The Kiss Thief(50)

Frantic. Breathless. Guilty.

“Leave before I ruin your life,” I spat out at Kristen. “And this time, you won’t get a third warning.”

She laughed. “Seems like you two have a lot to talk about.”

My former mistress scurried away, her laughter carrying in my ears long seconds after she was gone. I plastered Angelo to the wall, grabbing him by the collar.

I knew it looked bad.

I knew I had to explain it tomorrow morning.

I simply no longer cared.

“Who was with you in that room?” I demanded.

“I’d strongly advise you stop acting like a thug unless you’d like to be treated like one.”

I strongly advise you to stay away from my future wife before I really do kill you.

“You’ve had sex,” I countered.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. I was there.” He laughed, regaining some of his composure, which infuriated me even more.

“Who with?” I pulled at his collar, almost to the point of choking. That sure wiped the smile off his face. I knew I had to calm down before people started noticing the little scene I’d created. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, gather my wits.

“See, my first answer to you. None. Of. Your. Business, Keaton.”

“Senator Keaton.”

“Nah. You sure as hell don’t represent me.”

“Any particular reason why you insist on getting on my bad side?”

“You’re on my future father-in-law’s bad side,” he said, unflinching. I had to hand it to him—he had balls the size of cantaloupes. “And the race to Francesca’s heart is one I’m going to beat you at.”

“I very much doubt you’re capable of beating me to anything other than pre-ejaculation, kid.”

“I’m fully prepared to test that theory. Heads up—I told Francesca I would gladly marry her without dowry, and that I am more than happy for my family to shell out whatever money is needed to untangle her from her Keaton situation. Might want to find another bride to fit that dress you bought.”

I was about to punch him in the middle of my engagement party when my fiancée slipped out of the second floor, too. She looked like a barely contained mess. Her smeared makeup was carefully wiped from her face, her eyes were wild with realization. Paired with Bandini’s frank admission that he’d slept with her, I saw very clearly what everyone else at the party were about to see, too.

Yet again, Francesca Rossi had been fucked by a man who was not her fiancé.

At her own engagement party.

Minutes after she was on my arm, no less.

I pushed Angelo down the stairs, pulling my future wife by the arm. She shrieked when I touched her, her eyes darting up in hysteria before softening when she saw it was me. Then she saw what was written on my face. If she could read me—which she could by now—she knew she was in deep trouble.

“What do you want?” she seethed.

A loyal fiancée.

A fucking shotgun.

For this nightmare of a sham relationship to be over.

“You just broke our verbal contract, Nemesis. Not a good thing to do with a lawyer.”

She frowned but didn’t try to defend herself.

There was a guillotine inside me, and I wanted to snap her pretty head off her body.

Tonight.





I’d just wiped the tears from my eyes after telling my mother that I was starting to warm up to my husband. The revelation was bittersweet, if not completely crushing. Perhaps it was the nightly encounters in the vegetable garden, or the way he kissed me so openly in front of Ms. Sterling tonight when he picked me up.

“Is it Stockholm syndrome, Mama?”

“I think it’s just young love, Vita Mia. Love is, after all, a little mad. Otherwise, it is not love but merely infatuation.”

“Do you have to be mad to fall in love?”

“Of course, you do. Falling in love is, by definition, going crazy for someone else.”

“Are you crazy about Dad?”

“I’m afraid I am. Otherwise, I wouldn’t stay even though he is cheating on me.”

That happened, too. And it threw me off even though I should have seen it coming. It was not uncommon for the men of The Outfit to take a mistress or two.

Mom said that if it rips you apart, that means it is real.

“But shouldn’t love feel good?”

“Oh, nothing is good if it doesn’t have the power to feel bad, too. It’s all about the quantities, Francesca.”

Quantities.

The quantity of my affection toward Wolfe revealed itself when Angelo ushered me to the garden away from the throng of people. Despite my feeling completely crushed and angry at my coldhearted fiancé, I’d wanted to stay with him and brave my father together. Then Angelo sat me down and brushed a dark curl from my eyes and asked me if I was happy. I thought about it long and hard.

I wasn’t happy.

I was not unhappy, either.

I’d realized that not only did I harbor unexplainable, positive feelings for the man who’d imprisoned me, but I no longer craved Angelo’s touch the way I had before Wolfe bulldozed his way into my life. I still loved Angelo, but only as the kid who protected me from his brothers and shared smiles with me from across the dining table. Instead of his warm, familiar, soft hands, I longed for my fiancé’s strong, callous, hard palms. The realization struck me like lightning, and I told Angelo that although I felt bad about him and Emily—it was over between us.