Third Debt (Indebted #4)(36)

Our eyes locked—the challenge in hers made my fingers dig into her side harder than I intended.

Watch what you bloody say.

I hoped she got my message because I was at the end of my patience. Cut would be watching somewhere—making sure I didn’t f*cking fail. Once we were free of our audience, she had a shit-load of explaining to do.

Ignoring Nila, I smiled at George and Sylvie. “But that’s all in the past, and we’ve dwelt too long on that already.”

George looked like he might argue, but I used the same trump card Nila had. “Let’s discuss something a lot more exciting.” I narrowed my eyes on my target: Sylvie would help guide the conversation to safer ground. “We’re getting married. Let’s talk about that.”





NO, LET’S TALK about those drugs you just swallowed.

Was it true he had a headache? Or was there something more sinister in that tiny bottle?

Sylvie clutched her heart, swooning a little. “It’s so romantic. Star-crossed lovers reunited after lies and a miscarriage split them apart.”

I let her turn my attention back to the stage-show but made a mental note to steal Jethro’s pills the first chance I had. I had to know what they were.

“It’s so tragically perfect.” Sylvie’s eyes were dreamy and dumbstruck by Jethro’s undivided attention. He held the poor woman enraptured with his piercing golden gaze.

I nodded.

It was perfect.

Love and wealth and family.

Pity it’s all a heinous lie.

“If Vanity Fair would be interested, you’re more than welcome to an exclusive when I’ve finished designing my wedding gown.” I hadn’t even thought of saying that. My own lie snowballed, gathering faster and faster momentum.

If I had a future engagement with the magazine, it might make my untimely death more suspicious. If the debts took me, would they dig a little harder and uncover the truth? Then again, knowing the Hawks, they would spin some plausible tale, and I would be forgotten.

“Wow, that’s a fantastic offer. Thank you, Ms. Weaver,” George said. “We’d be delighted, of course.”

“Excellent.”

Jethro ground his teeth.

Despite his attempts to manipulate the conversation, he was in my shadow this morning. I had no intention of giving him the limelight. Jethro and his father had forced me to do this. But I would do it my way. I hadn’t broken any of Cut’s rules. I’d played along. I’d painted a picture for the world to eat up.

I’d just been smarter than they gave me credit for.

“When will the ceremony take place?” Sylvie spun on the spot, eying up the beautiful parlour. “Will you get married here or in a church?”

Jethro pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to plant a smile on his lips. “It wasn’t going to be announced for another few months, but I suppose it’s out now, so we can spill a few of the details. We’ll most likely have a garden wedding.”

“I can imagine how happy you are,” George said, fiddling with his camera and preparing to move from questions to pictures.

Jethro beamed, looking so young and carefree he took my breath away. “Extremely. I’ve never been so happy.” His eyes landed on mine; a thought flew over his face. Then he grabbed me, dipped me as if we were on a dance floor, and before I could breathe, his lips slammed against mine.

The world switched off. Completely. Utterly. Everything disappeared.

There was no sound.

No colour.

No fear or stress or panic.

Just him.

Crackling, sparking, all-consuming lust. His taste, heat, smell. My skin hummed, my lips melted, my core clenched.

For weeks, I’d wanted nothing more than to kiss him. To hold him and find that combustible connection. To bind ourselves together even in the face of debts and danger.

I moaned as his tongue nudged against my lips.

I opened for him, sighing into the passionate kiss, suspended in his arms in front of the press. He didn’t seem to care we had an audience. I loved that he didn’t care.

He’d changed so much—lived through something I didn’t understand. He’d become a stranger all over again. But no matter how he changed his thoughts and mind-set, he couldn’t change his body. That part of him I knew. His body belonged to me as surely as my body belonged to him, and I had no doubt that would enrage and petrify him. Because no matter what distance he tried to put between us—it disintegrated whenever we touched.

With another soft moan, I slinked my fingers into his thick hair, jerking his mouth harder against mine. His tongue dived deeper, wrestling for dominance. His muscles trembled, holding me in the dip as the coolness of his mouth switched to heat and for the barest of delightful moments his teeth nipped my bottom lip.

Then sound came back.

Colour returned.

Awareness of the outside world drove a wedge between us.

The kiss was over.

Jethro swooped me back onto my feet, his mouth glistening.

It was a set-up.

My heart hardened. He’d kissed me for the reporters.

George stood with his camera, busily clicking, capturing every second of our sexy ‘staged’ slip-up.

Good.

At least people would have half of the story.

The part not drowning in bullshit.