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“I don’t want to be a queen,” I murmur. “And honestly, I don’t need you to be a king, either. I just wish we could fade into the background and make good for all the years that we lost. Somewhere away from the Triad, from The Order, from the underground. Away from the glittery high life.” I never really liked it.
Zayne turns me to face him, his large hands resting on my waist. I’ve chosen a light gown for our engagement party, golden silk, the upper part marking the swell of my breasts in that way I know he likes. Music leaks onto the beach from the party, people laughing and clinking glasses around fountains of champagne.
Zayne spared no effort to make our engagement party epic. There are rivers of booze, movie stars mingle with stock exchange brokers, all the lesser mortals trying to make connections with them–my parents included.
Correction. My adoptive parents, who didn’t like it one bit when they discovered I remembered my life from the orphanage. They’d done everything in their power for the memory to fade, which my therapist now says was the worst thing that could have happened. The truth festered like pus under layers of lies, forgotten, but still wreaking havoc. It’s basically what fucked up my entire life before Zayne and I found each other again, and worked through our darkness together.
Yet tonight Mom had the gall to question my choice of accepting Zayne’s proposal.
“Isn’t it a bit early to remarry?” she asked in her typical singsong voice that hid all sorts of neuroses. As much as she tried to hide them, it was obvious in the way she kept tapping her index finger against her glass of champagne. “I mean, how long have you even known each other?”
“A very long time,” I replied with a smile. “Ever since Detroit, actually. I don’t think I’ve known anyone longer than him.” Then, pinning her down with my stare, “Not even you.”
A smile trembled on her thin lips, her dark cherry lipstick leaking into the cracks around them. Mom was always a thin woman, but ever since she went all in on that Victoria Beckham diet, all that’s left of her is basically a pile of bones with too-large cheekbones. She was also always a mean woman, but now, sizing my fiancé up and down, she decides to keep her snarky remarks to herself.
Dad remained silent but, unlike his usual self which always seemed politely detached, he was most definitely interested in my fiancé. More than he ever was in Joseph. I wondered if he might remember him from the orphanage.
“I wish you all the happiness in the world,” he said to both of us as Zayne’s arm wrapped around my shoulders. “I really do. You deserve it. And I have a feeling that you’ll make our daughter very happy. That you’re exactly what she needs.”
He took in the sight of the man next to me, handsome and magnificent even in a plain white shirt and black slacks. Tonight he kept it expensive but casual, matching my simple style. My hair is free in the breeze, and my cheeks are alight with glee.
“I would literally die for your daughter, Mr. Miller,” Zayne declared, his voice holding a vast but dangerous calm. “And I have every intention to put the world at her feet.”
That was a couple of hours ago, but I can still feel dad’s eyes flitting over to us every now and then as I wrap myself in my lover’s arms, taking in his warmth.
“Believe me, wild flame, all I want to do is run away with you and start a new life, recover all the time we lost after they separated us at the orphanage.” He tips my chin up to meet my eyes when I try to hide my face in his chest. “But I also know that you want the drugs off the streets, and I’m in a position to make that happen for you. Then there are the illegal fights. Jax, Declan and I can put an end to that, too, but it will take time and effort. The mafia behind that is one big, mean octopus. As for experimenting on humans, I might have stopped doing it, but there are still many who haven’t.”
And only people like him can stop them.
“There’s much responsibility in power, wild flame,” he tells me softly, while stroking a finger down my cheek. “I’m sure you’ve already started to see that. Now, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t leave everything behind for you, because I would, in a heartbeat. I just want you to make that decision while understanding what it involves. We wouldn’t be able to help anyone anymore.”
I drink in his handsome face, feeling like I’ve finally found the missing part of my soul. Like I can breathe freely for the first time in my life, and all I want to do is grab his hand and run with him on the beach, dipping with him naked in the waves before we face our responsibilities together.
But before we can do that, there’s something I need to tell him.
“I have a surprise for you,” I murmur. “You can look at it as an engagement present.”
When the expression on his face changes into a questioning one, I start to worry that maybe I did something terribly wrong. Needing a bit of courage, I rise up on the naked balls of my feet, sand slipping through my toes, inviting him to kiss me. In response, he lifts me up and closes that beautiful mouth over mine. He tries to keep it light, but he fails and plunges into a deep kiss, his tongue demanding more and more of me until it takes my breath away. When he breaks the kiss, he does it with a snarl, as if the separation stabs him in the gut.
“Fuck damn it, woman, what you’re doing to me.” His cock hardened against my lower belly during the kiss, sending my pulse on a crazy ride. He looks around, eyeing the dunes of sand nearby. I know what he’s thinking, but the moment he bends down to scoop me up and carry me over so he can have his way with me, I put my hands on his chest.
“Zayne, please, this is important.”
He frowns, looking pained.
“You can ask anything of me, Sirenna, but not this,” he says gruffly. “My desire for you is the only thing I can’t control. The craving in here,” he balls his large fist to his chest, “it’s like fucking hellfire. Charring me from the inside out unless I give it its fix.” He pushes the next words through his teeth. “I need to stick my cock in you, feel that you’re completely and utterly mine or the demon inside will leave me in ashes.”
I cup his face in my hands, my eyes searching his.
“Zayne, I am yours for better or for worse. I love you with desperation, and nothing will ever change that. I’ve proven that much. We’ll spend the rest of our lives being nymphos for each other, but tonight I need you to focus on this.”
He takes a few moments before he manages to slip his mask of control back on, and nods to signal that he’s ready to hear me out.
“I took the liberty of inviting someone special,” I tell him carefully. “Someone that I think you should meet.”
Tangling my fingers with his, I tug him back towards the party. Yet when my face bathes in the lights and the laughter, turned away from him, my smile disappears, and I start to second-guess myself. When I asked Mia for help in doing this, she argued that Zayne would have gone looking for this person a long time ago if that’s what he wanted. But knowing him the way I do, I gambled that he couldn’t bring himself to. That he didn’t think she’d want to see him, so he never trod that ice.
But now, the woman Mia and I used our influence and connections to find is waiting on the top floor of Zayne’s villa in The Hamptons, just as we asked her to. She’s got her back at us, her hands on the banister, looking down at the luxurious party. Judging by the loud splash and the roar of laughter, someone must have cannonballed into the pool. More splashes follow, so I guess everybody loosened up.
