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Watching Nikki walk past me and leave the stage, I feel slight a nudge from President Fane reminding me to congratulate the next student. After an interminable amount of time, I call the final name, all are congratulated, and we now have a new class of graduates who are getting well-wishes for future endeavors.
“Will you join the president’s reception?” The low drawl of Fane, my friend and sometimes nemesis, draws my attention, which has once again snagged on the one person it should not. I need to get my shit together before I out myself. There are shrewd eyes about.
“You mean the pompous bullshit you’re hosting, Mr. President? It’s enough you’ve strong-armed these good people into making you the president of the university, but you’re now making me attend this nonsense?” I charge without heat, but the truth is having a billionaire British lord take the position of the head of our elite private university is a huge change. A welcome one but still out of the norm, not to mention he’s not of a advanced age but in his early thirties.
“Someone had to do it. They are not pleased with the happenings.” He waves a negligent hand. “There are a lot of potential donors you need to influence and whose money you need to take before you stab them in the back and switch parties.” His cold eyes assess me as he gauges my expression.
“I see your spies have been busy,” I murmur, falling into step beside this bastard, heading to the reception that is now in full swing.
“Hm, no worries. Your little secret is safe with me.” He lays a winning smile on me for anyone who would care to be looking. “Just be mindful of the ones who can ruin everything.” Arching an eyebrow, he gives a little jaunty smirk, leading me into a group of well-heeled business owners and socialites.
“Hi.”
I almost cringe when I hear Nikki’s voice. Not because of the way it makes the deadened thing in my chest twists, but from the pain coming from knowing this is one of the last times I’ll get to hear it.
“Hey, darling.” I turn, smiling down at her. I have to shake myself to keep from getting lost in amber eyes of the deepest whiskey and the beautiful smile blossoming, making two dimples appear on her cheeks.
“I was thinking…” she starts.
“When do you not?” I tilt my head, giving her a wink to continue. The party’s thinning, and I should have left a long time ago. Especially since I’m supposed to be meeting Natalie later tonight to strategize about the DC move. We almost broke up the night I hit Nik with my car. She took forever to forgive me for standing her and my family up on that night. Natalie and I got engaged soon after and that mollified her. Since then, we have forged a powerhouse team that will get me into Congress and her into the powerful circles her family deems necessary to solidify their legacy. The only little hiccup in that plan is standing right in front of me.
“Anyway.” Nikki presses her lips together in the way she’s always done when she gets ready to ask me for something she thinks I’ll deny her. She’s never gotten the fact that I can deny her nothing. She’s my best friend. More.No motherfucker. I savagely cut myself down with a vicious reprimand.Not more.Arching my brows, prompting her to speak, I listen.
“I think we can use this to justify our acquaintance. I can volunteer to help with your campaign.” Her eyes are filled with so much hope. So much fucking fear. She keeps a beautiful smile painted on her face, but I can tell what it’s costing her to ask. We’ve never talked about having an open friendship for the simple fact we both know the lengths we—I—went to keep it secret. How the fuck was I going to explain keeping a kid at a house on my family’s property, keeping her from her family, who lived a couple of miles away? No way could the news be navigated after documents had been forged to enroll her in school. After a while, it just made sense to keep it between us.
“How about I drop by later?” I tell her, noticing the matriarch Mama-Pete looking our way before whispering something to the little curvy cousin Angel married, Ezekiel-Jane.
Nikki nods. “Sounds good.” Her gaze follows mine in time to see her cousin whisper to her husband. “Shoot. They stay minding business that don’t belong to them,” she mutters.
“They are supposed to look out for you,” I murmur to her.
“That’s what I got you for, Thi.” She bites her lip, looking up through the dark fringe of her lashes, making my dick start to rise to meet those luscious fucking lips. She steps back, holding my gaze for a moment too long. “See you later?” she asks one last time.
“Yeah,” I say, dragging my gaze away before somebody catches me watching her walk away. That’s the last thing I need—being seen eye-fucking a Love when I’m engaged to a Spencer.
Making a note to have my staff look for and erase all references to me and Nikki at this event, I head to my truck.
“Senator.”
I turn, hearing the drawl of Angel, my best friend since childhood, just as I successfully ease out of the venue without anyone stopping me for more conversation or alluding to more favors they expect when I become the senator, he just called me.
“Yeah.” I smirk at him, not stopping on my mission to be free of sycophants. My reason for being here is currently surrounded by people who only want to love and protect her. I won’t ruin her celebration by making it about me. I’d be unwelcome among her people. They hate me without even knowing me, but with justification. Our families have done nothing but seek death and destruction against each other for centuries.
“I think you’re running for Congress as a Democrat just to get back at your old man, switching after you get the nomination to break his heart,” he says, falling into step beside me as I head out to my truck. Even billionaire scions of one of the oldest sugar producers in the world have trucks down here.
“What gave me away?” I chuckle bitterly.Complicatedis not the word for my relationship with my bastard father. We actively loathe each other. Angel is the only person alive who knows.
“It’s pretty obvious. Democrat when every Shelby to hold office has been a Republican since the Civil Rights Movement.”
“Yeah, there’s that. Plus, at heart I’m a Democrat just like my mother,” I tell him, opening the door to my truck, hating the way he watches me and sees entirely too much.
He knows my history—my father marrying the daughter of a wealthy Brazilian landowner to secure the deeds to over one hundred and fifty thousand acres of prime sugarcane, then proceeded to treat her horribly until she died at his hands.
So there is no love lost between father and me for many reasons, but it mostly stems from his poor treatment of my mother—how the tortured her until she died. How he killed her.
“Your mom was an amazing woman. You honor her.”
Both of us lost our mothers, but only one of us holds the blame for them dying—me. Despite what Angel feels about his mom being disappointed, I know how much she loved him. He’s nothing like my father, a man who uses his privilege to run a cartel. Though sugar is legal, everything about the business my father runs is a crime. Mathias Shelby Sr., for all his perceived philanthropy, is a ruthless, cruel killer and proud of it. Worse, he made sure to make his son one as well.
