Page 39 of Venomous Vows

“I got it.” She veers back, returning her blue gaze to me. “And I need to go get my sister settled in.”

Of course.

That’s all fine and dandy for now, but I’ll be damned if her sister cock blocks me continuously moving forward. Elena will get a free pass for now under the circumstances, but she’s not going to be able to play that card for long.

Expanding on the small distance between us, I give Elena her space back and the silent out she needs to get out of the room.

She takes it. I’m not surprised.

It’ll get some getting used to, but Elena Rossi just gave me everything I need to plot against her demise when it comes down to the barbed wire around her heart.

11

ELENA

Shoppingfor your wedding dress shouldn’t be the most depressing moment of your life. It shouldn’t feel like planning for a funeral but of a new chapter and life with someone you adore and love.

That’s not what I feel for Adrian.

And, furthermore, he left me zero choice in the matter to keep it a secret because not only did he force me to do this today, but he invited Celine to meet me here as well.

Tell me how you’re supposed to explain a bunch of suited linebackers who glower and brood all damn day without making it look obvious. It was Adrian’s plan all along to get me to admit what was happening in my personal life, leaving me with the option of telling the truth or conjuring up lies. And it’s been stoically still and awkward to have my sister and best friend stare at me like I’ve grown a second head or I’m out of my damn mind.

“I don’t…” Celine shifts her weight on the cushioned footstool she’s sitting on and looks the most uncomfortable out of all three of us. “There’s amobin Bellbrooke?”

It does sound like being in a movie, but obviously, there is, or I wouldn’t be in this mess.

“Elena,” Marcella starts at my side. Her light hazel eyes peer at me like we just lost a puppy. “I can’t have you go through with this. You…don’t love him, do you?”

“No,” I blurt out without a second thought, though I’m seriously starting to regret how I’m playing this here. “He needs…a wife and I needed a favor.”

And to act like a wife. And to give him two children. And then I can divorce his ass.

I can’t bring myself to say any of those things because it’ll definitely have Marcella and Celine up in arms about not allowing this to happen and running away the first chance I get.

“That’s it?” my sister asks under her breath, taking heed to the surrounding area of Adrian’s security detail. “Do you have to…”

She doesn’t finish her sentence and I dare not ask her to continue. I also don’t want her to worry about me either. In the grand scheme of things, I’d do this all over again. It’s been beyond anything I could put into words to have my sister back with me again. She claims up and down that nothing happened after she was kidnapped. That they locked her in a room and brought her food and that was it.

However, I don’t fully believe it, but I don’t want to hound her about it either, hoping it’ll be something that comes when it builds up and becomes too much.

I’m also hoping it doesn’t come to that, either.

“Adrian treats me well,” I vouch semi-truthfully. He hasn’t been awful except for his attitude sometimes. But yesterday was something I wasn’t planning and obviously didn’t presume to enjoy somewhat.

Adrian is one hell of a kisser.

Which makes him that much more annoying to me.

“But you don’twantto marry him,” Celine divulges. “This isn’t right, Elena.”

“Sometimes deals need to be made.” I run my palms along my knees because I really don’t want to talk about this. “And it’s not going to be so bad.”

“You don’t need to do this,” Marcella claims, reaching for my hand. “You have me back. He’s not going to ship me back off.”

I can’t.

That’s not how this works.

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