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“How long do you plan on keeping me?” she asked immediately.
Oh god, he was still so disturbingly gorgeous. She hadn’t imagined anything about him.
“For as long as it takes.”
“For as long as what takes? You know what? I’m not interested in that. What I want is to be allowed to leave so I can go back to Tobias—”
“You think this marriage is fake?”
“I didn’t initially but now I do. It’s impossible that you would marry a woman sight unseen before. I understand you have an issue with Tobias and you dragged me into it. But trust me when I say, Tobias wants nothing more than to marry me and he won’t stop until he finds me.”
“Is that so?” he drawled as he rose from the chair.
“Yes. He’s a very dangerous man, Elliot,” she said, pleading with him. “He has no conscience. He’s reckless and wild, impulsive. He thinks with his ego. He has no heart and he kills people, innocent people for no reason. He’ll kill you before your next breath. He’ll—”
“Do you know who I am?” He closed the distance between them and muddled her train of thought.
“No,” she cried, desperately trying to maintain her ground. She didn’t know him. She only knew him as Elliot and that meant nothing to her. “But I do know that you won’t win in his world. You might think you will, but he’ll kill you long before you have any chance to do the same to him because doesn’t play fair. Please,” she said, her hands going to his chest without thinking. She curled her fingers around his shirt, her actions imploring him to listen to her.
Elliot bent his head, his gaze gliding over her hands on his chest, the fabric of his shirt gathered in her palm.
The moment seemed frozen in time. Suddenly all she could feel was his heartbeat. The power of his body hitting her hard with every pulse. His lips were so close to hers that she could catch his breath if she stuck her tongue out.
“I’m Elliot… Knight.”
Vivian took too long to realize what he had said, too long for her brain to register the name. But then it did.
Elliot Knight.
And those had been his two brothers. Parker and Silas.
Cold dread washed down her spine. She didn’t grow up in a mafia family and not know who the Knight brothers were. If she thought Tobias was dangerous, reckless, and impulsive, the man standing before her was infinitely more dangerous, more cunning, and more ruthless which meant that he never failed. Ever. A big difference between the two of them.
Limply her hands fell from his chest.
“Elliot Knight,” she whispered. “Oh god.” She spun away from him. Her brain threatened to implode. It was worse than she had thought.
“I don’t understand,” she said, whirling around. “What am I doing here?”
“Tobias Ariti is my uncle’s son. The same uncle I killed five years ago.”
Everything became clearer to her now and it changed every single dynamic.
“No,” she said decidedly. This was an entirely different scenario. She wasn’t equipped to handle this scale of rivalry, not when the other party was Elliot Knight.
“I want to be released right now. I was supposed to marry Tobias and that is going to happen. Whatever vendetta you two have with each other is not my problem. Now let me go back to Tobias right now.”
Her whole world tumbled out of control when Elliot charged toward her. He slammed her into a brick wall, pinning her down with his body until she couldn’t breathe.
The fresh clean panties she had so painstakingly washed and then blow-dried were now completely ruined again as more wetness seeped into the fabric.
“You still think this marriage is fake?” he growled softly. She didn’t know what to do with her hands except to keep them in a defensive stance against his chest. His nearness was not good for her soul. Not good for anything about her at all.
“Yes, because you would have to be insane—” She struggled to get the words out but then reality dawned on her full swing.
No. No. No.
“No,” she shook her head. Part of her felt as if she were going to throw up. Part of her had already surrendered to his nearness. The invisible clock in her head started ticking down, every minute gone by felt like a bomb going off.
