Page 9 of Marrying the Enemy

Now Eve’s father and brothers were jumping on WBE like hyenas on a wounded gazelle. There was a small chance they were acting independently, Dom supposed. As far as he could tell, Eve had recently been given a midlevel position with their head office so she didn’t have the frontline ability to lead these sorts of attacks, but she easily could have spun some story to her father that would fuel this action.

Either way, Dom’s father was dead. That meant the Viscontis were coming for him.

Dom understood his father’s perspective now, even his grandfather’s. The Viscontis were leaving him with no choice but to fight. He was angry enough at their tactics that he wouldn’t rest until he had his teeth in their proverbial throats.

A memory flashed of the mark he’d left on Eve’s neck. Heat pooled behind his fly.

Damn it, he wanted her out of his head! He wanted her and her family relegated to the fringes of his perception, where he would never think about any of them ever again.

It might take years. It might take playing the wounded antelope to lead them down a path toward an ambush, but he was a smart, patient man. He could do it.

One way or another, he would end this feud once and for all.

CHAPTER FOUR

Four years later...

HE WAS HERE. God help her, Dom Blackwood was attending this freaking wedding.

Which wouldn’t be such a nightmare if it had been a typical afternoon-evening affair, but no. This was a weeklong extravaganza in the Whitsunday Islands of Australia.

How many times had she considered calling off her agreement to come? Every day since she’d been asked. Eve didn’t even know the couple getting married. She was the plus-one for a man she’d only been seeing for two months.

Her date, Logan Offerman, was a handsome lawyer with political aspirations who came from a big family with old money. He liked dogs and hiking and supported right-to-vote legislation. He had gone to school with her middle brother, Jackson. His parents were friends of her own from the country club.

Eve’s mother, who had always told Eve to guard her virginity like it was the Hope diamond, wanted this marriage. Everyone did. Her father kept saying, “It’s a good match.” Her eldest brother, Nico, was starting to sound like a used car salesman, he was selling it so hard. Her youngest brother, Christopher, was indifferent, but happy that she was taking the heat of family attention so he could live his bohemian life in Hawaii unbothered.

Ginny had essentially poked a sword in Eve’s back to get her onto the plane.

“Spend some time with him. You’ll soon see how right this is for both of you.” Eve suspected her mother believed that if Eve finally slept with a man, she might actually marry him.

Eve had been finding fault with her mother’s suggested suitors for four years. Even she was tired of it. She really, really wanted to fall for Logan, if only to finally have some peace from this constant pressure to marry. Nevertheless, all she could think was that Logan reminded her of sunscreen. He offered important protection, but made her feel sticky and suffocated.

Logan was a groomsman in the wedding party so they’d been given a beautiful two-bedroom suite at the eco-resort where the guests without yachts were being housed. Eve knew that Logan was hoping they would start sleeping together while they were away. He didn’t take it for granted, though. He set her suitcase in the second bedroom without asking, only sending her a brief, hopeful look that resembled a puppy tapping its tail.

“I think I’ll nap before the welcome reception,” Eve said, closing herself into her room.

She was actually going to scream into her pillow because what else could she do?

While they’d been ferried across from the mainland with some of the other wedding guests, she’d overheard someone ask a very beautiful woman, “Isn’t Dom with you?”

“WBE just bought a hotel in Airlie Beach,” the woman had replied. “He’s staying there for meetings. I want time with my family and I’m a bridesmaid so...”

Eve had drifted away, ostensibly to enjoy the view, but mostly because she had feared she would lose her breakfast over the rail.

She had managed to avoid Domenico Blackwood for four years—mostly. She had compulsively learned far too much about him online from how many women he dated to the fact he was named for his mother’s favorite uncle. He lived in New York, but he had properties around the world and was very hands-on so he was rarely home.

Even when he was there, the chance of running into him was low. Her parents were very good about vetting guest lists. There had only been a handful of times that Eve had glimpsed Dom from across a restaurant. The one time she had walked into a Fourth of July party and noticed him, she had claimed a migraine and left immediately.

Each tiny encounter had left her unable to sleep for days, though, always wondering if he’d seen her and whether he would finally turn on her, exposing her behavior to her family and anyone else who would listen. Over the years, she had only grown more mortified by the way she had behaved with him in Budapest. The fact he’d been a stranger was embarrassing enough, but her father had genuinely hated Dom’s.

Romeo’s hostility toward Thomas Blackwood was understandable. The man had accused him of murder, but it had all been cleared up. Nevertheless, when Thomas had died, her father had rallied her brothers to attack WBE.

Eve had questioned her father on that. It seemed like a dirty move when Dom had been grieving and finding his feet as the head of the company.

“Michael Blackwood didn’t let up on me when my father died,” her father groused.

At that point, Eve had distanced herself, still unable to think of how uninhibited she’d been without cringing. Dom had both ignited and derailed her passion, making it impossible for her to feel anything with anyone else.

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