Page 7 of Kingmakers, Year Two

Finally the music stops and the guests applaud politely. This party is such a fucking charade. No one here cares about Rocco or me, or our upcoming wedding. Everyone present is fullyfocused on the deals they plan to make tonight, the connections and the agreements.

Rocco hasn’t released me.

“That’s enough dancing,” I tell him. “I need a drink.”

“Of course, my love.”

He delights in pretending to be the doting fiancé. Using these terms of endearment, pretending that he has my interests at heart. When really everything he does is in pursuit of his own amusement.

That’s why he forces me to take his arm as we head toward the bar. He wants me close, and he wants me touching him at all times.

“Just water, please,” I say to the bartender. I already had enough to drink in the limo. I don’t want to be inebriated around Rocco.

“Two scotch,” Rocco cuts across me.

The bartender obeys him, not me. He pours the expensive liquor over single spheres of ice, then passes us the drinks.

“Bottoms up,” Rocco says, his blue eyes boring into mine.

I swallow the drink. The sooner I get through these niceties—dancing with him, drinking with him, speaking to him—the sooner we can part ways again.

When he sees I’ve downed the lot, he murmurs, “Let’s take a walk along the marina.”

“I . . . I don’t think we should leave the party.”

I don’t want to be alone with him.

“Nonsense,” Rocco says quietly. “It’s expected that the happy couple will want to slip away.”

I set my glass down on the bar, the ice sphere spinning like a lonely planet.

“I won’t be able to go far in these heels.”

With a thin smile, Rocco says, “Then take my arm.”

I have no choice but to comply, trying not to think ahead to a time when I’ll be required to touch much more than Rocco’s suit-clad bicep.

There should be plenty of people on the marina at this time of night. The docks are lined with restaurants, nightclubs, and shops. Still, I know he isn’t taking me out there for no reason. He always has a reason.

I glance around for Cat as we’re leaving, hoping to make eye contact with her so she’ll know where I’ve gone. She’s dancing with one of my father’s associates, a lecherous old fuck with a spotty bald head, who’s holding her much too close to him and whispering god knows what in her ear. Cat’s smile looks pasted on her face.

She doesn’t see me.

Rocco notices where I’m looking, and he smiles in a way that I don’t like one bit.

He tucks my hand into the crook of his elbow once more and begins to parade me down the marina.

“You’re very close to your sister, aren’t you?” he says.

“No more than normal.”

The lie is instinctive and automatic. Rocco will use any leverage he can find to fuck with me. I don’t want him to know that the one thing in the world I truly care about is Cat.

But he already knows. He doesn’t ask a question without already knowing the answer. And he can always tell when I’m lying.

“Did she make that bracelet for you?” he asks, touching it with one long, slim forefinger.

I snatch back my wrist, irrationally outraged. I don’t want him tainting the bracelet.

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