My Dark Romeo: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance(18)

She faced me, fuming. “I’m not leaving here without shoes.”

“Care to bet on it?”

“Let my sister put shoes on.” Franklin galloped toward us, fists waving in the air.

She rained those little balled hands down on my chest.

I didn’t feel a thing.

“She had two hours to put on shoes. She chose to watch Cheaters.”

Mr. and Mrs. Townsend hovered before the landing, arguing.

Natasha covered her face with her hands and sobbed. “Oh, Shep, who cares about our reputation? Stop this nonsense right away.”

He patted her back. “You know as much as I do that Costa is her best bet right now.”

“I really hate you right now.”

Shortbread threw herself into her mother’s arms. “Don’t worry about me, Momma. I’ll be okay.”

“Oh, honey.”

More wailing, arm-clutching, and general theatrics.

I looked away.

Not because I was uncomfortable by the Jerry Springer production, but because I wanted to see through the window if the Uber had arrived.

It had.

Oliver and Zach were probably already on the plane.

“Time to go.”

Shortbread swiveled to me. “Can I at least take a book to keep me company on the flight?”

I couldn’t help but notice her face was dry and stoic. Her entire family cried behind her, but she had not shed one tear.

A strange pang of respect zinged through me.

I opened my mouth to say no, then realized she’d try to make conversation if she was bored. “Pick a classic. Your head is already full to the brim with nonsense.”

She rushed to the library and returned a minute after with Anna Karenina tucked beneath her bicep.

Shortbread made one last attempt to retrieve her shoes, but I scooped her up and hurried out the door, depositing her into the Uber before she could get away with more bad behavior.

The driver put the car into gear and pulled from the curb when the vehicle slammed against something.

Or rather, someone.

It sounded serious. What did they feed the stray cats in Georgia?

“Frankie!” Shortbread rolled her window down, heaving half her body out of the car. “Are you okay?”

Franklin banged her palms onto the hood, stopping the car. “Here!” She shoved a small suitcase through the window. “No way was I going to let you leave without them.”

So Dallas managed to escape this hellhole with clothes and undergarments, after all.

Shortbread hugged the case to her chest. “Are they all inside?”

Franklin nodded. “All of them. Arranged by date of publication.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

What?

“Henry Plotkin will keep you safe.” Franklin squeezed her sister’s hand. “House Dovetalon for the win.”

My bride spent our journey to the airport hugging her suitcase to her chest, eyes everywhere but on me.

The woman was a certified agent of chaos.

And now Oliver and Zach would see what I had to deal with.

I would never live it down.





It seemed my future husband used his mouth exclusively to chew gum and piss me off.

When he wasn’t doing the latter, he engaged in the former, content to spending the entire ride to the small airport in silence.

Fine by me.

Judging by the way he sneered at my suitcase full of Henry Plotkin hardbacks, he broke my cardinal rule: Never trust someone with poor taste in books.

Once we arrived, Romeo’s shiny Gulfstream G550 waited on the runway. We shuffled into a passenger cart, which drove us the short journey from the hangar to the tarmac.

At the plane’s stairs, he collected my small suitcase and climbed the steps, ignoring the fact that I was barefoot.

I’d get back at him.

But first, I needed to find my footing in Potomac.

I already had a plan.

I knew someone there.

Madison.

We’d never really broken off the engagement. Not officially.

This morning, my daddy had called his daddy and informed him of the chain of events (obviously omitting rather unflattering bits). The Lichts insisted they understood, promising they were still fond of me.

Madison was Romeo’s enemy.

We could get back at him together.

When I entered the plane, I was met by an array of men. We passed the cockpit, where two attractive men in their 30s discussed a Ravens draft pick just outside. The captain and the co-pilot.

In the cabin, Oliver von Bismarck lounged on a crème sofa, drinking imported beer and watching something on his phone.

His face was seraph, nearly cherubic. With a red pout and light curls twining around his ears and forehead just so.

How fitting it was that the devil was masquerading as a perfect angel.

While Romeo’s proposal was the biggest news to come out of the debutante ball, the rumor mill spun stories of Oliver getting into the skirts of at least three local divorcées.

At the same time.

Yet another tall, handsome man in the casual rich-boy uniform of ironed khakis, a dress shirt, and a fleece jacket sat behind a compact table, holding a business conversation on his phone.

He had a top-dog appeal. Of a man whose attention everyone craved when he entered a room.

“Oliver, Zach, this is my fiancée, Dallas.” Romeo made dismissive introductions, not even bothering to approach each of his friends individually. “Dallas—Oliver and Zach.”