4. Drake #2
I missed a large portion of the conversation as my thoughts spun me into a frenzy. The walls closed in, the edges of my vision clouded, voices muffled in my ears. Only the cool surface of the table beneath my arm and the infrequent vibrations of distant music in my feet kept me grounded.
The family heads were standing, nodding instead of shaking hands, and their personal guards were taking point positions around them to exit.
Dante stopped beside me, asking questions about Julian.
I felt my mouth answering, but wouldn’t have been able to recall what I said later.
My gaze continued straying to Charlotte, stiff and austere, as she spoke with my dad and her husband, noting me with silent intrigue.
They parted ways, leaving Dad and me alone.
“Take a seat,” he said. “The Montgomerys are fetching her, and they’ll be back in a few moments.”
They were bringing her here. Soon. Now.
The creature in my chest jumped and spun and howled behind the cage of my ribs. Too excitable and frantic to put down like a bad dog gone feral. I wrestled my heart under control as I settled back into my seat.
“Did you know she bit me once?” I said, still battling the smirk on my lips. Though as the seconds passed and reality crept over me, a tingling sense of apprehension spread across the back of my neck until my hair stood on end.
“And you probably deserved it.” Dad rolled his eyes, but when that stern gaze landed on me, the sparks in my chest cooled to embers.
“A marriage?”
“It’s about time.” He shrugged.
“There’s more to it than wanting your only child married off. I know how this world works as much as you do. And I don’t see you chomping at the bit for snot-nosed grandkids.”
His stoic expression cracked a fraction. “Well,” he sniffed, “the Montgomerys have assets we haven’t been able to get ahold of for the past decade or so.”
“And there it is?—”
“But,” he shot up a finger in warning, “attacks from a rising competitor or an anonymous adversary don’t bode well.
The Montgomerys are a prolific family. Good breeding.
You know Charlotte comes from mafia royalty.
Her family connections alone are substantial.
Add in her husband, who left his mafia family to be with her.
He’s still on good terms with them, giving extensive connections in France.
All assets we need, not just for our businesses but for our family. ”
“So, I’m the stud being bargained for breeding,” I teased, feigning offense. It was what I would normally have done with anyone else. Keeping up a pretense so he didn’t realize how desperately I wanted it to be her.
“And Helen Montgomery is the prized mare,” he answered.
“Honestly, she’s the best option we could have hoped for.
Your mother is going to faint when she hears the news.
The Montgomery girl is essentially a princess.
But I hear she’s as ruthless as her mother.
” The arched brow punctuated his statement, making it a challenge.
“I can handle her,” I scoffed, giving him the smug grin he wanted to see.
“You both attended St. Henry’s private school together, didn’t you?”
Of course we did, and of course he remembered that. His reasons for asking as if I hadn’t called and complained about that Montgomery girl for years were out of reach. He watched for my response as I grasped at straws, unsure of how he wanted me to answer.
“If I remember correctly. I think we might have shared a few classes. She’s brilliant, obviously.
Graduated top of our class. Nothing memorable otherwise.
” I waved it off as if my poor decisions during those years weren’t continuing to haunt me, hurt me, agonize me.
As if I hadn’t spent ten years looking for her in everyone that came after.
But maybe I had the chance to fix them now.
Dad nodded approvingly. Whatever test he hurled my way, I seemed to have passed.
A soft click kicked my heart into the back of my throat, where I choked on my longing.
I teetered on a precipice between heavy guilt and feverish delirium, wavering dizzyingly between them.
The door swished open as the Montgomerys returned, led by Charlotte and Antoine.
The outline of a third figure trailed behind them, along with their ever-present protective shadows.
My jaw ached from clenching, my lungs begged for air, and my fingers protested the white-knuckled fist trembling on my thigh.
A heavy fluttering beneath my ribs evoked memories of first kisses in the dark and a secret dance under the stars. Impossible things for an impossible feeling.
An ethereal, vicious vision strolled into the room.
She was a dream—my dream. My eyes roamed the length of her, still petite yet toned, with softer curves than I remembered.
I greedily watched the graceful sway of her hips.
The movement of her body was a language I remembered as well as my own from years of obsessively tracking her in corridors and classrooms.
Gone was the girl with untamed hair and loose-fitting, frumpy clothes who always had a book under her arm.
The days of her wearing a school uniform one size too large and hiding herself behind layers were distant memories.
Her once riotous curls fell in sleek, styled honey-brown waves around her shoulders and once pale skin now kissed golden by the sun.
A perfected smokey-eye highlighted the striking blue of her eyes.
The new curves proved the years apart, how she’d grown and matured into an imposing, dignified woman.
I rose to my feet, puppeteered by impulsive gentlemanly instincts drilled into me ages ago, to greet the family once more.
I swallowed over a dry tongue and prayed my armpits didn’t sweat through my suit.
But there was no hope of wrangling my escaped unmanageable heart when she stepped into the room, lit up under the chandelier’s light like an angel wreathed in heaven’s holy flame.
Her black dress drew my eyes to all the places I yearned to press my mouth to—all of her, every inch. She was always magnificent, but now she was ethereal, divine.
Helen Montgomery was a goddess, radiating like a shining black pearl wrapped in silk. A siren from the deep, made to lure me into the treacherous waters only to drown me.
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I could still read her like one of those books she used to always lug around.
And it was her eyes that were my focal point.
A cold flame, a glacial hatred, burned in their oceanic depths.
All those vibrant, dazzling shades of blue glinted like thousands of daggers aimed at my chest.
If looks could kill, I would have dropped ten seconds ago.
In that electrifying, brittle moment, I read all that I needed to. While she might be walking onto neutral ground to accept the union, she still hated me with every fiber of her being. And I couldn’t—wouldn’t—blame her for harboring that anger and resentment for me.
All I could do as we returned to our seats and our parents conferred over the details of an alliance was pray.
She greeted my father, politely asked about my mother’s health, and kept her eyes firmly away from me, no matter how many times I tried to catch her gaze.
So, I begged and prayed to every god and deity I remembered the name of that with our union Helen would give me a second chance.
A second chance I didn’t deserve after I already broke her heart.