Page 98 of No Longer Safe

“You look beautiful.”

Even with the impending doom of seeing Alexei in just an hour, I could do this. I was breathtaking. The entire team Emeline hired did a fantastic job on all of us. We were ready for anything. Maybe not a monsoon, but anything else.

“Have my parents made it yet?” I asked Emeline as she came into the room with a pair of glittering heels.

Emeline beamed. “Yes! Just a few hours ago. I got them set up in one of the guest houses and they have full staff to help them with anything and room service on speed dial.”

Leave it to Emeline to go over the top for only my parents. She hadn’t done that for anyone else, not that I knew about anyway. I didn’t know how much I wanted to be here after the wedding anyway. I’d been considering it all afternoon, what I would do when Ace and Carina left for their honeymoon on the other side of the world. Ace booked a private house on the beach in Australia. My heart beat painfully in my chest. I would have that one day, maybe not all of the money that came with it, but I would have the love and the elaborate honeymoon. Even though all of this fuss didn’t seem worth it, I wanted it all the same.

I would have it.I vowed to myself.

Chapter Sixty-Three

Alexei

“I don’t understandwhy we are sharing a room, Alexei.” Vina, my fiancé, whined from the bed as I adjusted my tux. I should have technically been getting ready with the rest of my brothers, but at the moment, I couldn’t stomach the thought or all the questions. It was enough that I was getting the third degree by Axel, it was enough that the paparazzi was breathing down my throat about Audrey. I just couldn’t seem to catch a break and I desperately needed one.

At one point in my life, she’d been my type. The leggy blonde who kept her mouth closed unless it was around my cock. The type that didn’t talk back or have much of an opinion. That was Vina, except she hadn’t come anywhere near my cock, no matter how nefarious we made things for the press so my father was convinced I was doing what I was supposed to.

We shared a room for all wedding activities. It was grating on my last nerve considering I was going to have neck problems for the next decade thanks to sleeping on the floor as much as I was. It didn’t matter, it was all for appearances. Vina didn’t know nor did she understand.

“I told you this already,” I adjusted my bowtie in the mirror and ignored her probing gaze at my back. “This is a politicalalliance. This is something for our fathers, not anything for you or me. There is nothing you could do to get me off.”

She slid the sleeve of her top down and showed the beginning swell of her cleavage and I closed my eyes. I fought the groan building. The last thing I wanted her to believe was that it was pleasure-induced. I didn’t want her to get any kind of sexual idea in her empty head. She’d tried once and I’d let her, hoping that whatever was plaguing me would go away with a woman’s touch. Unfortunately, I was left frustrated and she was confused. She’d even asked if I was gay.

“You don’t have to be such an ass.” She pouted and I wanted to kick her out of my room.

I clenched my jaw. “Thank you for your assessment. We will consummate our marriage, when and if it happens. You will eventually, have a child, probably by IVF and then you will be set up for life.” I whirled away from the mirror and faced her head-on. “Is that acceptable for you?”

“I would be satisfied to have a surrogate.”

Of course, because why would she want to sacrifice her body for a child? I hated her. I hated all of this but I was stuck all because I’d loved thewrongwoman.

“I have somewhere to be.” I slammed the door behind me and marched down the stairs to a private suite Ace was staying in. A camera was going off at least one hundred pictures a minute on the other side of the door.

I hated weddings.

Ace was grinning at something Dimitri said and everyone else was laughing, even Ivan. I could hardly believe my eyes. I’d missed the camaraderie I desperately needed because I was playing babysitter.

“How’s Vina?” Griffin mocked and all my amusement faded away. Of course, the camera was pointed right at me too when he said it.

I flipped him the bird and I hoped they caught that as well.

The wedding planner breezed into the room a few minutes later. “Who’s ready to get hitched?”

I hated her too, this was stupid.

Ace gracefully stood from his leather chair and smiled. It wasn’t any kind of forced bullshit either, it was genuine. He was happy and there was a small part of me that was happy for him. The rest of me was jealous as shit that I couldn’t have the same thing. I hoped Vina got lost on the way to the wedding area in the gardens and died. I hated her guts and death was probably the only way out of this mess. She would be missed by someone, but it wouldn’t be me.

The worst part of all of this was that I had to walk down the aisle with Audrey. It was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. I hadn’t seen her since I’d broken up with her and I hated it. I hated myself.

We were all lined up in the hallway. Ace was already at the altar in the gardens. We were to meet up at the back doors and walk down the elaborately constructed walkway my mother had built for all of this. It was snowing out and the ground already had a couple of inches coating it. Even though everything was dead in the winter, Mother had thousands of flowers brought in to make it a winter wonderland. Deep red and navy blue flowers were positioned everywhere that her garden would have had in the spring. The aisle was also covered in fresh beautiful flowers though it was getting covered quickly with the falling snow.

“Alexei!” The wedding planner called from the open double doors. “Audrey!”

My heart sank down into my asshole.

One foot in front of the other and there she was, waiting for me as if no time passed at all. She looked breathtaking. She always looked incredible and maybe it was the icy glare thrown my way but I was immediately hard.

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