Page 22 of Reckless Vow

I turn, but he doesn’t follow.

“Is this what you’re wearing?” He assesses me like I’m dressed in a trash bag.

I march back to him and make the mistake of underestimating the distance. Now I’m almost pressed against him. Not good.

But at least I maintain a level voice. “I don’t see why I would dress up for a farce of a wedding.”

“To keep up appearances.” He smiles at me with patience. Fuck him. “For all we know, your great uncle might require wedding photos.”

When I called Rupert to inform him about my upcoming nuptials, he raised his concerns about the validity of it. Especially since I’m marrying my stepbrother.

I fabricated a story about how we’ve been dating for a while and we’re just tying the knot like Roberta wanted. Since we’ve both been living in Europe, we might get away with the dating lie.

Just barely though. Because unlike London who is legitimately living with Dom and running several charitable endeavors with him, or Paris who is very pregnant with Finn’s baby, and Sydney who has been co-parenting Hunter’s little girl for almost two years, Baldo and I don’t have one picture together to corroborate the ruse.

And then there is the issue of Roberta supposedly keeping tabs on us.

He’s right. We need to pretend harder.

I sigh.

“Wait here,” he orders.

“Yes sir,” I mock him, but I realize my mistake.

Because he raises his glasses, and if I’ve ever seen hunger in a man’s eyes… Oh my. He licks his lips, but then he shakes his head and enters the building.

I remain rooted and let out a long breath, trying to calm my nerves. Why am I nervous? And so fucking turned on?

In the minutes I stand there waiting for him—and where the hell did he go?—I find my breathing, level up my mindset and remember why I’m doing this.

Baldo returns and I try not to look at him to maintain that tenuous mindset.

“Let’s go.” He grabs my hand and leads me toward a car that’s just pulled to the curb.

I want to ask where we are going but I’m dealing with the contact of my hand in his. It feels so effortless, so natural, so us. And there goes my freshly adjusted mindset.

We’re already seated in the car when I recover. “Where are we going? We’ll miss our appointment.”

I turn to glare at him, but he raises his finger to silence me. He’s on the phone. How much did I miss while I was recovering from… well, from him?

A long year ahead of me, for sure.

“Thank you. We’ll be there in half an hour.” He hangs up and gives directions to the driver.

Turning to me, he flashes me a smile. “You were saying?”

“Where the hell are you taking me?”

He narrows his eyes, like he really doesn’t understand my question. “To get changed.”

I blink and look outside as if that could explain his behavior better. But at least it gives me a comeback. “This is not the way to the house.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Where. Are. We. Going?”

How I wish I could claw his eyes out. There would be blood and it would be messy. Smothering would be the way to go, but he’s much bigger than me.

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