16. Helen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Flame-red and orange hues melted together, haloing the tree line in stark contrast. The door clicked shut as Brooke ushered out the hair and makeup team, easing the excited frenzy in the room.
I pressed my forehead to the cold glass, using the shock of morning cold to ease the throbbing headache at my temples.
A sigh escaped me before a jerking around my waist interrupted me.
“You’re sighing an awful lot for a bride on her wedding day,” Brooke mused. Her overly gleeful tone made me roll my eyes. “I didn’t keep you up that late, did I?”
“No, I slept fine,” I grumbled back. “I’m almost glad the threat on the families kept us in for the night. A normal bachelorette night would have brought out your inner heathen.”
Brooke finished with the pearl buttons along my lower back before fixing the short ivory train of my dress.
I swallowed under the weight of the material.
It wasn’t a heavy dress, but it carried meaning and promise for a future, for something with a man who conflicted most of my thoughts as of late.
He was always there, coming back, and disrupting what I told myself to feel.
Which led to the gorgeous, form-fitting dress feeling as if it weighed a ton, dragging me down into an unfathomable abyss.
“Oh, I would have been a menace if we hadn’t been confined to the estate all night.
All those damn bodyguards everywhere made sneaking off impossible.
” She made her way to the impressive vanity table to put on her earrings, a pair of sapphires to match her blue silk bridesmaid dress I’d gifted her.
“Your brother even offered me some drugs when I arrived.”
I scoffed, rolling with my eyes with dramatic flair. She snickered and covered her mouth.
“Your mom greeted me at the door and when he came around the corner, she quickly beat him away. Good thing they’re all staying in the east wing, but I imagine they’ll be here soon.
” Brooke tapped her finger on her chin as she looked me up and down.
“Damn, Drake really is one lucky bastard, though. He doesn’t deserve you. ”
Hearing his name twisted something in my insides. It felt sharp like a knife, but eerily blunted. That feeling traveled up my guts to my chest, burrowed a hole into my heart and promptly burned.
“Right,” I half-heartedly agreed, turning my focus to the elaborate three-way mirror in the corner of the lavish suite.
The Grecian-inspired satin dress, with ruching over the chest and waist, fit perfectly after weeks of rushed fittings.
The process would have taken months for a normal engagement compared to a hurriedly arranged one.
Everything was going without a hitch so far much to our parents’ credit.
It just goes to show what could be accomplished with money and the threat of bodily harm.
Brooke and I had arrived at the estate hosting the event the night before.
We celebrated with good food, a bit too much wine, and a late night watching old favorite movies.
With masked men hiding in the shadows, it wasn’t safe to go out for the night.
That meant everyone in the wedding party had stayed at the estate overnight.
Somewhere on the property, Drake and his family were also enjoying the lavish suites and accommodations.
In a few scant hours, my father would walk me down an aisle in the extensive gardens and hand me over to the Grahams—to him.
I hadn’t quite worked out how I felt about it anymore.
In the beginning, being tied to him for life felt like a life sentence.
How could they expect me to marry the man who broke my heart?
No one, except Brooke to some extent, knew of the nights spent crying and months drifting like a deflating life raft lost at sea.
He’d ruined me so spectacularly I didn’t know how I’d ever recover.
But I had. Years at university, new classes, new teachers and assignments, plus the growing responsibilities from my family, and I had more than enough distractions to forget the gaping wound he cleaved in my chest. Time smoothed over the wound, if not healing it entirely.
Though it only took one encounter with him to remember the pain I experienced that night of the dance when he didn’t return.
I’d intended to tell him my true feeling regardless of our family differences and Drake Graham decided to just fuck off and vanish.
It made the past couple of months with him sit uncomfortably in my mind.
Like the shape he was now, the man he’d grown into, no longer fit with what I’d known. We were both different.
The ache in my head worsened the longer I dwelled on my thoughts.
My parents arrived in a flurry of activity, tipping the direction of my wayward thoughts.
Mother looked fantastic in a dark blue dress, with her hair and makeup completed by the hired team we’d recently shooed away.
Dad looked regal and handsome in his black suit with a blue tie.
Arthur mirrored our dad’s look, though his tie was crooked, and his light brown curls were disheveled as if he’d just rolled out of bed and tugged his suit on.
He gave me a somewhat brotherly speech, and I fixed his tie for him.
The event photographer hovered in the corners, taking first look pictures for an hour.
It was a breath of relief when the event coordinator summoned Mother and Father for final touches and they dragged Arty along with them.
Father promised to return in time to walk me down the aisle and departed after an air kiss to my cheek.
Left with Brooke and a heavy bundle of knots in my stomach, I faced my increasing headache and frayed nerves.
The entire event was too much. It would be lovely, of course, but I hadn’t picked the groom.
Maybe once upon a time I might have picked him, but now?—
I didn’t know.
Some part of me wanted to believe that his recent actions were his way of wordlessly apologizing for past actions.
Drake Graham, the man who turned his back on me and broke my heart, had inserted himself into my life, making himself part of my routine until it felt odd when he wasn’t there.
Days he was on missions or tracking leads about the masked men left me with a wistful sort of longing that he’d stroll through the door with that irritatingly attractive smirk on his lips and say something I’d pretend not to find funny.
A disgruntled noise escaped me. Brooke twisted from the mirror, raking her eyes over my expression. “Are you alright?”
“Just thinking about what I have to do. And I have this massive headache.” I rubbed my temples, careful of my artfully styled hair and makeup.
“With everything you’ve told me about Drake since the start of the arrangement, I don’t think this marriage will be a bad thing.” Her lips curled, grinning like the cat who got the cream. “Plus, didn’t you tell me that he?—”
My hands shot up. “Let’s not talk about that now. I can barely look him in the eyes since?—”
“—he ate you out like a starving animal on a mission.”
“My head hurts. You make my head hurt.” I wanted to throw myself in the chaise facing the balcony doors, but delicately settled into it instead. Regardless of who I was marrying, the dress was expensive and admittedly amazing. I wouldn’t damage it even out of spite.
“You need caffeine. I’ll pop down to the kitchen to ask the estate staff to bring you something.
Can’t have you looking so dour walking down the aisle.
” Brooke blew a kiss before darting through the door, leaving me alone with every thought I didn’t want to face solo.
I needed a sparring partner to fight them off.
All the blood in my body hummed under my skin, racing, coursing, flooding my heart until it beat like the drums of war signaling the battle ahead.
I fought the urge to bite my nails, but it only led me to standing and pacing the length of the windows and balcony doors.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
Eight. Turn. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Six. Seven. Eight. Turn and begin again.
Drake was far too attractive for his own good.
That was one positive reason to marry him.
It would be a good alliance for our family, despite our bumpy past. There was another passable reason.
He still had to be attracted to me. Why else would he kiss me like my lips held the answer to every question he’d ever asked and only the taste of my tongue could sustain him?
That had to be a decent enough, if not a slightly thrilling reason, to go ahead with the marriage.
And maybe Brooke was right. I didn’t have to like him to find pleasure with him.
Pleasure he seemed eager enough to provide if those encounters in my office meant anything.
He might not appreciate me kicking him out and pushing him away each time he makes me orgasm for the rest of our lives, though.
The recent flow of our working relationship forced me to look at him in a new light.
He was reliable and consistent. Drake remembered how I liked my coffee, my favorite foods, even anticipating what I wanted before I realized it myself.
Outside of my reluctant delight, he admittedly made a good work partner.
When he killed Fat Stacks without questioning me, I wanted him to bend me over the billiard table and fuck me right there.
Something about his utter ruthlessness made me soak my underwear.
There was something about him, a loathsome darkness he grudgingly accepted over the years until he’d become The Dragon of New York.
A small voice within me openly wanted him.
Yet none of the new facts detracted from our past. Drake still hurt me in the wake of those years bullying me. I’d felt like a fool for loving him for so long. It took me years to forgive myself for falling for him the first time.
The first time?