Page 15 of Sinner's Perdition

“Don’t you dare touch her.”

That arrogant smirk stretches his lips. “It’s almost cute how you protect her, but she’s my fiancée.”

She takes a step back, and my anger ignites, shoving him. “I thought you’d be smart enough to call this sham of a wedding off. I guess you’re not.”

He cranes his neck to the sky, whispering what I make out to be a prayer for patience. God, he looks phenomenal, all raw power, male strength, and imperious stance. But I can’t stand him.

Cameron appears in my line of vision. We’ve met over the years, whenever he came to visit Aurora at the all-girls school. His blondish hair is styled to perfection. I doubt he would even know what messy looks like. He bursts into laughter, and both Cato and Kieran shoot him a murderous look, but he raises his hands, chuckling.

“Hey.” The taxi driver reaches us, grabbing my arm.

The air shifts, thickening with the change in Cato’s mood. In a deadly calm voice, he says, “If you want to use that hand ever again, I suggest taking it away.”

His voice dropped so low, something funny happens in my stomach, and lower. What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Someone better pay me because I am not accepting that ring. That has to be fake.” The guy extends the ring, and Cato pins me with an indignant glare.

“You would have given him my ring?”

I shrug. “Well, I didn’t have any money on me.”

“Your loss, that ring is worth over a million dollars.”

I gasp. Cato snatches his wallet and throws a couple hundred at the driver’s feet. “Keep the fucking rest. Now, get lost.”

Aurora intervenes as the tension turns suffocating between me and Cato. “Does your father know?”

At whatever Cato sees in my expression, he runs a hand through his dark, fuller-on-top, shorter-on-the-side hair. “Fuck my luck.”

“Come on, we’re leaving.” Aurora drags me with her.

We leave the guys behind and sit on the bench in the pavilion. “That was quite the entry.”

The silence falls heavy between us.

“So, that’s your fiancé? He’s . . .”

“He’s more bark than anything.”

She eyes me with worry, as if not believing me. “Do you like him?”

“Never,” I say, way too quickly, sounding defensive, and looking away. “I just like messing with him.”

“You’re going to marry him?”

“If my father doesn’t kill me first.”

“He can’t do anything here. I’ll ask Kieran if he can do something about this.”

“So, you and Kieran?”

Her gaze drops to her finger, at the sparkling diamond ring, at the tattoo peeking beneath it.

“I never thought the day would come that I would miss that godforsaken place,” she says dejectedly.

“Yes, no man as far as you could see.”

We giggle, and it’s so good to have her here; I forget everything around me, including my fiancé.

---