes her head. “You hooked up with Kane? When?”
“The night before your baby shower.”
She curses under her breath, and Nicole says, “What am I missing?”
I glance around to make sure no one is eavesdropping. Daniil and Dani’s guard, Ian, are standing by the door, and there are a few customers drinking coffee in the corner.
“It turns out that Kane’s family has history with mine, and he’s blackmailing my brothers into working with him and … forcing me to marry him.”
I don’t get into him being related to Anthony since that would lead to questions from her that I don’t want to answer.
Nicole gasps. “That asshole. Why do all the good-looking ones have to be so horrible? What are you going to do?” she asks.
“Marry him.” I sigh. “And since I can’t choose between my sisters-in-law, you’ll be my maid of honor.”
Nicole smiles sadly. “I would be honored to. When’s the wedding?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “He said within the month. He wants to publicly court me and propose, and then we’ll get married. You can’t say anything,” I say to Nicole. “Especially to your dad.”
The last thing I need getting out is that our marriage is a sham, which will make Kane look bad and lead to him possibly screwing my family over in retaliation. Powerful men like my brothers and Kane take their reputation seriously.
“I would never.” Nicole shakes her head. “But I hate this for you. I know how important finding love is to you. Do you think there’s any chance he could possibly love you?”
I think back to the night we spent together. The way he took control, yet gave me the control I needed. It was only sex, but it felt like so much more.
And then he ruined it by showing up the next day and snatching every ounce of control he had given me away.
“A man like Kane isn’t capable of love,” I say. “He cares about one thing—business.”
Nicole nods in understanding. “He’d get along great with my dad,” she mutters.
“Let’s hope not,” Dani interjects. “Working with the mayor is the number one way to piss off Matteo and Dominick.”
Nicole cringes. “I hate the man my father has become.”
“Enough talk about men,” I grumble, sick of them infiltrating our lives. Everywhere I turn, there’s a man trying to fuck with my life. “I need a proffee and a strawberry muffin.”
“Oh! Same,” Dani agrees with a grin. “I’ve been trying to keep it to one coffee a day, but I can barely stay awake, thanks to this little one keeping me up all night.”
She rubs her hand lovingly across her bump, and my heart squeezes in my chest. I hate that I never got to feel my baby in me—and thanks to Kane, I never will.
As if I’ve conjured him by thought alone, the door dings, and in walks the devil himself. He’s staring down at his phone, looking every bit like the business mogul he is—dressed in a sharp black suit, his hair freshly cut, and his angular, stubbled jaw tense in concentration.
As if he can sense me staring at him, his head shoots up, and his whiskey eyes meet mine. His features soften slightly, replaced by a cocky smirk.
“Oh, you’re here.” He saunters over to me. “Just saved me a text. I have a business dinner tonight. We’re going to Archies,” he says, referring to one of the most exclusive restaurants in North Harbor Point, “so dress accordingly. I’ll pick you up at six.
My jaw drops, and when I glance at Nicole and Dani, they both look equally flabbergasted by Kane’s abrupt tone.
“Oh, so we’re making demands now?” I say sweetly, reminding myself that I can’t murder this man in the middle of Nicole’s coffee shop. “In that case, I demand you go fuck yourself.”
Nicole snorts out a laugh, and Dani covers her mouth. Kane doesn’t look amused in the slightest. Good. I’m not either.
“I have plans tonight with Nicole.” I pat his chest condescendingly. “So, it looks like you’re on your own.”
Kane
Where the hell are you?
Kane
I told you I was picking you up at 6:00.
Kane
Brielle, stop playing fucking games.
“Can you believe the nerve of that asshole?” I grab the bottle of tequila sitting on the bar and pour myself another shot.
I sprinkle some salt on my wrist, lick it, then throw the shot back.
It burns, going down, numbing both my belly and my brain.
“It’s not enough that he’s forcing me to marry him, but now he thinks he owns my time?
” I grab a lime and bite into it, shaking my head as the bitterness chases away the taste of the tequila.
“Fuck that and fuck him!” I slam the shot glass on the bar top.
Nicole looks at me with sympathetic eyes, but she doesn’t bother to say anything because there’s nothing to say that will make any of this better.
“I hate him,” I tell her. “I hate him and …” Fuck, I want him.
No matter how much I hate him, I equally want him.
In bed. His body against mine.
I want to taste him. Suck him. Kiss him. Fuck him.
“Fuck! I hate him.”
Just as I pour myself another shot and throw it back, my phone rings, and Kane’s name pops up, making me regret giving him my number. I consider blocking him, but the drunken part of me has other ideas.
I click Accept. “How was it?”
“I had to cancel,” Kane says. “You were supposed—”
“No,” I cut him off. “I meant, how was fucking yourself?”
I bark out a laugh at my joke, and Nicole joins in.
“Where are you?” Kane growls over the line.
“In hell.”
“Brielle …”
“Is this seat taken?” a guy asks.
“Nope,” I tell him. “It’s available, just like me.”
“Brielle Antonova, I swear to—”
“Gotta go,” I singsong. “And if all goes well, unlike you, I won’t be fucking myself.”
I end the call, drop my phone into my purse, and pour Nicole, the man sitting next to me, and myself a shot.
“A toast,” I say, lifting my shot glass. “To not fucking ourselves.”