Page 5 of Her Wedding Night

Moonlight glinting off the hint of silver at his temples. If he didn’t have tattoos all over his body, he’d look like what I imagine a concerned father would look like. Except I’ve never needed a concerned father before, and I don’t want one now. Especially not one who might kidnap me and turn me into his plaything.

He steps forward, and the shift makes some reflecting light from somewhere catch his eyes.

My breath freezes in my throat.

My legs feel like lead.

I'm not sure I'm safe on this boat, but I know I'm not safe on land either. What is going on and what have I gotten myself into?

“Lucy?”

In the blink of an eye, my stalker fades back into the shadows.

I turn around.

Ethan's looking at me, his brows tightly furrowed, his mouth pulling down.

My throat tightens up, my voice coming out tight as I explain, “I thought I saw someone.” I give him a bright smile. “It was nobody, though.”

He holds out his hand, and I hesitantly climb the steps to join him. I don’t give him my fingers. Instead, I brush past him with a boldness I don’t actually feel. “Let’s get this party started.”

CHAPTER 2

GABRIEL

When they head forward, a lumbering man in a white uniform comes down from the bridge. He pulls in the gangway, then unmoors the yacht.

I cross the dock and quietly leap aboard as soon as he heads back up to the bridge. I take off my shoes so my footsteps won’t make any noise, then stash them in a compartment under a cushion. I don’t want anyone finding them should they come down to the swim platform level.

Then I silently creep up the stairs.

Time for me to get familiar with this fucking boat.

CHAPTER 3

LUCY

As the yacht motors out to sea, Ethan takes me below deck to a cabin where he almost shyly gives me a large white box wrapped in a blue ribbon.

“What is this?” I don’t take it, not exactly.

So now we’re both holding it, me very gingerly.

He gives me a slow, frightening smile. “It’s time for you to put on something that matches the others.”

“Why?”

“It’s part of the fun. Go on, open it.”

When I don’t open it, he sets it on the bed for me and fingers the blue ribbon. Glancing sideways, he drags his gaze down my dress. “I knew this would be your color.”

I expect a pastel blue diaphanous gown inside after that, but when he lifts the lid, all I see is a big cloud of gauzy white fabric.

But there, at the edge, is a peek of blue. The same ribbon that tied the box up is also stitched to the gown’s waist.

And when he lifts the white gauze out of the box, I see a matching blue bikini beneath it.

A very small bikini.