Chapter 10 #2
A remix of Usher’s More plays over the speakers as I re-emerge into the hall. The frightening underboss Darian saunters over, a vicious smile playing over his lips.
“May I have this dance?” He takes my hand, and for a moment I freeze, like prey in the predator’s path.
You dance only with me. Understood? Leith’s dark tones echo in my head.
But he’s seeing Galiene. Part of me wants to test him, and part wants to get him back for having an affair while courting and marrying me.
“Aye,” I agree, letting Darian lead me over to the dance floor.
My heart is like a squash ball bouncing about my chest, and adrenaline rages through my bloodstream.
I’ve crossed the Rubicon, and now there’s no turning back.
Darian wraps an arm around me and pulls me close—closer than this sort of song usually calls for.
But I let him, filled with thoughts of vengeance against Leith.
The song has such fast beats that Darian leads me in half-time.
A minute into the short song, Darian becomes distracted, and I follow his line of vision.
Nearby Leith is dancing with a gorgeous ginger-haired woman with arresting green eyes.
The oddest feeling of mirroring them seizes me.
It’s as if the green-eyed woman belongs to Darian, whose jaw ripples with tension as his body stiffens.
It’s awkward, to say the least. Everyone seems to have ulterior motives, to be focused on anything but dancing.
I recall what I heard about this woman—Sorcha. Darian is forcing her to marry him so he has double the claim on the boss position. When our gazes lock, I throw her a curious look. Does she really want to dance with Leith, or is she, like me, paying her fiancé back for his fickleness?
Darian spins me about, whisking me close. “How does it feel to be used by your husband, Iona?”
Focus, Iona.
Breathe.
Don’t have an anxiety attack.
Leith is nearby. He wouldn’t let Darian harm you.
“I suppose I could ask Sorcha the same,” I shoot back, tamping down the emptiness in my chest.
A short laugh rumbles in his throat. “Touché. You’ll have to be strong.” He pulls me close, one eye on his own fiancée and one on me. “This sort of life isn’t for the faint of heart.”
“What makes you think I have a faint heart?”
He spins me around so I’m cradled in his arms, then brings me back to face him. “Only time will tell what you’re made of. Leith certainly doesn’t know.”
His cryptic words coincide with the end of the song. No sooner has the last note sounded than Darian whirls on Leith, who’s just finished spinning Sorcha out.
Darian balls his fists at his sides, and smoke shoots from his nostrils. “Step outside, groom.”
Leith gives a clipped, derisive laugh. “What’s the matter, Dar? Afraid of an audience? Sorcha, Iona, leave.”
We scurry off the dance floor, though my gaze is riveted to my husband. Strapping as he is, I don’t give him good odds against this brawny man, who has a few inches breadth and five kilos of lean muscle on him.
The crowd has hushed, and everyone has gathered around to see the fight. My heart skids off the rails, and I bite my lower lip till it bleeds.
The two men circle each other like MMA fighters.
Darian throws a bullet-fast punch that Leith somehow dodges.
Leith is so quick on his feet, he repeatedly hops out of the line of fire at the last second.
Over and over I flinch, thinking Leith will be down when I open my eyes, only to find him still dancing away from Darian’s fists.
When Darian is winded and slowing down, Leith screws his thumb and fingers into Darian’s eyes while landing a few expert punches to his head, throat, and upper abs.
When Darian buckles, Leith tackles and straddles him, raining blows on his face.
Blood seeps through Darian’s shirt, purple covers half his face, and one of his eyes seems sewn shut.
Declan rushes over. “He’s out, Leith.”
Barely out of breath, Leith springs up, dusts himself off, and nods to the waitstaff, as if he hasn’t just engaged in a brutal fight. They scurry over to pick Darian up.
Sorcha and Declan follow them toward the same corridor where Galiene led me earlier.
Everyone makes way for Diran and Callum, who stride onto the dance floor-turned-boxing arena.
I don’t know why I’m so nervous, yet what if they kill Leith for having knocked out their son and nephew? I’d feel responsible, and I’d always regret accepting that dance from Darian.
“Son, if you hadn’t just married today, we might seek reprisal for that,” Diran states in stern tones everyone can hear. “But you did warn every man here not to touch your wife. Darian was out of line. You’ve punished him, and now it’s time to bury the hatchet and continue the party.”
Callum rakes a hand through his hair, looking gobsmacked that anyone could take down his nephew. “No more baiting each other. Each man sticks to his own woman from now on.”
A collective sigh of relief goes through the audience.
“Come here,” Leith says under his breath, holding out a hand and leveling me with a lordly gaze.
I step onto the dance floor and take his hand. He uses our joined hands to pull me close, snaking an arm about my waist so we both face the crowd. That feeling of returning home overwhelms me, and I’m more thankful than ever he didn’t get hurt.
“Time for a toast.” He snaps his fingers, and champagne flutes appear in our hands. “To new beginnings, fierce loyalties, and friends who have our back.”
Raising my glass, I wonder how Galiene fits into that toast. I’d love to duke it out with her on this floor. I don’t think she’d make it much further than Darian did.
Then again, I’ve been wrong once tonight and may be wrong again.
As a conversational roar breaks out among the guests, Leith turns to me. Fire leaps from his flinty eyes. “You have two punishments coming, Flame.”
“What for?” I take a gulp of champagne, my core muscles clenching.
He holds my jaw in the crook of his hand. “One for your social media prank and the other for disobeying my orders. You danced with another man.”
I force my chin up. “I did the first to get you back for screwing me over that night. And I danced with Darian because you’re seeing another woman.”
His eyes skip between mine. “Who?”
“Galiene,” I spit out, her name tasting vile on my tongue.
An almost imperceptible twitch tugs at the corner of his lips. “I see. And you’re jealous of her.”
“No!” I say vehemently. This is why I didn’t want to confront him about her before. It makes me look so glaikit.
“No? So you’re perfectly happy with the way things stand.” An amused twinkle lights his eye as he takes a sip of bubbly.
Hell no, I think.
“Certainly,” I bite out, hating the tightness still gripping my chest. I can’t let him see how his relations with Galiene affect me. It’s one last bit of power I wield, and I cling to it like a parachute.
He chucks me under the chin. “Good. Then we’re all settled. Come. We’ll circulate awhile, then have our first dance together.”
By the time we’ve made the rounds of the room, I’ve met Alec Ramsay, the grandfather of Malcolm, Darian, Declan, and Chance, his wife Elaine, and a number of extended relatives in the Ramsay clan.
I meet a slew of Leith’s associates and clients, but notably he doesn’t introduce me to Galiene.
This oversight seems deliberate and suspicious.
As we cut the cake, Darian swaggers out and looks on with one good eye, downing a whisky and talking to his brother. Sorcha stands nearby, shooting furtive glances at Darian while fingering her cross pendant.
Leith and I dance our first dance to Azuquita’s Mil Gracias, after he shows me the basic steps to the son.
Close in his arms I inhale his natural aromas.
If only he weren’t in the Syndicate. If only he hadn’t forced me to marry him.
If only he weren’t using me. If only he weren’t seeing Galiene.
Without any of these barriers, he’d be my dream catch.
Brilliant, experienced, sensitive, and powerful, he doesn’t even need his looks to be the sexiest man alive.
I focus on rocking and swaying off the back of the beat. “Why this song?”
“The singer is giving a thousand thanks to passionate love.” He turns me about so we’re in the same cradle position Darian put me in earlier.
But this time, a bolt of desire arrows through me, heating my center.
Leith’s sensual voice is addictive, his touch electrifying.
“Even the rhythms of this song are like the pulse of the heart.”
I briefly close my eyes and hear him speak the words like a love poem with the music as its background. In an elegant series of moves he whirls me about, brings me under his raised arm, steps under mine, walks with me to the side, and closes us back together.
If only life were a dance. Leith would be my first choice for a partner.
1?chat, conversation