Page 30 of The Devil's Torment

I feel her stiffen, her spine elongating. For the second time, she leans away, hazel eyes seeking the truth in my brown ones. Or an explanation, maybe.

“I’m… confused.”

“How so?”

“You don’t like me, yet you’re being nice. It makes me uncomfortable, as though you’re setting me up for a fall I won’t see coming.”

“Who said I don’t like you?” I ignore the rest of what she said, but it’s telling. She doesn’t trust me. We’ve never seen eye to eye, it’s true, but I’m starting to wonder if there was more to our mutual ire than either of us were aware of.

“You did.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever used those words.”

“You told me you pity the man I end up with. That’s as good as.”

“And you told me you pity the woman I end up with.”

She expels a heavy breath. “And here we are, married to one another. It’s a cruel twist of fate.”

“Is it? Or is it the universe righting a wrong?”

Her forehead crinkles. “You’re making no sense.”

I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, then retake her hip. “You look so fucking beautiful, I’m having trouble saying anything, let alone forming words that make sense.”

As the words leave my lips, Victoria’s eyes widen, her pupils dilating in an instant. I can almost hear the gears in her mind stutter and jar, her gaze searching again, waiting for me to land the fatal blow.

Time stands still, the music fading, the noise from the wedding guests fading to a faint hum. The silence between us grows thick and heavy, broken only by the rushing of blood through my ears. When Dad told me we were to marry, I may have accepted it, but I was far from thrilled at being attached to the antagonistic Victoria Montague for the rest of my days. Today, though, it’s as if I’m seeing her in a different light. Or maybe I never properly looked before.

I’m fucking looking at her now, and I like what I see.

“Nicholas, I—” She breaks off, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s a first.”

For a second, outrage flares in her eyes. Then she reads the teasing in mine and shakes her head, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. I return her head to my chest and bury my nose in her hair. We sway in time to the music, each lost in our own private thoughts.

We finish the rest of the dance in silence. As we’re leaving the dance floor, the music stops, and my father taps a microphone set up at the far end of the ballroom.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention for a moment.”

The noise of hundreds of guests lowers to a faint buzz as everyone focuses on my father.

“A few short months ago, many of you attended the wedding of my eldest son, Alexander, to his beautiful bride, Imogen.” Dad’s gaze sweeps to the right, where I presume Xan and Imogen are, although I can’t see them from this vantage point. “And now, here we all are again, celebrating the wedding of my second son, Nicholas. I’m sure you’ll all agree that Victoria makes a most stunning bride.” Dad pauses to settle his gaze on Victoria, and he smiles fondly at her. “But before we urge the happy couple to cut the cake, I’d like us to take a moment to remember one of our own who’s not here with us. Victoria’s sister, Elizabeth.”

Dad raises a glass in the air. “To Elizabeth.”

Victoria freezes, her spine straight as a pencil. I slide my arm around her waist and give her hip a squeeze. “You okay?” I murmur.

She clasps a thin silver chain hanging around her neck and scissors the attached pendant back and forth. “She should be here.”

If she were, she’d be my wife now, and intuition tells me I wouldn’t have the same feelings about Elizabeth as I’m having about Victoria.

Elizabeth and I got close plenty of times, even kissed, yet on those occasions there wasn’t a flicker of attraction. Since Victoria walked down the aisle, I’ve had to will my dick to deflate—and it hasn’t listened.

“Come on. Let’s cut the cake.” I take her hand. The crowd parts as we make our way to the four-tiered wedding cake sitting on top of one of Dad’s antique tables. Rather than stand to the side of Victoria, as tradition dictates, I move behind her, encircling her waist. I hear the catch of her breath as she inhales.

“What are you doing?”

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