Page 76 of Devil Mine

“That’s good to hear. Do you want to know what the punishment is for disrespecting my wife?”

“No, it’s–”

“Death.” I throw my cards on the table. “Do you want to rethink your question?”

“What I meant is, are you happy to have found her?”

I give him a withering look and ignore him, speaking to Arturo instead.

“Send out a marriage announcement for us. By tomorrow, I want the entire country to know that Tess Noble is mine.”

“What photo should I use? I don’t believe we have any of the happy couple,” he answers. Arturo should be thrilled that I’m on my way back to London and my responsibilities, but he’s still got a sour expression on his face. He doesn’t like her, and I’m not sure why.

I nod. “Bring your phone,” I tell him, standing. “Marco, you stay here.”

I head to the back of the plane towards the bedroom and throw the door open. Tess is laying on the bed on her stomach, kicking her feet playfully as she reads a book. Only I know that she’s not wearing any panties under that short dress and that she’s not laying on her back because her ass is covered in painful welts.

She startles when I burst in and then scrambles to her feet, making sure to put the bed between us. I notice that she’s cleaned up. Her hair is tamed, her makeup perfect. I miss the mess she’d been after the Rolls.

“Hello, wife.”

“Hello,devil,” she snarks back.

I make a mental note, adding to my marriage bucket list to get her to refer to me as her husband.

“What do you want?”

“Arturo is going to take a picture of us for our wedding announcement.” I move deeper into the bedroom. “Now come here and pretend to be in love with me.”

She snorts, crossing her arms. “That’s simply beyond my abilities. You should have forced an Oscar-winning actress to marry you if that was a requirement.”

“Come here,amor.”

“And what if I don’t? Are you going to tie me up again?”

“Not until you beg me. I told you, I keep my promises.”

“Happy days then because that means you’ll never touch me again.”

A grin pulls at my lips. “I think you want to provoke me into action,preciosa. Don’t forget that you’re the one who came looking for me at the museum, and it wasn’t because you wanted to exchange business cards. I give it less than two weeks before I make you eat those words.”

She scoffs. “Alothas changed since then. If you’re waiting for me to beg, you’ll be waiting a very long time. They’ll engrave ‘died waiting for something that was never going to happen’ on your tombstone.”

“What’s changed?”

She gives me a bewildered look. “Are you serious? You shot my friend!”

“And you ran from me.”

“Those aren’t equatable actions, Thiago.”

“They are to me,” I clip harshly. “You took something of mine and I damaged something of yours in return. We’re even.”

I’m aware that Arturo is watching this entire exchange go down, an inscrutable but unconvinced look on his face.

“And yet here I am,” she says, extending her arms to either side of her. “Back in your possession. You can’t un-shoot Dagny.”

“She’s alive, isn’t she? Like I said,” I retort, “even.”

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