Page 74 of Sinful Pleasure

“We’re back in Scarlet Vale, by the way,” I muttered, trying to change the subject. But Tamara wasn’t having it.

“Don’t you dare dodge this conversation. You kissed Angelo?”

“He kissed me,” I corrected, pulling a blouse off a hanger. My voice was calm, but inside, my stomach twisted into knots at the memory. “Not the other way around.”

“Oh, sure, technicalities,” she teased, and I could practically hear her rolling her eyes through the phone. “So… did you like it?”

I paused, blouse in hand. The question lingered in the air, heavier than I wanted it to be.

Did I like it?

The kiss wasn’t bad— maybe even… sweet. But it was also weird.

Angelo had never been the type to initiate anything between us.

Hell, we were barely playing the part of a functional couple. His kiss caught me completely off guard, and I couldn’t shake the thought of howmisplaced it felt.

“I don’t know,” I said finally, hating how uncertain I sounded.

“Oh, come on, Allyn,” Tamara groaned. “A man like Angelo kisses you, and you don’t know?”

“It was… unexpected,” I said slowly.

“Unexpected, huh?” she said, her voice laced with suspicion. “You’re avoiding the question. What’s really going on?”

I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

What’s really going on?

I slept with Maddox, and it was the best sex of my life; then I kissed his brother.That’s the full, messy truth that I can’t bring myself to admit—not even to Tamara.

Saying it out loud would mean accepting what I did. It would mean facing the fact that I’d crossed a line I could never uncross.

“I don’t know,” I said at last, collapsing onto my bed.

The sheets were a tangled mess—just like my life. I stared at the ceiling, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on me.

“It’s… complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

I hesitated, chewing on my lip. Marriage on paper doesn’t involve unexpected kisses when no one’s watching.

So why did Angelo kiss me?

“He’s going to be your husband soon, Allyn,” Tamara reminded me as if that solved everything. “Who knows? You might even fall in love with him.”

I let out a dry laugh, shaking my head.

“I highly doubt that.”

“Why not?” she asked, her tone softer now, almost as if she knew there was more to the story.

My mind is a battlefield. And the person who occupies it most is the one I shouldn’t even be thinking about. The one with those pitch-black eyes that seem to drag death along with them like it’s an afterthought.

Maddox King.His presence lingers in the corners of my mind like a shadow I can’t escape. I’ve seen those eyes too many times, and I’ll keep seeing them everysingle day when I marry Angelo.

I swallowed hard, forcing the lump in my throat down.

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