“Chiara,” Wesley snapped at her.
My stomach knotted. “Excuse me?”
She waved off her husband’s warning. As beautiful as she was, there was a coldness to her that could never make her as appealing as her youngest daughter. Not even her musical accent could soften the harshness of her words. “How much do we have to pay you to annul this outrageous, ridiculous marriage?”
Wesley shook his head. “Unbelievable. I apologize for my wife.”
“Do not ever apologize for me,” she hissed angrily at him. “Just because you pretend to be ‘one with the people’… I know you are not happy that our daughter married a man who cannot give her the life she is used to.” Chiara stepped toward me. “I am sorry if I am being rude, but I am doing this for you, too, Jared. Allegra is impulsive, wild, and follows her emotions and artistry wherever the wind blows her. You are just another adventure until she gets bored with playing a farmer’s wife, of no doubt pouring all the money my husband and I earned to give her into a thankless business such as farming. She will end up penniless with no backup to protect her. She will miss traveling, parties, seeing the world. She’ll be trapped on a farm. With you.” She sighed unhappily. “Is that really what you want?”
I glanced at Wesley, but he only glowered at his wife. He did not refute anything she’d said.
After an hour of schmoozing with these people at a party I didn’t want to be at, seeing Allegra socialize with them with ease and talk about all the places she’d been … it allowed Chiara’s worries to take root.
Allegra and I were happy now, but what happened if she did grow bored?
I was never going to change.
I was a farmer and I liked my simple life.
“I see you understand.”
That dread and disappointment that had been gathering overhead suddenly burst in a thunderous storm of fury. Because I knew Chiara Howard made very valid points.
But she was wrong about one thing. I leaned toward her, my tone hard, “Don’t ever try to buy me off. I don’t want your fucking money.” Every penny of it that Allegra had invested into my farm and business, I was going to pay back. Every damn penny. “Maybe if either of you weren’t both so consumed with money and image, you wouldn’t have done such a grand job of fucking up Allegra.” I stepped toward them both as Wesley’s eyes flew to meet mine.
“Allegra isn’t impulsive. She was a devastated teen who needed her parents. And instead she found out her father was cheating on her mother and gotslapped”—I spat the word at Chiara—“for her loyalty, and abandoned for knowing the truth.” I shook my head, disgusted by them. “The world may think of you as the perfect parents. Successful. Powerful. Legends. But we both knowIknow differently. Imagine being the partial cause of your kid’s pain … and then gaslighting her, so even her sister thinksshe’sthe fuck-up. You should be utterly ashamed. You’re not successful. You failed at the thing that mattered most.”
I gestured to myself. “You know, in Scotland we call a person a legend if they’re agood. Not because they’re globally successful or historically famous, but a good person who did agood thing for us. My grandfather was a Highland farmer and he was a fuckinglegend. Not a fancy Hollywood director or a world-famous supermodel. And yet as my parent, he was more successful than you two could ever hope to be.”
Turning on my heel, I left them behind, satisfied by their stricken expressions.
Maybe it was revenge for Chiara devastating me with the truth, but I liked to think of it more as justice for my wife. And a long time coming.
“What did they say to you?” Allegra asked for the hundredth time as she followed me upstairs to our bedroom.
Feeling an intense pressure on my chest, I’d found Allegra just as she’d come across Aria and North, and told her I wasn’t feeling great. We’d left the party without returning to her parents and she’d badgered me the whole way home.
“They upset you. I know they did.” Hearing the tremor in her voice, I turned as we stepped inside the bedroom and I shrugged out of the jacket.
I didn’t want to think.
Thinking made me feel like my chest was caving in.
“They didn’t say anything,” I lied. “I just couldn’t wait any longer to get you alone. Take off the dress. Keep the shoes on.”
Allegra’s tan cheeks flushed. “Are you serious? You’re telling me the truth?”
I nodded, because I couldn’t voice another lie. The buttons on my shirt gave as I quickly plucked them open. “Dress off.”
She couldn’t suppress a shiver. I knew and loved that shiver. My wife was turned on. “Fine. But we will talk about this later,mister.” Allegra yanked down the side zipper on her dress a little angrily.
As amusement curled in my gut, overwhelmingfeelingfor this woman froze me to the spot for a second. I watched as she shimmied off the tight dress and gracefully stepped out of it. My heart thudded faster as my dick thickened, straining against the suit trousers. She wore a strapless see-through pink bra and matching knickers, the same shade as those fuck-me shoes.
“Jesus,” I murmured, hungrily eating up the sight of her.
The thought of never having the privilege of seeing her like this for the rest of my life was so goddamn painful, it left me breathless.
“Get on the bed,” I demanded, fighting off the grim thought.
