I gaped at the three-inch spike on the back of the shoe. “No.” I snatched it from his hand and set it back on the shelf before turning and sliding past him. I exited the shop and started walking, knowing full well he’d follow. He had no other choice. Halfway up the block, I stopped outside of a jewelry shop, my eyes finding the ad centered in the window. A young woman held out her hand to showcase the beautiful, studded diamond ring she wore.
Bright sparkling eyes, a gasp frozen in time, all expressing how happy she looked while I stood there with a frown. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was an actual woman and not an ad, was she genuinely happy or was it all a sham?Like myengagement,I thought with a scowl, my own fingers fiddling with the empty-for-now space where a ring would soon sit. Sighing, I ripped my eyes away from the photograph and looked back to make sure I wasn’t alone before continuing down the road.
Although this was supposed to be another 'date'—if one could even call these forced outings dates—Gaven was several paces back, speaking quietly to my father as our guards scanned the street.
"Don't go too far ahead, Miss Price," one of the guards called out.
"I'm not," I replied lightly, throwing him a tight smile.
It didn't matter, though, how many steps ahead I took, it wouldn't take long at all for Gaven to catch up with me. Both literally and figuratively, the feeling of his eyes tracking me through the crowd practically burned against my skin. If I ran, he would chase because, for all I knew, these were my last days with any modicum of freedom. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could actually do it.
I’d contemplated it before. The thought of being trapped in a world soaked in blood and vengeance was part of the reason I’d gone into computer technology as a major to begin with. There was so much you could do with technology these days—one could even rewrite an existence if one knew how. I could fabricate a completely new identity. To do that, though … I’d have to say goodbye to everything I’d ever known. My family. My home. My dad…
Despite being a mafia boss, my father had always been good to his family; I’d been allowed to leave the house, study, travel, and converse,existaway from the family business—just not without guards. That didn't mean Gaven would be the same though. For all I knew, he’d keep me locked up until he was sure I was carrying his heir.
An heir …My hands went to my stomach.A child that I would conceive with him to continue the Price lineage.
I shook my head. His wants were preposterous. I was too young to have a baby. Hell, I was hardly old enough to be getting married, especially to someone like Gaven Belmonte. I peeked back once more at my forced fiancé. And yet … I couldn't help but watch him when he wasn't staring at me. His face was so perfectly cut—almostthe epitome of DaVinci's law of human beauty. I suspect had he not lived a life of crime and blood, hewould’ve been a model or an actor and he would've kept that handsome symmetry. Now, however, his nose leaned slightly to the side, as if it had been broken one too many times, and there was a small scar above his eyebrow that ruined the portrait of perfection. It was that one and another—smaller and slightly curved that peeked out from his collar.
The edge of marred beauty on Gaven was by far even more dangerous. The perfection may have been soiled, but the image of a savage man who hungered for something darker was all too foreboding. From where he stood several paces back among several other guards, Gaven’s eyes lifted and met mine. His lips curled up in amusement as if he could sense the direction of my thoughts. A startling amount of heat rushed to the surface of my skin as I whipped around and faced away from him, nearly tripping in my haste to get away from that impenetrable gaze of his.
I could never tell what he was thinking, but I found myself wanting more and more to know what lay beyond his closed mind. The night at the restaurant was fresh in my memory—almost like a haunting nightmare, except … I hadn’t exactly resisted as hard as I’d thought I would. His fingers had been expert as they’d plied me open and penetrated my pussy. He’d made me feel things, sensations that noboyever had.
My minuscule level of experience was nothing compared to the apparent knowledge he had of the female body. He’d played me like an instrument. Plucking at my strings with all of the competence of a master. I’d have been an idiot if I didn’t at least admit that he was intriguing to me.
God, even after a few days of thinking about the deal my father had struck with him, I still couldn’t believe it. Ever since, too, Jackie had been in her own bubble of silent and petty rage. She acted as if this was all something Iwantedwhen that was the furthest thing from the truth. My father didn’t even seemto care much that he was ruining all of my well-laid plans. The sickening sensation of betrayal flared, and I bit the inside of my lip to keep my face flat. I was being watched, constantly under scrutiny, not just by my father and his guards, but now Gaven too. The thought only made the emotions build and I was struggling to keep a hold of myself, so I forced my attention on the nearby storefronts.
Don’t lose your calm,I commanded myself, taking a deep breath.You can play the part.At the very least, until I made the ultimate decision on what I wanted to do. If I wanted to follow through with this or if I could manage to make my getaway. With the silly pep talk over, I felt the tumultuous emotions inside of me ease just as a bright array of pink roses caught my attention. Following the sight of it across the street, I was hyper-aware that Gaven and company were trailing behind. In the back of my mind, I was watching them even as I moved toward the flowers. I wondered if I could grab a few to take back to the house or even ask the florist for samples.What kind of flowers do I even like?The silly, simple question made me pause as I stared at the array of bulbs.
For some reason, it seemed like such a ridiculous question, but it made the image of myself dressed in white, walking down the aisle on my father’s arm burn brightly in my mind. It could happen, I realized. I could actually end up following through with it all and marrying Gaven Belmonte.Would it be such a bad thing?I asked myself. I didn’t know him well enough to know what he would expect. An heir, for sure, apparently. But after that … would it be a decent relationship? My father wouldn’t ever force me to marry someone who would hurt me. That much I knew for sure.
Over the years, I had tried to separate myself from my family, burying myself in daydreams and passions, into my studies. Yet … at that time, that had been my only focus. There wereno real hobbies or likes, hell, evendislikesthat I’d discovered about myself. While Jackie had been learning the family ropes to become a perfect mold of our father, I’d become the exact opposite. Turned to anything that wasn’t my family with such intensity, that now I wondered if I really knew anything about myself at all outside of the future ‘what ifs’ that would now never happen.
Nausea rolled over me as I brushed my fingers over the soft petals; four weeks seemed too short. That was how long they’d given me. Not only to get married but to relearn everything I’d ever known. Maybe it was something about the realization I’d had about myself or about the way that I, again, felt Gaven's gaze on my spine—ever penetrating—but perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to marry young? My father wouldn't even have considered him if he was going to just lock me up after the deed was done. I was just a tool, I knew, to hand over the Price empire to someone my father trusted, and if he was happy enough knowing that I'd be cared for regardless of what happened to him, maybe I should just accept it.
There was still online schooling. Maybe if I just shut my eyes and pretended that Gaven was nothing more than a businessman, things would be?—
My thought was cut short as the sound of tires shrieking against the pavement reached me a split second before a loud burst went off—a car backfiring or perhaps a wheel popping? The back of my heel clipped the sidewalk, and as I stumbled and tried to right myself again, something whizzed past me a moment before a motorcycle tore up the shoulder of the street, damn near popping onto the sidewalk.
"Angel!" My head turned at the sound of my name being yelled, except it was too late. The man riding the motorcycle swung his arm out, and my eyes zeroed in on the gun in his hand with realization. That sound earlier had been a gunshot—oneintended to kill me, and now he was going to ensure he didn't miss again.
My lips parted on a scream, but it got caught up in my throat as someone slammed into me from the side. The pavement rushed up to greet me, and I closed my eyes tightly as my hip hit the sidewalk and then we were rolling. Body on top of body, black coat swirling in a mess as legs hit mine, and we tumbled out of the range of the motorcycle as it sped up the road away from us.
Heart pounding, head aching, my eyes sprung open again, only to find myself staring straight up into the face of the man I'd been thinking about all afternoon. The harsh set of his jaw was taut as he ground his teeth together, glaring first at me and then to the side as he pushed off the ground and off of me.
Just before Gaven’s body leveraged away from mine, though, I'd felt it—the length of him inside his slacks. Long and thick.
What kind of woman did it make me that I was thinking of nothing but my future husband's dick when really … I'd just almost died? Maybe I'd sustained brain damage on the way down.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Gaven barked as several guards came rushing up only seconds later. "You were supposed to be watching our surroundings! Your incompetence nearly got her killed. Get the SUV. We're leaving.Now."
No one could manage a word as he began snapping orders and growling at everyone approaching us. Almost as an afterthought, Gaven reached down and helped me back to my feet. I wobbled on one leg, gasping as I nearly went down once more. Glancing down, I realized that one of my low heels—a choice on Gertie’s part rather than mine—had snapped in the scuffle and I was uneven.
"For fuck's sake," Gaven muttered, and I briefly wondered if he was about to turn his anger and frustration on me. Before Icould utter an apology, however—for what, though, I wasn't even sure—he turned and swept me into his arms.
Blinking, I settled against him without a second thought, feeling small against his broad chest and muscled arms.I’m definitely brain-damaged,I thought to myself as my arms twined around his neck. An SUV came screeching up to the corner and he hustled me toward it, sliding in and letting someone shut the door behind us. Only then did he look down at me, and surprisingly there was no anger when he spoke. Instead, there was only concern.
"Are you okay, Angel?"
