My mind is made up.
With a cool smile I tell him, “I’ll see what I can do.”
Luka
Chapter 1
She betrayed me. Mywifebetrayed me.
As I storm through the suite, hands at my temples, my stomach roils at the thought of the devastating message I received from Monica Shore this morning. I can’t stop turning the truth of it over in my mind. Brooklyn has been lying to me all along. And now I’m on my honeymoon with a deceitful, backstabbing liar who planned to sell me and my family out to Elite Image.
They’re not just the competition—they’re our agency’s nemesis. For years, Elite has monopolized all the top talent in the modeling industry, raking in new clients with hardly any effort and scalping all the highest-earning models off of other companies whenever they get the chance. Now that they’ve got their sights set on DRM, I know they’ll stop at nothing to buy us out. It’s no secret that our agency is struggling—but it still feels like a knife to the gut knowing that my wife planned to hand us over on a platter to their vile CEO, Austin Spears.
I don’t know what makes me more enraged: that I never saw this coming, or that I’d actually started to develop feelings for Brooklyn. Both accounts remind me that I’m an idiot. Especially considering the fact that I’ve been with plenty of women before, and I know exactly how they act once they find out who I am and what I can do for them. I should have known.
In the end, one thing’s for certain, though—my heart and my judgement can’t be trusted. Weighing people’s integrity isn’t something I’ve had to do often, I guess, and it shows. Instead of being the decent person she presented herself as, she’s nothing more than a self-serving manipulator.
I try to remind myself that I’m no saint, that I can’t turn my nose up too far. I’ve certainly had sex with women for my own purposes. But the difference between me and my wife is that Brooklyn was malicious enough to actually go out of her way to make me feel something real for her. At least in my case, I never tried to deceive the women I bedded into developing feelings for me. I made it clear that I expected nothing beyond a good lay and some discretion after the fact. I’d say it turned out pretty well for me.
Yet thanks to Brooklyn, I’m now trapped in this decadent Parisian honeymoon suite with the last woman on Earth I want to be with. I never should have gotten close to her. I can’t even look at her, even though I can feel her eyes on me and she won’t stop sniffling as if she’s holding back tears. More manipulation, I’m sure. Women are good at playing the crying game. I’ve never fallen for it in the past, and I’m sure as hell not about to start now.
“Luka, please,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “I wasn’t going to go through with it. I swear. I destroyed that contract; I had no intention of holding up my end.”
“Hmm.”
Refusing to respond beyond that, I continue gathering up her things from the bedroom as she follows me around making excuse after excuse.
I’m barely listening. She’s said the same thing about five times now, in five different ways—but I know what I saw with my own eyes, in black and white. A contract between Elite Image and Brooklyn Moss, offering her big incentives—including a lucrative modeling contract and a deal to work with Maxilene—to provide EI with insider information that would assist them in a takeover of Danica Rose Management. Those assholes actually think they can buy us out.
And Brooklyn didn’t bat an eye at agreeing to help them.
I storm back out to the suite’s sitting room and drop her shoes, her lacy underwear, her jewelry, all of it, into the open suitcase I already hauled out and left next to the sofa. Then I go back for her pillow and a spare blanket. She’s going to have to just suck it up for the next week and enjoy sleeping out here on the couch. Alone.
Brooklyn’s voice pitches higher as I toss the bedding onto the sofa. “Just stop and listen, please! I met with themmonthsago, before anything even happened between us.”
I finally look up and watch her, my heart thumping hard against my breastbone.
We could have been so good together. I know the feeling of those lips wrapped around my cock, the glide of her thick, glossy hair between my fingers, how she loves it when I wrap my fist around it when I’m taking her from behind.
Fuck! I shake my head and turn away.
She rushes over to the fireplace and falls to her knees to start rifling through the ashes. Curious despite my anger, I give her a cursory glance.
“I burned the contract,” she babbles. “I tossed it in here, lit the fireplace, and burned it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “That was just your copy.”
Brooklyn looks up at me, her hands still buried in ash. “What? I never even signed the damn thing, and I can prove it.”
My mouth is dry, but I manage to retort, “So you held on to that contract for months and then waited untilafterwe were married to decide if you were going to betray me or not. How upstanding of you.”
The fact that she waited makes everything even worse. I’d been getting closer and closer to her for weeks, and the whole time she had the contract in her back pocket, trying to figure out which of her options would benefit her the most. It’s obvious she never felt anything real for me. Not even on our wedding day—which had turned out to be more than I ever expected.
“Luka, Iburnedit! My loyalty isn’t to Elite, it’s to you—I want to be with you.”
She searches my eyes, her gaze desperate, but I keep my glare cold and steely.
“Marrying you is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made,” I say, watching her jerk back as if I just slapped her. Good. I want her to hurt, more than I am right now.
