Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Your dress.” His cold eyes flickered over my bare legs.
“What about it?” I asked innocently.
“It’s nonexistent.”
Indeed, it was skimpy by my standards. I made sure to purchase a new wardrobe with skirts and dresses shorter than my fiancé’s fuse in order to aggravate him.
This one was a rose-gold sequin mini dress that was a far cry from my usual buttoned-up work dresses and pencil skirts.
“If you think you’re going to tell me what to wear—” I started.
“You can wear whatever you want,” he cut me off. “What will happen to men who stare at you as a result is on your conscience, though.”
“So what I’m hearing is I’ll get to piss you off and get you arrested for aggravated assault.” I crossed my legs seductively and sat back, knowing he was going to steal another glance at my thighs. “Say less.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. He kept his gaze on the road. “You will have to choose an engagement ring fit for the wife of a respected billionaire.”
“I’m marrying a respected billionaire?” I lurched forward, placing a hand on my rib cage. “I thought I was marrying you.”
“Hilarious.”
“No, you are,” I said cheerfully. “For thinking I’d let you play any role in choosing my engagement ring.”
“You’re a reasonable woman.” His teeth slammed together.
My plan was working.
I was driving him bonkers.
“Start acting like one.”
“I was a reasonable woman,” I corrected. “Now, I’m whatever you don’t want in a wife. That is my entire personality.”
His nostrils flared. A lick of fear ran along my spine.
Tate was a dangerous man. I’d never seen him get fucked over in deals—he always did the fucking—and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the consequences of my own actions.
The car came to a screech in front of a white, arched building in the heart of Manhattan. The entire six-story jewelry store glowed from the inside. He threw the vehicle into park and swiveled to me with his entire imposing body.
“I’ve satisfied my part of the transaction in good faith. I have twisted a lot of arms and broken a lot of laws to get your mother into this program in record time. Yet instead of a blushing bride, I so far have had to deal with an unruly banshee. I find that the best way to work with a disorderly business partner is to either bend them to my rules or sack them altogether.”
“Sack me, then,” I whispered.
“Oh, but you wouldn’t like that.” His tone, of pure gravel, caressed every inch of my body. His cordial smile held a threat.
“Why not?”
“Because you want your mother to live, and as easily as I put her in this program, I can also remove her.”
Tears clogged my throat and burned the backs of my eyeballs.
I hated him. Yet I was attracted to him in the same way the moth longed for the flame, knowing it’d kill it.
He reached to me slowly, giving me time to retreat, and cupped the side of my neck. His touch was warm and rough and comforting.
God, it made no sense. Why couldn’t my body be in tune with my mind?
I realized depressingly that a broken egg cannot be unbroken. A bitten apple could never be whole again.
Now that I knew what Tate’s touch felt like, I could never erase it from memory, could never resist it.
“Would marrying me really be the end of the world?” Tate asked silkily, fingers traveling along the column of my neck.
“Yes,” I choked out. “It would. I’ve lost so much already. My only hope is to choose a good-hearted, faithful husband and to choose him well.”
“You could be happy.” His gaze dropped to my lips, his fingers still lightly caressing my neck, his thumb circling the skin just beneath my ear. “You’ll be the richest out of your friends. Draped in the most lavish of frocks. I will be faithful. As long as you open those pretty legs for me, anyway. You will have children to fuss over.”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “I’ll have all those things, but I won’t have love.”
“Sweetheart, love is like God. An abstract invention for poor people to cling to in lieu of better, materialistic things.”
“Yet that’s all I want and the only thing you cannot give me,” I croaked.
“I could grow to tolerate you,” he said.
Smiling miserably, I shook my head. “No, you won’t. You’re not the type to protect, to shelter, to piece someone back together. To…to…give cute nicknames,” I explained. “You’re a villain.”
My words seemed to sober him. “It is pointless to negotiate with you.” His upper lip curved into a snarl. “I want your word that you’ll behave.”
I stared out the window, silent.
“You’re making a grave mistake, Apricity.”
“Apricity?” I whipped my head his way.
“The warmth of the sun in winter.” He smirked fiendishly. “It was what popped into my head when I saw you for the first time. There’d been a snowstorm. It was freezing. And you looked…” His eyes rested on the faint pulse of my neck. “Well, hot.”