Page 8 of Forgotten Promise

Maybe she could have recovered from that, but two months later, a bill her senator uncle was sponsoring had the legs cut out from under it. Lobbyists known to work with the Dara family solidified opposition to the legislation before it was even fully written.

Kailani had tearfully confessed to her uncle and grandparents that she’d mentioned the bill to Benjamin when they were together. Benjamin had given that information to his family, who in turn had used it against her own family.

Kailani’s uncle and grandparents hadn’t been mad, just disappointed.

And Kailani had spent the next few years wondering if Benjamin had started that summer fling with her specifically to get information from her. Time and distance told her that wasn’t the case, that the Daras were too powerful and well connected for that legislation to have been more than a nuisance. Instead, his betrayal had been a casual crime of opportunity that had fractured not only her trust but her relationship with her beloved grandparents and uncle.

Maybe if she’d been able to avoid him in the years since, Kailani could have made this work. But their jobs for their respective families had brought them into opposition again and again. And every time they clashed, he made her feel like that naive young woman who’d fallen in love one summer.

“I’ll call for dinner reservations once we’re upstairs,” Benjamin said, glancing at his phone.

“I’m not going to dinner with you,” Kailani repeated.

“Kailani, don’t be dramatic.”

Goddammit. He always made her feel so stupid. Rage made her throat tight, her hand clenching around John’s arm.

“They can force me to marry you, but they can’t force me to like you. They can’t force me to go to dinner with you or live with you.” Kailani felt bitter satisfaction when Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll marry you. I’ll walk back in here a month from now and say the vows, but I’ll never be your wife. Plenty of trinities live separately.”

“That’s not fair,” Benjamin ground out.

“Fair?” Kailani smiled, and she knew it was bitter. “Don’t be naive, Benjamin. Life isn’t fair.”

“This seems like a fairly major issue,” John said quietly.

“I won’t be held hostage in my own marriage.” Benjamin took a step toward her, looming over her.

“You don’t like that idea? Guess what, I don’t care.”

“You’re going to be my wife.”

“In name only. As far as I’m concerned, after the ceremony, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

John cleared his throat, but before he could say anything, the sound of footsteps interrupted.

Devon Asher turned the corner into the corridor. A robe hung open from his shoulders, showing off a casually expensive dress shirt and pants.

“The Grand Master sent me to find out why you’re still here and not on your way to the hotel.”

Kailani swallowed hard. Devon was another legacy, and if he was here, it probably meant he was on the Grand Master’s council. The council members’ identities were meant to be a secret, so the fact that the Grand Master had sent him, essentially revealing the fact that he was a counselor, didn’t bode well.

“We have a problem,” Benjamin said.

“No, we don’t,” Kailani countered.

“Uh, yeah, we do,” John said with an apologetic look her way.

“You have time to work through whatever problems…whatever history…you have,” Devon said.

“Time won’t help. Kailani is refusing to be in the trinity,” Benjamin said.

“Asshole,” Kailani breathed, but Devon was looking at her with a merciless gaze that reminded her that, according to gossip, Devon worked for the CIA. She wondered if he was the one the Grand Master tasked with “disappearing” problem Trinity Masters members.

“I am not refusing anything,” she said. “I know my duty. I’ll be back here in a month to get married.”

“You’re refusing to go to dinner with me. You’re refusing to live with me, to really be my wife,” Benjamin countered, and there was emotion in his voice she couldn’t name.

“Kailani?” Devon asked.

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