Chapter 13
KATYA
When Andrianis have a wedding reception, they have a wedding reception, even if it’s been thrown together over the course of one week and no one knows the bride.
It’s three a.m. by the time the party has wound down, and the DJ is still spinning tracks by the pool to the handful of guests who are dancing.
The day was warmer than usual for this time of year, but there are heaters scattered throughout to keep everyone warm. The Andrianis thought of every detail.
Svetlana left hours ago, and so did Misha and Dmitri and the rest of the Bratva. I’ve been on my own, left to politely smile as I’m introduced to face after face until they’ve blurred indistinctly together, and I know I’ll never remember whom I’ve met tonight.
At least Chiara wasn’t among them.
I’m exhausted. And maybe, just maybe, a bit drunk.
It’s been a long, terrible day of feigning happiness and obeying my brother’s orders, and I’m slumped in a chair at the head table, eyeing my empty glass of wine and wondering if I should go in search of more.
The photographer—another Andriani—is still snapping away, finishing up with candid photos of the reception.
She stops by me and takes a few shots without comment.
I briefly consider holding up my middle finger for one of them before I scratch the idea. It’s not the friendly photog I want to flip off. It’s my brother, my husband, and the rest of the powers that be who decided I had to hit pause on my life and become a Mafia bride.
“You should go home and get some rest,” I tell her instead, sympathetic to the hours she’s been working.
She must be more exhausted than I am.
But she just smiles. “Not until Don Andriani says I can.”
The calm acceptance in her voice irritates me. I haven’t seen Scorpion’s eldest brother Priest in hours, and I’m pretty sure I watched him and his wife sneak off some time around midnight.
“But I’m the bride,” I counter. “That has to count for something.”
“It’s no problem.” She holds up the camera and snaps a few more of me. “I enjoy taking pictures. The later shots are usually slice of life and the most realistic, when everyone can let loose and be themselves.”
Everyone but me. I don’t say that, though. Misha was clear on our way to the makeshift altar that I need to pretend like this is the best day of my life. I need to smile and fake it for the Andrianis and Revellos, for the Bratva, for the camera. Everything has to go according to plan.
What plan that is, I’m not exactly sure. But I am positive that Misha is cooking up something in his twisted mind, and that I won’t like it.
I’m keenly aware of the photographer—Elizabetta—and hope none of the turmoil roiling through my head shows on my face.
As a ballerina, I mastered the art of keeping all emotions to myself except for the ones I want to show.
I’ve easily become whatever role I’m playing, surrendering myself to the dance and the drama.
But none of that prepared me for what I’m going through now.
“You’ve probably got enough shots of me by now,” I tell Elizabetta with a gentle smile, hoping she gets the hint.
She changes angles and keeps snapping away as I feel a familiar tingling rush up my spine. It’s the same electric current that hits me whenever Scorpion is near. But I’m not prepared when his big, warm hands land on my bare shoulders.
“My wife is beautiful,” he says, his voice a smoky, dark rumble that oozes sex. “I understand why you’re over here with the camera.”
“She is,” Elizabetta agrees, stopping to smile warmly at the man standing behind me.
She’s twentysomething and pretty, her dark hair scraped into a messy bun, artful tattoos on her toned arms. Jealousy, unwelcome and unfamiliar, pierces me like a bullet. Is this another of Scorpion’s fuck buddies?
He must feel me stiffening under his touch, because he leans down, heat radiating off him like there’s a furnace at my back, his lips grazing my ear as he addresses the photographer instead of me.
“A few more of the two of us, and then we’re out of here.
You’ll have to go take pictures of the sorry stronzos left on the dance floor. ”
Elizabetta chuckles and lifts her camera. “You make the perfect couple. Smile.”
I force a smile to my lips, trying to ignore the way my new husband’s breath is fanning along my throat like a caress. The way his touch on my bare skin makes heat wash over me. The way my heart picks up its pace whenever he’s close.
She takes another couple of shots, changing the angle, moving around. Scorpion presses a kiss to my temple, and my clit pulses. It must be the wine going to my head. Making me susceptible to him.
I try to shrug away, but his fingertips press into me in warning.
“Hold still, cara mia,” he murmurs in my ear.
A shiver goes through me. I liked it better when I was cuffed to a bed and he was calling me hellcat. I was so much safer.
I force myself to freeze, to look at the lens.
“One more,” Elizabetta chirps.
I’m amazed she can’t hear my heart beating from where she stands.
“Perfect.” She straightens and grins at us. “Viva gli sposi!”
Then she turns away, leaving me with the man I was forced to marry.
“Do you always smell like sunshine and ripe berries?”
His curt question takes me by surprise. I turn toward him, which is a mistake.
He’s closer than I realized, our noses almost colliding.
My stupid brain drinks in every detail of his handsome face.
The dark stubble on his jaw, the sensual lips, his eyes glistening in the lights strung overhead.
He’s still bent over me, and I feel slightly dizzy.
From the wine, from him, or the lateness of the hour, I’m not sure.
“You don’t like my shower gel and shampoo?”
He doesn’t answer me, just straightens and extends his hand. “You ready?”
I eye the hand like it’s a snake poised to strike. “For what?”
We’ve done the awkward couple’s dance. There was no traditional father/daughter and son/mother dance because my father is long gone and Scorpion hates his mother.
“To go to the guesthouse.”
It’s as if all the air disappears. I knew this moment would come. That at the end of the planning and ceremony and partying, there would be only two of us. I prepared myself for it. But now, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.
I lick my lips, trying to buy time. “Now? I was just going to go get another glass of wine.”
He frowns. “Do you need one?”
Absolutely. Anything to numb this inconvenient attraction I have to him. It doesn’t matter that he’s my husband now. The last thing I can afford to do is lower my guard and give in to anything he makes me feel. All I want to do is get out of this marriage as quickly as I can.
“Yup,” I say, seizing my empty glass. “I’ll just go to the bar.”
Like the photographer and DJ, the bartenders are still here, no sign of an end to the festivities.
But when I stand suddenly, I’m a little wobbly on my feet. It’s so unlike me—I’m poised, elegant, and in control for a living—that I can’t catch myself. My balance is off-kilter. The next thing I know, I’m falling toward Scorpion.
He catches me and whisks the empty glass from my fingers. “There’s wine in the guesthouse. You can have some there if you want.”
Of course there would be. No detail of this wedding has been overlooked, from the food to the music to the flowers. Even I have to admit that whoever put it together in a week’s time did a fantastic job. It must have cost the Andrianis a fortune.
Priest even has a guesthouse on the estate, which is where Scorpion and I are supposed to spend our wedding night. I’ve intentionally been avoiding thinking about spending the night there all day.
“The music’s still playing,” I protest.
“Let it.” His hands are on my waist, a possessive hold that keeps me anchored to him so that I can feel every inch of his lean, muscled strength pressing into me. “It’s been a long day.”
It’s going to be an even longer night.
But I don’t say that, because I’m falling into Scorpion’s eyes, spotting the striations of gray in his irises I never noticed before.
A lock of hair has fallen over his brow, and for some reason, I reach out, brushing it away.
My fingertips graze his skin, and then I stop, a jolt of awareness shooting straight to my core.
For a second, neither of us moves. We stand there at the bridal table, wrapped together, the thump of the music’s bass and the cool air of the night surrounding us. A sky of stars glistens behind him, the kind you can’t see in the city because it’s perpetually aglow.
Then he gently disengages and pulls me to his side like it’s where I belong. His cologne blends with the scent of the massive bouquets lining the table. He slides his arm around my shoulders. “It’s this way.”
Then he’s leading me away from the remnants of the reception like I asked him to.
Like it’s my choice. My heels clop on the patio as we move toward the side of the towering mansion where Priest and Luna spend their time when they’re not in the city.
The world feels murky around me, all shadows wrapped in velvet, and I realize I must be drunker than I thought before I stood.
How many glasses of wine did I have anyway?
“Did you drug me, Andriani?” I demand as the thought occurs to me.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Nope.” He pops the p, guiding me to a sleek-looking golf cart. “Get in. Your chariot awaits.”
Now I’m more confused than ever. “We’re leaving…in a golf cart?”
Although the light isn’t all that great, I can see the cart is far from the standard, boring issue that patrols the grounds of an average golf course.
It’s got a sleek custom paint job, flashy wheels, and a monogrammed A on the hood.
The seats are plush leather, and when I reluctantly fold myself inside, even I have to admit they’re comfy.