Page 25 of Marriage Bargain With Her Brazilian Boss (Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales)

Was that her fate? To always want people in her life who in turn wanted to never let her in? To be abandoned by anyone she got attached to?

God, now she was feeling sorry for herself, and that was something she truly hated.

No, she couldn’t let it go to her head or her heart. She had to stop giving away pieces of herself to Caio.

This arrangement of theirs had a shelf life.

After an hour of a placid, vacant smile, her cheeks hurt. Her scalp hurt from the complicated knot Yana had twisted her hair into and her feet hurt in the four-inch stilettos that she wasn’t used to. And more than anything, her heart hurt—raged at the understanding grimace/smile Laura Huntington had cast Caio.

Commiserating with him over the big sacrifice he’d made by saddling himself with an unwanted bride, all for the good of OneTech.

It didn’t matter that it had been Nush’s own plan. That she’d seen the satisfaction in Caio’s eyes when everything had been signed and transferred, that she needn’t worry about the vision Thaata had held for the company.

With one pitying look, Laura reminded Nush that for Caio this was an unwanted wedding. An arrangement he’d been cornered into by circumstances. And it was the hard reminder Nush very much needed.

By seven in the evening, Caio had been locked up in his study with a team of lawyers and the executive team of OneTech—Laura included. Yana had kissed her on the cheek before she’d disappeared. Nush ended up dancing and chatting endlessly with Peter Jr. of all people, who seemed to have decided she needed looking after while her new husband ignored her.

After seeing her mom safely into the chauffeured car, she’d had enough.

The changes she’d wanted to make in her life didn’t have to stop at owning her responsibilities with OneTech. Fake marriage or not, her life was still hers to live. Clinging to Caio for the few crumbs of his attention would only bring her back to square one.

Caio was knocking on Anushka’s closed bedroom door when Mira found him. Her calm, placid gaze flicked to the dark violet velvet box in his hands and then back to his face.

“Where is she?” he said softly. Agitation thrummed through him after he’d spent three quarters of an hour looking for Nush.

Mira shook her head.

When he glared, she sighed. “I only know she wanted to get out of here.”

Caio waited, knowing that Mira had more to say. Out of the three sisters, Mira was the one he understood best, the one who was the most like him. She’d gone through a lot as a child, with a mother who’d abandoned her and an alcoholic father who left her to his parents to be raised.

Mira understood responsibility, duty and that some wounds would never heal. All you could do was to make sure the poison didn’t seep out and ruin the people around. It was guiding his behavior with Nush.

But the damned woman challenged every one of his good intentions. He’d planned for them to have dinner with some of his closest associates, to show her his appreciation for helping him achieve his life’s goal, though she was unaware of it. He’d planned to spend the evening with her. Only when he’d emerged from his meeting, Nush had disappeared.

Did she think her responsibilities to OneTech, to him, ended with her signature? He hadn’t missed the smirk on Peter Sr.’s face when he’d failed to locate his “wayward bride,” in the older man’s words. The older man was already spreading the vile rumor that Caio had taken advantage of the poor, clueless Reddy heiress. And that it was far too close to the truth grated on him like nothing else had ever done.

“Mira?” he prompted with little patience.

“I’m betraying my sister’s confidence by discussing her with you.”

“Anushka has no secrets from me,” he said, wanting it to be true more than it really was.

“Yana said something happened between you. Did she tell you then?”

Now it was Caio who felt as if he was betraying the woman he’d spoken vows to this morning.

They should have been simply words. Meaningless. Trite. Even taunting. Instead he’d found a strange solemnity to them as he looked at the woman who had always given him her trust, whether he’d deserved it or not. Who’d always looked at him as if he were a sunbeam that had brightened her day. Who reminded him of the man Papa had hoped Caio would be one day. That look in her eyes was an addiction he couldn’t shake.

She’d looked achingly beautiful, and yet out of place in a dress and makeup she never wore. And when he’d seen her distress, her eyes widening at the profound gravity of the ceremony, he’d felt that conflicting war within himself.

He wanted to give Nush the world—answer the desire he’d felt in her trembling form when he’d kissed her cheek—and he also wanted to protect her from himself.

Damn it, what the hell did he want? Why was he so upset that she’d abandoned him an hour after their wedding?

“I think the whole ceremony...the way it went down...freaked her out. Then there was Laura Huntington.”

Caio frowned. “What didn’t she like? And what about Laura?”

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