Page 40 of One Weekend in London

“When it comes to you, Miss Winslow? You’re sodding right I am.” He pulls me closer, tucking my head beneath his chin, his arms banding around me like he never wants to let go.

And in them, I find peace.

It’s now as I drift off to sleep, safe and sated in his embrace, I realize I don’t want him to. Because this man, with his tender heart and wicked touch, has me completely in his thrall—body, heart, and soul.

And heaven help me, I never want to be free.

CHAPTER 15

Rhys

She’s a vision; I can’t tear my eyes away.

As we stride into the Piccadilly Theatre, Sadie’s hand tucked securely in the crook of my elbow, I feel the weight of curious gazes on us. Whispers follow, the night air thick with speculation.

London’s most notorious bachelor, showing up to a West End premiere with a stunning, albeit unknown, woman on his arm? It’s the stuff of the rubbish tabloids’ dreams. Come morning we’ll surely grace the cover of every gutter press’s daily publication.

For once, I don’t mind.

It’s a mighty steep change, considering I’ve always worked to avoid the paparazzi. But with Sadie now in my life, I want every last bloke in London who holds breath in his lungs and a beating heart in his chest to see her at my side and know she’s mine.

That she’s off-limits; that trying his hand at making her his, stealing her away from me, will lead in only one direction.

Ruin.

Just as touching her led to Thomas’s.

The moment I witnessed his unwanted hand on her bare thigh at The Opulence, it was over for him. Ready to make him an example, I’ve set in motion dismantling his entire world, starting with the portfolio of fine-dining restaurants he was desperate to keep afloat.

Now each of them will soon be mine.

The takeovers won’t be complicated.

Not with the looming debt he’s acquired.

When I’m thoroughly finished with the arse, he’ll be without a roof over his head, skint, and with no pot to piss in. He’s childless, and his wife, Lexi, is a society princess who holds no feelings for the plonker she’s married to.

She made that clear with the dozens of advances she made on first me, then Grant.

Other than her, Thomas has no family, obliterating any semblance of guilt I may have had for destroying his entire existence.

After the multiple stunts he’s pulled, he already had it coming. But he crossed a line when he touched Sadie without consent—there’s no longer a point of return for him.

By my hand, his reckoning is arriving.

Having had enough thoughts of him, I focus back solely on the gorgeous belle beside me, drinking in the way the midnight silk of her dress hugs her every curve, and the way her chocolate-colored hair cascades down her back in a waterfall of gloss and silk.

She’s nothing less than exquisite.

A museum-worthy work of art.

My mind drifts back to earlier in the evening, after Caroline personally delivered Sadie’s bags to the docked yacht, allowing her to dress for our outing in the master suite.

I’d been lounging on the bed, scrolling through an abundance of neglected emails on my mobile, when the ensuite door had swung open, revealing a sight that nearly brought me to my knees.

My love, fresh from the shower, wrapped in nothing but a fluffy white towel that had my company’s initials monogrammed on it.

Water droplets glistened on her golden skin, tracing sinful paths down her neck and collarbone before disappearing into the valley between her breasts.

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