6. Royce
One gentlemanly act changed the course of my life.
Ten years ago, I turned Willow down because she was too young for me. Had too much of the world to still see. I’d known she’d had a crush on me for years back then, but she was my little sister’s best friend. I’d known her during her high school years, when she wore braces and giggled along with Aurora when they saw a boy kissing a girl.
Karma was the ultimate bitch though.
Willow might have fallen for me first, but after that awkward moment ten years ago, she moved on, perfectly content with being friends.
I, on the other hand, had fallen in love with her. Actually, that seemed a pitiful way to describe what I felt. Not only did I fall for her, I continued to trip, trample, and nosedive.
“Fuck this gentleman shit,” I muttered under my breath, bringing my beer to my lips as I watched Willow with her fiancé and his parents. She was too good for all of them, and I knew her well enough to know she couldn’t stand them.
“What was that?”
“Fuck, Rora. Trying to give me a heart attack?” I grumbled as my sister appeared out of thin air. She’d become stealthy—the benefits of marrying a mobster, I supposed. Her husband, Alexei, knew how to hide in the shadows just like my brother Kingston, and it was freaky as fuck.
“You don’t like Stuart,” she stated, tilting her chin at the couple.
“What’s there not to like? He’s a dream come true.” Fucking not.
Aurora laughed, although there was no amusement in it.
”I don’t like him either,” my sister hissed as I watched Willow’s interaction with Stuart’s parents. The congressman’s gaze devoured Willow’s body, and it made me sick. “Ever since Willow started dating him, she hasn’t been the same.”
“Has she said anything to you?” I questioned, my eyes still locked on the woman in question’s sleek auburn hair and slender neck.
“She hasn’t, but trust me, something’s up.”
Tonight, I’d learn what, and I’d get my best friend—my woman—back.
Three hours and five hundred euros later, I found myself standing in front of Willow’s hotel room. She ghosted me and her friends. Again.
I called her, texted her, tried her hotel room—nothing. Knowing Willow and her Catholic traditions, she would have insisted on spending the evening before the wedding separate from her husband.
It was the perfect opportunity to get her alone.
I took a calming breath, then knocked. A soft shuffle sounded behind the door, then nothing but silence. After another three knocks came up empty, I pounded on the door.
“Willow, I know you’re in there,” I whisper-yelled, not wanting to alert Stuart if the fucker was on the same floor. Another faint noise. “I’m not going anywhere, so you better open this door.”
I raised my hand again, but the door opened before I could make contact again, and an unfamiliar face appeared. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Definitely not Willow.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The woman’s cheeks flushed. “This is my room.”
I shook my head. “Impossible, the front desk told me this is my”—the word woman was on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it—“friend’s room.”
The woman shrugged. “Well, it’s my room, and I’m certainly not your friend.” Her eyes roamed over my body as she licked her lips. “But if you want?—”
“No,” I cut her off, turning on my heel.
Nothing had gone my way ever since I learned of these fucking nuptials.