Page 13 of Sweet Wicked Vows
I fixed the knives and forks on the table for the twentieth time.
Tension rolled down my spine and across my shoulders. I hadn’t slept a wink, and it was starting to catch up to me.
“This doesn’t feel right to me,” Flynn grumbled, placing a jug of water down on the table. “How can you have gone and married this guy without any of us there?”
“Last time I checked, you were halfway to the Caribbean.” I refolded a napkin. “Your invite must have gotten lost in the ocean.”
“You didn’t invite any of your friends.” He scrunched his nose. “You three don’t do anything without each other. Lola will kill you when she finds out.”
“If Dad couldn’t be there, I didn’t want anyone there.”
“How could I have not known you were seeing someone?” he questioned. “You’ve been totally heartbroken since that massivedickhead left. I thought maybe he would have come to his senses and tried to patch things up with you by now.”
Ah, Laurence.
Being with him was so simple, so easy. Four years together, four seemingly happy years, and he ended it in the blink of an eye without so much as a reason.
He was making me breakfast on Thursday and handing me a box of my stuff on Friday.
It had been two months, and I still didn’t understand what happened.
“You’re not around, Flynn.” I shrugged. “I saw little need to fill you in on the aspects of my dating life.”
I swallowed the lie, letting it turn to ash. I couldn’t tell him the truth. Flynn never took life seriously, but he was known to be quite unpredictable in the face of a threat. I couldn’t risk him doing something stupid to Jaxon or blowing the cover story I invented during my sleepless night.
The doorbell echoed through the house, and I bolted before anyone else reacted.
Opening the door, I found Jaxon Dade standing on the doorstep. He was dressed immaculately in monochrome from foot to collar. His oil-black hair was pushed back revealing the intensity of his perfectly sculpted face.
Holy shit, he was painfully gorgeous.
He was nothing like his older brother.
Frederic was no doubt handsome, but he was attractive like an impending deadly iceberg. Beautifully cold, with even more bitter ice hidden beneath, waiting to drown those who got too close.
Jaxon on the other hand was like an approaching hurricane. I was unable to look away despite knowing it would lead to total destruction. Tattoos peeked out from his shirt cuffs, stormy gray and whiskey swirled eyes, and a jawline that rivaled a marblestatue.
He was a prince of sin in human disguise.
“Douceur,” he said, the tone tight and mocking. “I hope you didn’t miss me too much.”
I grimaced. “Like a kick in the teeth.”
Jaxon chuckled, the noise creating goosebumps on my arms. “A real wife usually greets her husband with a kiss.”
“Try it and let’s see how you cope the rest of your life with no testicles.”
“Noted. May I come in, or are you planning on having dinner out on the street?”
I contemplated slamming the door in his face. I considered telling him to go and tell his brother that they can both go straight to fucking hell. Our lawyers were only a phone call away and I knew they’d easily make the last couple of days disappear from history.
A quick annulment and it would be nothing more than a bad dream.
But there was a part of me, one I detested, that knew Frederic was right. Without Jaxon, without someone to walk me step-by-step, I was going to be the worst CEO in human history.
I couldn’t do that to my dad’s company, not after all the work and sacrifices he put into it.
Jaxon understood the world I was being thrust into. I may not have liked him, but if I let him and he stuck to his brother’s deal, he was my only hope of making it through the next year unscathed.