Page 60 of Wicked Heiress

I ducked into the room, and he joined me seconds later, locking the door behind us.

“I know how you feel.”

“No, you don’t.” I walked over to the bar and grabbed a glass. “You don’t have to let someone else marry the woman you love.”

Drake handed me a bottle of scotch and laughed. “Are you kidding me? I have been in love with Liv since we were teenagers. I know what it’s like to be obsessed with a woman I can’t have. Someday, Liv will meet someone. And when she does, I…”

He couldn’t even finish the thought. If anyone understood my pain, it was Drake. Olivia Maxwell was the love of his life. But because of a deal he made with her older brother, they had no future together. Like me, Drake was loyal and would never betray Tate’s trust.

I poured the amber liquid into two glasses and passed one to Drake. We sipped our drinks and plopped onto the leather couch.

I devoured most of the scotch in one gulp. It burned on the way down, but I needed to feel something.

Anything.

“I can’t let Grace marry Rhys,” I muttered between sips.

“Fitzy will destroy your family. Don’t get in his way. It’s not worth it.”

I finished my drink and hopped up from the couch, too fidgety to sit still. “I let Grace think I’m not into her when she’s the only thing I think about.”

“You know how this will end,” Drake reminded me.

I knew the cost of breaking The Founders’ rules. I witnessed several banishments in my twenty-two years on this earth.

They lost everything.

Their status.

Their money.

Their power.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket, a call from my dad, probably to yell at me for leaving so abruptly. Fitzy wasn’t done making a spectacle of his granddaughter’s engagement before I rushed out of the ballroom.

Fuck him.

My phone rang again, and Drake got up from the couch, one eyebrow raised. “Who keeps calling you?”

“My dad.”

He put his empty glass on the bar and tipped his head at the door. “You can’t hide forever. It’s not too late to tell her how you feel,” he said on our way down the hallway. “She’s not a married woman yet.”

I expelled a deep breath to steady my nerves the closer we got to the ballroom. “Maybe it’s better if she doesn’t know.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

GRACE

I latched onto Rhys’s arm and forced a smile for the cameras. Dozens of people wanted to snap pictures of the happy couple. It killed me to pretend when I felt like I was dying on the inside.

The second I accepted Rhys’s proposal, Cole stormed out of the ballroom and didn’t look back.

My heart raced as Rhys paraded me across the room on his arm, like his perfect little pawn. I didn’t understand why my grandfather wanted me to marry Rhys, of all people.

What choice do I have?

He made the rules.

---