Chapter 26
PINK
“I know that’s not the dress he sent you,” Bane growled when I answered the door for him. He’d pulled at his neck and looked toward the ceiling before walking in.
“Your brother sent me that dress for tonight.” I pointed to the one I wasn’t wearing.
Instead, I had a bright-pink strapless number on that shimmered like stars in the night.
I’d matched it with thigh-high chunky boots that almost looked combat.
I loved that they weren’t too girlie but sexy at the same time.
Paired with my cat eye pink makeup and my pink bob growing out a bit, I felt fierce and maybe a little off-kilter.
We didn’t go to large events like this often. And never ones where I had to stand beside a man who’d bedded me without my consent and didn’t see it as wrong because, to him, I was going to be his property.
I reminded myself though that I’d at least had my fun here for years. I’d at least made friends and got a piece of the love I longed for.
Tonight would still be harder than most nights though.
I wouldn’t have Kee there because her residency had ended and she’d taken over a record label in Tennessee.
Olive had hunkered down in her hometown right outside of Chicago where it seemed she had syndicate ties too.
She was making a life there with Dimitri and about to have a baby.
A miniature version of the love they shared with one another.
A Franny. A child who seemed happy rather than full of fear.
It was poetic and beautiful and also downright depressing because I looked at Bane and knew we’d never have that.
“You should wear the other dress,” he said, but didn’t take his eyes off where the hem of my dress ended.
“I think not,” I told him, crossing my arms. “This one is much more me.”
I saw him open and close the fist at his side three times, the tattoos on his forearms flexing each time before he nodded. “Fine.”
Fuck, that man was stubborn. He acted like this was normal, like it was all fine. He always pretended that nothing I did affected him now. Even when I practically screwed men I didn’t care about in front of him.
I avoided the actual deed, sure, but still.
Had he told me I got to sleep with him that night, I’d have been totally on board.
And I’d been happy with where we were at over the past two years after burning my dad’s house down, but every day was a day closer to me leaving him and going to stand beside a man I didn’t know.
And now he was pawning me off on that very man tonight.
“So, you’re okay with this?” I pried as I smoothed the dress down and turned to look at one of the mirrors for the last time.
“It’s a phenomenal dress, Pink.”
I whirled on him. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What are you talking about then?” he asked and then glanced at his watch like he couldn’t be bothered to be late.
“Oh my God. Do you not care at all that I’m going down to the ballroom with you tonight and you’re then just handing me off to him?”
“That was always the plan,” he stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Was it?”
He nodded, “You can lead the way, or I can.” He rocked back on his loafers. Damn, he looked good tonight in all black too. So good I wanted to stab him.
I considered the syringe I’d used long ago to drug him and wondered if I could somehow do it again.
Get him to stay here with me instead of going out there to flaunt how much we didn’t give a shit about a real love connection.
Instead, we were going to hook arms with people we didn’t care at all about and smile for our legacies.
I glanced on last time at our reflection and then waved it off before grabbing a clutch and walking out of into the living area. “So you just don’t care? It doesn’t matter that I’m about to live in a damn prison alongside him, doing his bidding for the rest of my life?”
He followed right behind me. “Hardly, Bianca. You’re not marrying him tonight. And for the past year I’ve been more than a good friend to you. I’ve allowed you to have your fun with every guy that steps into the Vault and experience everything life can throw at you.”
“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes and threw my hands up. “A little make-out session and petting my kitty isn’t even the whole show that I want, Bane.”
Him grinding his teeth at my words actually brought me some joy. I stomped over to my TV remote and put on a movie in the background so I didn’t have to talk to him any further.
“We’re going to be late. And if the fam—”
“Then please sit down, watch the movie, and shut the fuck up so I can listen to it while I finish my makeup.” I opened my clutch to dig out some lip gloss and a compact.
He tilted his head to crack his neck. “You do understand I have skulls lining my office of men who’ve been said less to me only to lose their lives? You better realize you’re the only one that gets to talk that way to me and not in public.”
“Oh, Bane. I’ll talk to you any way I want in public…want to know why?” I didn’t let him respond. “Because I’m going to be your sister-in-law.” I snapped the compact shut.
“Fuck me,” He grumbled and then he sat down to stare at the movie. “I’ll watch the movie rather than talk to your venomous ass tonight.”
“Good.” I walked over to grab my heels and sat down next to him on the couch to put them on.
Bane growled and reached over to snatch them from me.
Then ever so slowly and deliberately, he dropped to his knees in front of me. The movement wasn’t gentle; it was an act of surrender and dominance at once. The air changed. His shoulders squared beneath the soft glow of the TV, his presence coiling all around me.
He reached for my ankle, fingers brushing my skin hot and unyielding. His gaze never left mine as he slid the heel onto my foot, his touch more reverent than it had any right to be. When he lifted his head, his jaw flexed, his breath grazing the inside of my knee.
“You know why you can talk to me any way you want?” he asked, voice low enough to melt the space between us.
“Why?” I whispered, because my lungs were barely working at this point.
“Because you’re my baby girl.” He took a deep breath and adjusted the straps of the shoes and then he combed a hand through his hair.
“But you’re also a part of the Diamond Syndicate and mob.
So, complaining about not getting a whole damn show in the Vault is ridiculous.
I’m not going to risk you spreading your legs for men who might have ulterior motives. Need I remind you of that?”
“No. You remind me practically every day. I just don’t care that I’m a part of it.” I grumbled, trying not to be annoyed that his reasoning for not letting me fuck other men was because of ulterior motives rather than jealousy. “One day I’m hoping you won’t care either.”
“I’ll always care, Pink, because I have to.” He stood then and offered his hand so he could pull me up. “You need to start caring too.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll be with him soon. You’ll be creating a legacy with the Black family.”
“A legacy?”
I saw how his gaze flicked away from mine. “You said you want kids, Bianca.”
“And you think I’m going to have them with Rafe?” Gross.
“You tried once already.”
The way he reminded us both of that night was jarring, cruel, and just what he needed to pull away from me time and time again. “You know that’s not what we were trying to do.”
“And yet, it will be one day soon enough.”
“And what’s your plan? Your father surely has one for you. Is it Sabine? She seems to love talking with you at the Vault.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged and didn’t even try to lessen the blow I felt when he said that one word.
“You’d have a child with her?”
“Bianca, let’s just go down, huh?”
“I won’t be able to stomach that, Bane.”
“You’ll endure what you must, Bianca. You’re stronger than you think.”
I wasn’t stronger than he thought.
Not at all.
I was downright weak when it came to thinking Bane had considered another woman to be the mother of his children.
And, although the ballroom was extravagant, beautiful, and perfectly on point for the Oracles with fortune tellers in corners, drinks that smoked on trays, and dancers within ornately built confessionals, I didn’t care.
It was a lavish play on where you went to confess your darkest secrets and everyone seemed to think it was brilliant, but I only thought of one thing in my future.
My secret was that I was in love with Bane. Utterly, desperately in love with him, and if Bane planned on leaving me out of his life, I’d become the stalker he showed me how to be.
My attention didn’t fall on the decor or the announcer or even the drinks and food Rafe mentioned he could get for me.
Instead, I watched Bane leave me behind with Rafe only to find Sabine with her beautiful golden stick-straight hair and long legs and kiss her on her stupidly perfect high cheekbone.
Rafe and I stared at him for far too long before he said, “After years of living in this resort together, you two haven’t figured it out yet, huh?”
“What should I respond to that?” I asked, grabbing a flute of champagne from one of the waiters in black and white walking by. “I’m to be your wife, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know. Are you?” he asked me like it was a damn riddle, but when I asked him what he meant by it, he didn’t elaborate.
Instead he ushered me over to our table.
It was large enough to have more than ten around it, and when we took our seats, I saw his father and mother, Ezra with someone, and Bane and Sabine sitting down.
They’d invited another couple to share the table with us, and as I sat, Rafe whispered to me it was the previous Oracle owner.
Bane asked Yuri his take on AI and Yuri grumbled something about how he was an innovator.