Scorch (Virtues & Lies Book 2)

by Alexandra Silva

  First rule of business: the first person to talk after a proposition loses. It’s just as well that I have no idea what to say. Perfectly timed that I am lost for words. The way he’s looking at me—I can’t tell if it’s disgust, disappointment, or resentment. Whatever it is, it’s a grenade with the pin pulled out and ready to explode.

  “Christopher…”

  It wasn’t a proposition anyway. It was a command, and as aware as I am of what it means for me to follow it, I can’t ignore it.

  My feet move of their own accord to his instruction, under his glare.

  What have I done?

  What am I doing?

  Chapter 14

  Christopher

  I’m done. If her goal was to break me—I’m broken. She couldn’t even answer the fucking question.

  Are you fucking him?

  All she had to do was say no. I would’ve believed her. I would’ve forgotten everything that’s happened between us the last six months, and I would’ve taken her back with open arms.

  But no, she said nothing. Fuck all. Jack shit. In my experience, saying nothing is as good as admitting your guilt. And now, the papers in my suite feel like money burning a hole through a frivolous man’s pocket.

  The sucker punch to all this is that looking at her right now, all I still see is the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. I’m so fucking mesmerised by everything that makes her that I can’t look away. Her beautiful face with those dark eyes that hold everything and then some in them. There’s a world behind those depths, a world I miss with every inch of me. I can’t think of anything more than getting lost in it again.

  My hands ache with the need to brush my fingers through her hair. The lighter strands stop short of grazing her shoulders, framing the newer, sharper lines of her jaw and drawing all the attention to her full, rounded lips. There’s something about their straight, pouty set that exudes power and resilience, and fuck, I could get drunk off them. Off her.

  Arabella is a fucking goddess.

  But the thought of her with another man—it doesn’t matter whether or not he’s the scum of the earth—the thought of my goddess being touched by another man guts me. It makes me want to shake her and choke her and fucking destroy her like she’s doing me.

  I want to rip her open and…

  The thought clogs up my chest and turns my stomach.

  I already did rip her open.

  We’re here because of me. My decisions got us to this, and now I have no idea how to get us back to us. To Christopher and Arabella. I think those two people are gone, and I don’t know if I want them back. I’m not sure there’s a place in this world for them anymore.

  The warmth of her fingers squeezing around my pinkie has my gaze darting down to where our arms rest on the wide armrest between us.

  It feels so fucking good that I have to stiffen in my seat as I threaten to melt at the feel of her skin on mine. Her fingers curl tightly around mine, her nails pinching into the skin, all the way to the bone. Biting down on my tongue, I resist the urge to turn my hand up and thread our fingers together.

  I have to keep reminding myself of Freddie’s question and her non-reply.

  Silence is guilt.

  No answer is admittance.

  Eyes boring into the pale line that taints the smooth, tan skin of her finger, I snatch my hand away, my other pressing to my chest where the missing puzzle pieces to her finger are hanging.

  “Christopher, I…aah…” Her defeated sigh drags out her loss for words.

  Join the club.

  Anything I say here on out will do nothing but hurt her, and as much as that dark, twisted feeling at my core claws at me to do it, I can’t.

  My vows still stand. They still mean something—everything—and I swore to protect her. I vowed to care for her, to cherish and honour.

  The journey is filled with taut silence and fraught with all our unspoken feelings. Coming to a stop in front of the Whitehall Banqueting House, I chance a look at Arabella. I’m full of so many conflicted feelings right now.

  She’s sat with her hands clutching the small handbag in her lap so tight that they’re blanched a sallow grey. Her chest trembles with every one of her breaths, and all I can think of doing is reaching across and pulling her onto my lap. Comforting her. Doing all the things I wish she’d let me do. But she left.

  Arabella walked away from me and straight to another man. And still, loving her feels like the most perfect thing to do. Stupidly, when it comes to her, it’s the only thing I know.

  My door opens, the valet taking a step back before he peers in. There’s a line of cars waiting, and although I couldn’t give two flying fucks about them, I get out. For a moment I think that Arabella’s going to make this difficult, but with a demure shuffle towards me, she slips out.

  Standing beside me with an impassive look on her face, she takes in a deep breath and lets it back out. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes tear rimmed. I don’t know if I can put us both through this. The air is congealing in my lungs, making it impossible for me to breathe.

  This place. The building. The street. This was the beginning of the end. If I had known then what was waiting for us, I would’ve done everything differently. I would’ve saved us all this pain.

  “Mr. Sinclair, Mrs. Sinclair…” Barely able to take his eyes off my wife, the valet walks us to the steps.

  Wayne’s waiting at the top, his eyes glancing up and down the street. I don’t know what he’s doing here, but the way he isn’t letting us out of his sight is enough to tell me my father sent him.

  Something is going on, and from the looks of it, it’s about to go down. Or at least they fear it is.

  Without looking at me or saying a word, Arabella threads her arm through mine, curling it tight like a tourniquet. My blood pulses in my veins as we take the steps up together.

  We don’t stop until we’re in the entrance hall. The vaulted ceiling is lit up orange by the floor-standing candelabra at the end of the deep corridor, and the bar radiates a purple glow.

  “Eyes open,” Wayne murmurs beside me. His voice is gruff with the familiar edge it takes on when he’s in the zone. He slows his steps until I can feel him follow behind us.

  The string music grows louder the farther we get into the building. Arabella holds on tighter. The place feels like the mouth of hell, and I’m the bastard that’s dragging us into it.

  My selfish need to have her with me overrides the knowledge and shame that I am hurting her. It goes against the reverence I have for the promises I made her. But I need her.

  Arabella is the only person in this world that feels the same pain and desperation, the same chokehold of our surroundings as I do. I can’t do this without her. She’s my paper clip, the thing I focus on when all eyes are on me and the weight is almost too much.

  “Christopher! Arabella!” Walter, her grandfather, finds us the minute we step into the hall where the red, corded-off throne takes centre stage on the far wall. His eyes flit between the two of us with the faintest crease. He’s always been a traditionalist, and I can tell from the way his brow furrows with the set of his lips that he’s none too impressed with her choice of dress.

  I’m in two minds myself. I want to cover her up so no one else gets to see what’s mine, but at the same time I’m doing everything I can not to jump her. She looks fucking incredible, and were we the same people we used to be, I would’ve fucked her by now and left her dripping in my cum.

  “Is Nan here?” Her question is breathy with her long exhale.

  It’s obvious she’s uncomfortable. The women milling around are all in black buttoned-up dresses. Their side glances are followed by a shake of their heads, and I want to tell every one of them to shove their prudish heads up their arseholes. To sniff their own shit before they pass judgement on what’s mine.

  “She’s sitting at the table with your mother.” Walter gives her a thin smile that’s far too dismissive for my liking.

 
Fuck. What have I done? I should’ve made her change. I didn’t even think…

  “Excuse us.” I swipe a glass of champagne as I take us to the side, pulling her with me into the shadow of the tall pillars lining the room and the viewing gallery above us.

  Arabella’s gaze meets mine as I pin her to the pillar with my body. My height swallows her small frame, and the vulnerability that dims her sass and spark cuts me so deep that I hate myself for doing this to her.

  “You look beautiful. Even if I want to kill every fucker that looks at you…you look fucking perfect. Hold your head high, and don’t let that crown slip.”

  Nodding, she slips a little down the wall, and a groan erupts from her parted lips when my thigh presses between hers. The heat from her pussy permeates through my trousers.

  With my breath drying in my throat, all I can do is luxuriate in the feel of her. It feels like forever since our quickie, and my body is straining with my waning control.

  Her head tilts back as I move to steady us both, eyes screwed shut and tits ready to burst from her dress.

  “Mmmmph…”

  Fuck, that long drawn-out moan has my dick hardening and my insides burning up.

  “Oh shit,” she breathes, scrambling to get herself together.

  The pull between us tightens, my knees bend to hold her in place, and I have to brace myself with one hand on the cold stone to stop myself from devouring her siren lips. I want to suck all the past right out of her. I want to drink down every ounce of her sadness and pain. To take it all from her even if it chokes me to death.

  “Belles.”

  Her half-lidded eyes glisten the longer we stand here in a prideful stand-off of feelings and needs. She wants me—it’s obvious from the way her empty hand slaps to her side, clawing at her dress, and her entire body trembles with her frenzied breaths and the friction of mine. I want her. Every part of me is strung taut with the need to take her. To show her who she belongs to. Where she belongs.

  The champagne glass slips from the hand at my side. The shatter of the glass is muted by the loud voices around us and the string quartet in the gallery overlooking the throne. Before I can stop myself, my hand moves to her thigh. The silky fabric of her dress slips open until my skin is pressed to hers, smoothing all the way up to the top of her stocking.

  Widening, her eyes glitter with greedy lust, her tongue licking across her black-cherry lips with her ragged breaths soaking into my shirt.

  God, she feels so good beneath my hand, almost as good as when she writhes beneath my body with my dick buried deep in her. I could fuck her right here, right now with all that’s going on around us, and I wouldn’t give a damn about who sees us or what they think.

  That’s the way it is with Arabella. She’s my tunnel vision. Not my career. Not the expectations of others. My wife has always been my endgame. Even when I didn’t know it, she was my goal. The thing that I worked towards tirelessly.

  Arabella is my trigger. I’d bulldoze the fucking world for her. It frustrates me that she can’t see that.

  Dropping to her hair, my other hand tangles in her shortened tresses.

  She’s so fucking magnificent. I saw it the moment I laid eyes on her from across the busy college quad. She made me work for her from the start. It’s what I love about her—Arabella’s always known her worth.

  “I don’t do entitled rich boys.”

  “Good job I’m not a boy.”

  “But you are rich and entitled.”

  “Technically it’s family money, and you’re one to talk.” Taking a step a closer, I tuck my hands into the back pockets of my jeans so as not to grab hold of her and have her do exactly as I want. I know she’s putting on a good fight, but let’s be honest—she wants me.

  Her doe eyes can’t lie with the way her thick lashes flutter, her gaze dark and sultry.

  “I don’t think so.” She takes a step back and crosses her arms over her chest, her tits threatening to spill over the square neckline of her gypsy top.

  The sun is high in the sky, and it’s making her skin glow a pale ambery bronze. She’s so mesmerising that I have to work extra hard to get my thoughts and argument in order inside my head. “Besides, entitlement is worse than money.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Her audible swallow brings me closer. “You want something? Work for it like every other person.”

  Taking another couple of steps closer to her, I take her in from head to toe. She’s tiny, and although I’ve seen her around enough because of my friendship with Casper, it still surprises me that I can look down on the top of her head. “Just because I’m entitled to something, it doesn’t mean I won’t work for it. It’s part of the fun.”

  “I’m not your fun.” Her eyes flit up to mine, holding my stare with this dark magnetic pull I’ve never felt before. It’s like the chemicals inside us react to our closeness and pull us together. She’s a force I can’t pull away from. Everything about her draws me closer.

  “I never said you are, morena.”

  Biting down on her smile, she rolls her eyes at me. “Then why are you still here?”

  “For fun.”

  Her eyebrows scrunch at that to a not quite scowling glare. When a grin cuts my face, her pouty lips purse and half of her eyes disappear behind her thick lashes.

  “Listen, you and Casper might be buddies, but our taste in people is very different. Whatever you’re after, I’m not the person to give it to you.”

  I hold my ground as she tries to push past me with a growl.

  “On the contrary, Belles, you’re the only person to give it to me.”

  “My name is Arabella. Call me Arabella.”

  “Too many syllables when it matters.”

  One of her hands anchors on her hitched hip, the other fluffing her long, butt-length curls from her face before she marks me with a straight face. Rolling onto her tiptoes, she digs her nail into my chest as she punctuates her words. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, and besides, my brother would pulp you.”

  She underestimates how serious I am about getting to know her better.

  “What if I’ve already taken care of your brother?”

  “Not going to happen.” Shaking her head, she laughs as she pushes forward. “Ever.”

  Stepping to the side, I give her just enough room to make it past me, but not without having to brush her body on mine. “You’re jumping the gun, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not jumping shit.”

  “Sure you are.” I rotate with the brush of her body, keeping the contact between us for as long as possible.

  “Yeah?” Stepping backwards into the entrance of the business building, she grins. “Who says?”

  “Me, and I’m like a fucking Pharaoh—I set shit in stone.”

  Turning, she walks away, waving her hand over her shaking shoulders. “We’ll see…”

  I’ll let her laugh all she wants now, but I’ll be the one doing it in the end. I’ve caught her scent, and I won’t stop now until she gives me what I want.

  “Christopher.” Her breathy moan as my fingers curl around the lace band of her stocking seeps through the cotton of my shirt. Heat spreads to all my extremities, and I want nothing more than to silence her with my mouth and my fingers and cock.

  I’m so hungry for her in every possible way that it physically hurts.

  “Christopher,” Arabella repeats with a faint hitch of her breath as I swipe my thump over her underwear.

  “I want to fuck you so hard, it fucking hurts.”

  Nodding into my chest, she grips the hem of my jacket, pulling me over her like a blanket.

  “I want my cock buried so far up your cunt you’ll feel me for days.”

  Biting down on my shirt, her teeth catch my skin, and fuck…my blood rushes down south so quick that I’m covered in head-to-toe shivers.

  I need to get us the hell out of here. This whole social scene isn’t for tonight. She’s vulnerable with the wound I opened up,
and now I need to close it.

  Pulling back, I release her hair and her stocking, adjusting my rock-hard dick before I grab her hand.

  “What are you doing?” she asks breathlessly, her heels clacking overtime to keep up with my stride. “Where are we going?”

  “Out of here.”

  Chapter 15

  Arabella

  We don’t get far. Before we’ve even made it to the double-height doors of the stuffy room, Francis and Penny are pausing in front of us. She hugs Christopher until he steps away with a groan. “Mum.”

  “God, Christopher, I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

  “Penny…” Francis tries to pacify her.

  “Men!” she growls, hugging me with a kiss.

  Before she can pry me away from him, Christopher wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me flush to his side.

  “We should take our seats,” Francis says with a light squeeze of my shoulder, and when my eyes dart to his, a warm smile softens his face.

  “Why don’t we go get some drinks, mill around for a bit. Your mum looks a little stuck with company…” Penelope doesn’t wait for me to follow of my own accord; she takes my hand and starts towards where Mum is talking to one of the newly appointed judges, a family friend whose granddaughter recently married an Earl. My grandmother isn’t too far, deep in conversation with his wife.

  “Mercy is fine,” Christopher says gruffly, holding me tighter.

  He knows. He must know something is up with the way he keeps pulling me closer and resists their nudges.

  I search the room, trying to spot anything off. A face that shouldn’t be here.

  “We’re leaving.” Without so much as batting an eyelash, Christopher starts for the exit, me trailing behind him as his hand slips down my arm to mine. Palms pressed together, I dodge the too-long hem of my dress.

  It’s the little details that cause the most pain. The long hem of a red dress getting caught underfoot. That feeling of falling and being caught. Little details that occur in the fraction of a second. They’re the ones that cause the most devastation.