Page 94 of Bad Little Bride

“You come from a world as twisted as this one.” He shrugs a single shoulder. “You really think you were walking into anything less than a tiger’s den?”

“Lion’s den.” They all look at me then. “There are no tigers here, only the king of the jungle and his pride. Remember that the next time you show up unwanted, making demands and inaccurate assumptions.” As I turn, I swear I catch a small smirk on the girl’s face, but I don’t care to look back and be sure. I step through the corridor, pausing beside a guard, who lowers hischin to his chest at my presence, almost as if it’s meant as a bow, and try something I haven’t yet.

“Remove them.” I make a request.

The moment the word leaves my lips the man’s head dips even lower, and three more appear. One flanking the man I spoke to, the other two silently sweeping out from the opposite side, as if their backs were pressed to that wall, waiting just in case.

Just in case I needed them?

They move behind me without a word, faces hidden behind their bandanas, as always, but I don’t bother looking back.

I smile and head for the terrace that overlooks the lake.

Maybe it’s dumb, but it’s the first time I feel like the queen of this castle, like I’m not just a fragment inside it, but a fixture of its very foundation. That feeling only further cements itself when Grandma appears with a smirk of her own, her palm facing upright, a rose gold cell phone sitting in the center of it.

It rings the moment my fingers wrap around it, and I answer the incoming call. As if he can see me with his own eyes, he speaks the second it touches my ear.

“You are everything I knew you’d be, Little Bride.” His husky tone wraps around me, squeezing my lungs. “The password is my name.”

He hangs up and I try really hard not to squeal, his words sending waves of satisfaction through me. I feel like I’m being petted or praised and okay, maybe that shouldn’t be so enticing, but what the fuck do I care. It is. It is and it makes me want to please him more.

Apparently, he feels the same, as the next thing Grandma hands me is a black Amex, right as a text pops up on the screen of my new cell phone, his number already programmed.

Husband: There is no limit and the car is waiting with Mino behind the wheel. Don’t speak to him and do your worst. That’s an order.

Now that’s one “order” I won’t argue with.

I turn to Grandma. “You’ll come with me, right?”

“I have a better question.” Grandma steps in close, whispering into my ear, “What is it that girl thinks she knows and suspects you don’t want your fiancé to find out?”

Chapter

Twenty

Boston

“How does she know this?”Grandma asks.

“That Philip wants to steal me away from my fiancé and claim me as his own?” I shrug. “How should I know? I only found out the other night. Maybe she hired a PI.”

“I can hear your mind running, dear. Spit it out.”

I hold back a moment, deciding it can’t hurt to mention it. “My father and Mr. Mitchell were speaking at the fundraiser the other night. He mentioned something about a new business endeavor.”

“What did Mr. Fikile have to say about that?”

My silence has her looking up, her hands pausing on the tissue paper. “You do realize you must tell him, just in case.”

I lean against the shelving, watching as she lifts the silky green robe from its box. “Is that your way of saying you will if I don’t?”

“Despite what you may believe, Miss Revenaw, I’m not here as a spy.”

“The three-month supply of birth control sitting in a pile of ash in the fireplace says differently.”

“Yes, well.” She takes a step back, staring at the robe on the hook she hung it on, only to pull it back down. “The three-month supply hidden in your purple Louis duffle says otherwise.”

My eyes snap to hers and she simply stares me down before looking away. “This should be worn, not hung.” She sets it out over the small, round ottoman. “And no, this is not for me to tell. You will need to, though, especially if there is an issue we’ve yet to understand.”

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