“I’m drying my nails.”
He chuckles. “Cute.”
“We already have plans on Saturday night. I don’t think I could stomach being stuck with you two nights in a row.”
“Soon, you’ll bestuckliving with me twenty-four/seven,” he notes with a smirk.
I open my mouth to argue when what he said hits me—I’m going to be living with him. I’ve never lived with a man before. I barely live with my brother Dominick and his wife, Peyton, since their house is so big that they’re on one side with their kids and I’m on the other.
One time, I tried to spend the night with Theo. Only I freaked out and left in the middle of the night. And now I’m going to have to live with Kane … in a hotel room?
“If you think I’m going to live at the country club, you’ve lost your mind.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Princess. I’m only staying there while our future home is being finished. Would you like to go see it?”
The valet drives around with my car and then stands next to my door, waiting for me to get in.
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I have shopping plans with my sister-in-law.”
Kane chuckles. “Of course you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I bite out, not liking his tone.
“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “I just noticed that you like to shop.”
“When you were stalking me?”
“It’s a small town.” He shrugs. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re bored with your life.”
Before I can argue—or at the very least tell him to go fuck himself—he walks away, ending the conversation and leaving me to think about what he just said.
I want to tell him he’s wrong, that he doesn’t know a thing about me or my life. But the truth is, he isn’t wrong.
I am bored with my life.
But something tells me, thanks to Kane, my life is about to get a bit more chaotic.
“What do you think?”
I step out of the fitting room and twirl around in the silky red dress. With the low-cut A-frame design, the dress shows off my cleavage—giving me the illusion of having a bit more than what I’ve actually got, which isn’t much. It’s fitted up top but flowy the rest of the way down, stopping several inches above my knees.
“It’s beautiful,” Dani says, waddling over with her cute belly. She rubs the material between her fingers. “And soft. Do you like it?”
“I do.” I turn to look at it in the mirror. “It’s sexy and feminine and way too pretty for my date with Kane on Saturday night.”
“On that note …” She sits on the seat and looks up at me. “What were you thinking, agreeing to marry him?”
“I was thinking my brothers had spent their entire lives trying to protect me, and now it’s my turn to protect them,” I admit. “They’re working so hard to legitimize their businesses, and withthe assholecoming after the family and trying to mess everything up, this is the last thing they need.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Dani visibly shivers at the mention of the asshole.
Since we don’t know who the person is, I refer to him or her asthe asshole. Someone has been coming after our family for the past two years, and we don’t know who it is or why. All we know is that they want the Antonovs out of Harbor Point so they can take over. And instead of coming out and making themselves known, they’re acting like a little bitch by playing games.
Messing with the shipments at the port my brothers own and run, which handles a huge amount of import and export from companies that have seven-figure contracts with Antonov Enterprises. They’ve ransacked businesses in South Harbor Point that are under our family’s protection. They took Dani from The Underground and brought her to the port, just to prove they could take one of us anytime they wanted. Dani is the only person who has seen the asshole, and she swears it’s a woman. If it is, I wish she’d show her face so I could fuck it up. And the most recent occurrence was at Matteo and Dani’s wedding. They left a bottle of expensive scotch as a gift with a note that read,Congratulations. Hope you make it long enough to be a husband and father.
We can’t prove it, but we also think the asshole could’ve been working with Anthony—before I shot and killed him—because he had men go after Peyton and Damien, and he was broke, sosomeone was bankrolling him. And he might’ve even been working with Enrique—Dani’s ex, who seduced her to try to steal her family’s company after he killed both her parents in a fire to avenge his father’s death. Enrique had Matteo and Lorenzo thrown into jail, but they were thankfully able to get the charges dropped.
I freeze in my spot and glance at Dani. “Have you noticed that everyone who has come after us is connected to Kane?”
