Page 41 of Bad Little Bride

“Can I?—”

“I’ve already got the strawberries out. Nine minutes.”

The eye roll I give is full-on dramatic and serves well to hide the sliver of excitement in my gut, but I do my best to push it down by focusing on the task at hand.

I’m showered, shaved, and in nothing but a satin robe, my wet hair in a claw clip as I step back into the makeshift dressing room.

My feet are just crossing the threshold when long pointy fingers wrap around my wrist, tugging me forward. The woman smirks as her eyes travel my makeup-less face, sparkling as if she already knows exactly what she wants to do. The crybabytattoo above her eye stretches higher when she smiles, ushering me into the chair. “I’m Jayden. I’m on face. Jenna is on hair, and Jazzy is on the dress. I’m just gonna put a quick mask on your eyes and then you’ll pick your gown. After that you’re right back to me, got it?” She pops a large piece of bubble gum, smiling at me. “I can’t believe he’s letting us talk to you.”

At my frown, she just laughs, and neither of us bother mentioning whoheis. Jayden smooths a thick, gel-like substance around the contours of my eyes, the eucalyptus smell soothing and reminding me of the spa day I didn’t get to finish.

“Girl, don’t humiliate us like this.” When my eyes meet hers in confusion, she winks. “A pout like that might make me Enzo’s biggest nightmare.”

“Jayden, behave. It was hard enough to get the approval for you girls to be here. Don’t disappoint me now by hitting on the boss’s bride-to-be.”

“Meh, a little family competition never hurt no one. Right, Boston?”

Wrong. So fucking wrong, but I don’t say that, instead focusing way too hard on the “family” part. “You’re related to Enzo?”

“Don’t spot the resemblance?” she teases, pressing a thin white cloth with large cutouts around my eyes, dabbing against it with a featherlight touch to seal it to the gel there.

I look more closely. The woman is tall, her eyes darker than Enzo’s and her hair is jet-black, but not the natural kind. While Enzo is all clear skin—minus the new tattoo of my lips—Jayden is covered in ink. It wraps up her neck and down her arms. Even her long, thin fingers are dipped in ink. Of course that’s all stylistic choices, and doesn’t help as far as resemblances go.

“Fucking the boss’s best friend doesn’t make you family, Jayden.” The girl plugging a blow-dryer in, who must be Jenna, smirks from her place to my right. Her eyes meet mine, thepurple contacts she’s wearing bright and glittery. “You met Mino yet, Blondie?”

A hint of embarrassment threatens to creep in, but I force it away. I have nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m not the one keeping someone else prisoner. “I haven’t met anyone.” I decide it’s not a lie, being I would almost guarantee Katana is a topic not to be discussed. Or at least one I don’t want to discuss anyway.

“Girl, you’re missing out. I saw the sex tape he and Jay made. Hot,” the third girl, Jazzy adds, beckoning me over with a crook of her finger.

Jayden pulls me to my feet, and I jolt when she smacks my ass playfully to get me moving. “Not a sex tape when you didn’t know there were cameras, and we’re not fucking, we fucked. A few times.”

The laughs the girls let out clearly say they disagree, and Jayden looks to me expectantly.

“I mean…if there’s a video of you having sex, regardless of knowing you were being recorded or not, it’s still a sex tape.”

“Don’t let her fool you, dear.”Grandmaslides into the room with a rolling cart, a gorgeous spread of fruits and a bottle of chardonnay on ice sitting on top. “She knew good and well every inch of the property in question was under surveillance. She’ll be sure to try and blackmail the poor man with it later.”

“Mom!” she gapes.

I gape.

And Grandma just lifts a brow, glancing my way as if to confirm. Jayden is her daughter.

I scan the room, my eyes narrowing.

They areallher daughters.

Well, that’s…unexpected. I assumed she was a childless woman who devoted her life serving the Fikiles, having raised Enzo on her own and just never left.

I kind of like that I was wrong. Maybe her devotion to him doesn’t run as deep as I had thought, and I can learn to trust her.

Maybe, in time, she’ll become someone I can lean on should I need to.

“Okay, what are we thinking gown-wise?” Jazzy asks, gripping my hips and sliding her hands up my ribs as if to gauge my figure better. “Your posture is on point. No wonder he chose all these strapless pieces. He wants your shoulders on display.”

“Oh, I’ve got the perfect updo!” Jenna smiles.

“No.” The word comes out too harsh, too fast, and all eyes find mine. Shit. I force myself not to swallow. “My hair stays down and no open back.”

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