Sinfully Rich: A Steamy Billionaire Box Set

by Vivian Wood

  Cate glances at me as she slides her coat off her shoulders, revealing creamy skin everywhere. Her neck, her upper back, her amazing fucking legs. Pretty much everywhere that the little pink dress she’s wearing doesn’t touch is bare and dewy. I arch a brow and look her up and down.

  She shoots me a look but doesn’t respond to me. Instead she hands her coat over to the man, accepting a program in its place.

  “Thank you,” she says prettily.

  Undaunted by her frosty attitude, I trade my coat for a program too. Cate looks at me in my tux, hesitating for the barest second.

  I smirk. “You can’t even stay mad at me for one day, can you?”

  She jerks her gaze away, lifting her head and straightening her spine. Rather than answer me, she just pretends like she didn’t hear me. “I think I need a drink.”

  “Best idea you’ve had all day,” I say. Motioning to the bar, I usher her along. “After you, wife.”

  She sniffs and stalks ahead of me, giving me plenty of time to stare at her ass in that little dress. I grin, thinking about how hot the sex is going to be tonight.

  Actually, maybe I should let her keep the dress on. And those little silver heels, too.

  When we reach the bar, I order her a glass of champagne and myself a whiskey. Handing her the champagne flute, I grab my tumbler and look around.

  “I guess we’re supposed to be talking to people,” I say, sipping my whiskey.

  Cate tilts her head to the side. “I don’t know anyone here. Do you?”

  I look around at the crowd. “Yeah, but there’s no one I really want to talk to.”

  She shakes her head a little bit and sips her drink. “Why are we even here, Luca?”

  Giving her question a casual shrug, I glance around again. “To bug the shit out of Madisyn, mostly.”

  At the sound of my ex’s name, Cate flinches. She immediately guzzles her champagne, finishing it in mere seconds.

  “Going big, huh?” I tease her.

  She just scowls at me. “I’m going to get another drink. I’ll leave you to figure out what to do with yourself when I’m not around.”

  With that, she whirls and disappears behind a crowd of people near the bar. Pulling a face at her antics, I sip my whiskey and wander away from the crowd.

  Glancing around again, I take in the rustic decor. With a sigh, I admit to myself that this is going to be a long afternoon.

  “Luca?”

  I turn around and find a harried-looking young woman. She’s dressed up but she carries a clipboard and wears a headset. If I had to guess, I would say that she works for the venue.

  “Yeah, that’s me…” I admit.

  She smiles, but her distress is clear. “Would you mind coming with me? The bride wants to see you for a second.”

  I frown, glancing back to see if Cate is in view. “I don’t want to leave my wife here alone. She doesn’t know anybody.”

  The young woman presses her lips into a firm line. “It’ll just be for a second. She won’t even notice you were gone.”

  She holds out her hand, ushering me forcefully toward a back hallway. I scrunch up my face, shaking head.

  “This had better be good,” I mutter. “I don’t like being segregated from the other wedding guests like this.”

  My words have no effect on the young woman, who just clears her throat and clutches her clipboard tighter. “If you’ll just head into the second door on the left…”

  She hurries me down the darkened hallway. I roll my eyes as she shepherds me to a bright red door, gesturing that I should go ahead.

  I open the door to find Madisyn standing at the window in a white silk robe.

  “Oh, I don’t think—” I say.

  The door closes behind me, the young woman that ushered me here nowhere to be seen. Madisyn turns away from the window, tears and mascara running down her cheeks.

  “Luca, you came!” she cries.

  I back toward the door. “Madisyn, I don’t know what you are planning, but I want nothing to do with it.”

  “Luca,” she sobs. “I’m so scared of getting married…”

  I bump against the door, but find the doorknob locked. “Madisyn, let me out of here.”

  She ignores me almost entirely, collapsing on a white couch. “You’re married. How do you do it, Luca? I’m really freaking out over here.”

  I turn and bang on the door. “Hey! Let me out!”

  Madisyn starts sobbing. “What if we don’t get along forever? What if… what if some girl comes along someday and Reggie can’t resist her?”

  I try the door knob a final time, then sigh. Turning to face Madisyn, I frown. “Syn, you can’t just trap me in here.”

  She looks up at me, grabbing a box of tissues from the table beside her and wiping at her tear-stained face. “I need your help. You are the only one who can talk me down. Please, Luca. Allay my fears!”

  Stepping toward her with a doubtful expression, I sigh again. “If you have doubts, you should be talking to Reggie about them. Not your ex. And especially not against his will.”

  Madisyn blows her nose. “I’m supposed to just go on blind faith that Reggie loves me and will be faithful to me? Hah!” She turns to me, beseeching. “You were faithful, weren’t you?”

  I sit on the couch, crossing my arms. “Yep.”

  Madisyn moves closer to me, sniffling. “How did I ever dump you, Luca?”

  I shoot her a glare. “Publicly and loudly, as I remember.” I shift on the couch. “Now I really think you should get your little flying monkey outside to let me out of this room.”

  I see her bite her lip, but when she launches herself into my lap, I’m not really for her. She climbs on top of me, trying to force her mouth on me.

  “Fucking hell,” I say, pushing her back.

  But Madisyn isn’t worried about my resistance. She locks her arms around my neck, anchoring herself to me.

  “Madisyn—” I bellow.

  In the next moment, Cate bursts through the door, looking wide eyed. “Luca—”

  She freezes, her eyes locked on Madisyn and me. I panic, pushing Madisyn off.

  “Cate, this is not what it looks like,” I warn, rising to my feet.

  Cate looks at me, her eyes filling with tears. When she speaks, it sounds as cold as ice. “We’re through.”

  She whirls and runs out of the room. I’m not far behind her, but Madisyn is right on my heels, clutching at my arm. “Stay with me!” she screeches.

  “Let go of me!” I roar. “Jesus Christ, woman! How can you not get it through your head that I’ve moved the fuck on?”

  Madisyn claws at me, holding on desperately. “You came to my wedding. You were going to interrupt the ceremony!”

  I grit my teeth. “You are fucking insane, you know that?”

  “We could run away together,” Syn says, her eyes wide. “Just think how romantic it would be!”

  I break free, backing away from her. “Coming here was a mistake. I don’t want you. I could never want you.” I shake my head. “The only girl who deserves my heart just ran out that door. So thanks for that, you fucking crazy woman.”

  I storm out, ignoring Madisyn’s pleas for me to come back. I’m so mad that I am actually trembling. Looking around the hallway, I spot the assistant hovering at the end, looking scared.

  “Where did my wife go?” I snarl, stalking down the hall toward her.

  She just points to the front door. I look at all the wedding guests, who have stopped talking and now are just staring at me. I rush to the front door, calling over my shoulder.

  “Madisyn just tried to seduce me!”

  And then I burst outside into the cold afternoon air. I look both ways, searching the street for Cate. I come up empty, though… there is no one out on the street at all.

  God, she must think the worst of me right now.

  But what I shouted at Madisyn was one hundred percent true. Cate is the only girl who’s won my heart.

&nb
sp; I have to tell her that. It will go a long way toward undoing the damage that coming here has done.

  The only problem will be finding her first…

  32

  Cate

  “Cate?”

  I glance up from my seat in the hospital’s emergency room, wiping at my tear stained face. Luna is coming toward me, wearing her dark blue scrubs and looking puzzled.

  “They paged me to come here but they didn’t tell me why,” she says, frowning. “What’s wrong? And where is your coat?”

  She stops in front of me. I stand up and throw myself into her arms, sobbing and hiccupping.

  “Luca…” I cry, inculpable. “He… he… we… the w-wedding…”

  She embraces me, her hand cupping the back of my head. “Okay. It’s okay. Maybe we’ll just get you somewhere more private and let you calm down a little first.”

  She starts steering me back the way she came from, scanning her identification badge and letting us behind the door marked “Staff Only”.

  “I’m so sorry!” I blubber. “I know that you’re at work—”

  Luna tugs me into a lounge room off of the hall, sitting me down on a couch. “Don’t worry about it. You’re actually catching me right after my shift, not that it matters at all.” She sits beside me and grabs a warm throw from the back of the sofa. “Here. You must be freezing!”

  Honestly, I don’t even notice how cold I am. I hunch down into the fleece throw blanket, but I’m too busy being miserable to worry about it.

  “Thanks,” I say, trying to contain myself.

  Luna looks at me, tucking a strand of her blonde hair back. “What’s going on Cate?”

  I blow out a breath, wiping at my face. “Luca took me to his ex’s wedding…” I take a deep breath, my chin wobbling. “And then I walked in on him practically getting a lap dance from his ex!”

  Luna’s eyes widen. “He didn’t!”

  I nod, tears threatening to overwhelm me again. “He did.”

  A sob escapes me. Luna tries to comfort me.

  “I’m sure that can’t be right. Luca is a lot of things, but he’s not a cheater.”

  I hiccup. “We broke up yesterday. I… I said he would be better off with someone like Madisyn. And then not twelve hours later, I find her sucking his face.”

  A little bell chimes. Luna pulls her phone out of her pocket, bites her lip, and then puts the phone back. “That’s him, looking for you.”

  “Oh no. No, I’m not interested in confronting him.” I dash away tears from both my eyes. “He didn’t even let me move out first! He just… he just did exactly what I was afraid of.”

  Luna takes a big breath. “I’m so sorry. I feel bad that I sort of… encouraged you guys to get together.” She pauses to think. “I’m going to need more details from you. Like… way more details. But first, I think we should get out of the hospital. There are way too many prying eyes here.”

  Sagging back on the couch, I frown. “If we go to your house, he’ll follow us there. If he hasn’t already been there, it’s surely on your brother’s list of places to look.”

  She sighs. “Well, we’re not hiding from Luca or anything. But I get your point. Lucky for you, I’m house sitting for my boss. And he has a huge empty house with all the wine, Netflix, and ice cream anyone could want.”

  “Really?” I ask, sniffling.

  “Really. Let me grab my stuff and we can go straight there.” She flashes me a perfunctory smile and pats my arm.

  An hour later, I am standing inside Luna’s boss’s lavish living room, folding the little pink velvet dress up. Luna gave me a set of scrubs to wear and she eyes me while she hunts around the couch for the remote.

  “You should’ve gone into medicine,” she says. “You look hot in those scrubs.”

  I give her a wobbly smile and collapse onto the white leather couch, pulling a big throw blanket on top of myself. “Oh yeah?”

  “Aha!” she says, finding the remote. She flicks the huge flat screen on and sits down beside me. “Yeah, we would’ve taken the hospital by storm.”

  She looks at her phone, which is buzzing again. I stare at it, frowning.

  “Is that Luca?”

  She glances up at me. “Yes.”

  I pout. “Let me guess, he’s saying I don’t know what I saw.”

  After a moment, she flips her phone over and sets it aside. “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “I know what I saw.” Wrapping myself more snugly in the blanket, I sit back.

  Luna flips the channel on the television and mutes it. “Okay. You have to explain it to me again. You two fought yesterday night?”

  Nodding, I scrunch up my face. “Yeah. I took him to see my old house and we got into it.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Your old house?”

  “Yeah. I’m planning on buying it. Or I was, until all this happened.” My mouth turns down at the corners. “I wanted to show him what my next step was. Little did I know, he got all up in arms about it.”

  She looks thoughtful. “So… you’re telling me that you basically showed my brother the future… but you haven’t outlined his part in that future to me. Where does Luca fit in to the vision you have for your future?”

  My cheeks color. “Well… I don’t know. I figured we would just… umm…” I pause, thinking about it. “I actually haven’t given it that much thought. That would mean that I had planned part of his future, which I don’t feel like I have any right to do.”

  Luna leans back, stretching. “Yeah, that’s not how normal wives behave. And you are his wife, Cate. Until those annulment papers are signed, at least. Everything you do affects Luca.”

  Her words give me pause. “I… I guess I’d never thought of it that way.”

  “So you took him to rub his nose in a future he won’t play a part in.” She gives me a frank look. “Not your best move. What happened next?”

  “He told me not to buy my old house and that it wasn’t a good investment. And then we started to fight about how I planned to spend my money…. Which somehow morphed into us arguing about whether or not he belonged with someone more like Madisyn.”

  “Yeesh.” She makes a face. “That sounds tough.”

  “It was. We ended up breaking up during the argument. Except your brother is a bullheaded jerk so he insisted I still go to Madisyn’s wedding with him.” I sigh. “And then lo and behold, we’re not at the wedding for twenty minutes when I catch him cheating on me. Or… maybe not cheating, but—”

  Luna holds out her hand. “Hold on, hold on. According to his texts, he was sitting on the couch and Madisyn jumped on top of him.”

  I huff. “Which is what a cheater would say!”

  “Has Luca ever given you any reasons to distrust him, though? And before you say that I’m on his side, just know that I am pointing this out not because he’s my brother, but because you clearly love him.” She crosses her arms.

  I wrinkle my nose. “Being in love is horrible. It’s like…” I start to get tears in my eyes, just saying the words aloud. “I opened my heart to him, Luna. I tried to let my defenses down. And just when I do, Luca pushes me away.” I sniffle. “That’s why I know that love sucks.”

  “No, love is a gift.” She gives me a look, rubbing my hand. “And since you didn’t answer me, I’m going to assume that you have no reason to distrust Luca in particular. It sounds like you’re just taking out issues you’ve had in the past on him. Which is funny, because I would accuse him of the same thing.”

  I tilt my head. “Huh?”

  “He’s all worked up over you not including him in your big purchasing decisions because Madisyn screwed him over so badly, financially and otherwise. You left Luca out and there was no space in your life plan for him. And you were hurt in the past so you are lashing at my brother.” She purses her lips. “You two are actually perfect for each other, if you would quit being so silly about everything.”

  I scowl at her, wiping at my eyes. “I thought we were suppo
sed to hide out and eat ice cream today.”

  “We can.” She cocks her head. “But if you think I’m not going to try to help you see what is right in front of your face, you’re crazy.”

  I don’t know how to argue with that, so I just change the subject. “You are a total pain in the behind. I hope that the tables are turned sometime soon.”

  Luna looks at me for a few seconds, then slides over and hugs me hard. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  Surprised, I just hug her back. “I love you too.”

  “I just want what is best for you. Always. I hope you realize that.”

  “I do, Luna.”

  When she finally pulls back, she tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. Her lips quirk. “Tell me that you’ll think about what I said. Then I’ll hand you the remote and go get us some ice cream.”

  “I will.” My quick response makes her narrow her eyes. “No, really. I will. I just need some time to cool off before I can even consider Luca’s point of view.”

  “Hmm.” She stands up, grabbing her phone. “All right. I’m going to go raid Dr. Smith’s freezer. You’re in charge of the remote. Pick something good.”

  While she pads off to the kitchen, I stare at the remote.

  Is what she said right?

  Am I being unfair to Luca by painting everything with the same broad brush?

  And if I am, what am I supposed to do about it?

  A sigh on my lips, I shake my head and start browsing through the channels.

  33

  Luca

  I glance at my phone for maybe the thousandth time. Adjusting my bow tie again, I try not to pace around the ancient stone floors of the cathedral. I’m not normally anxious, but the stakes here are high.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Owen says, looking up at me from his place in the first pew. He closes the hymnal in his lap and sets it aside, rising. “I’m wearing a tuxedo because you asked me to and I’m not fussing with it. I’m sure you can do the same.”

  Yeah, fuck it. I start to pace.

  “This was a terrible idea,” I lament. “Cate is going to hate it when I ask her to marry me again. Why did I let Luna talk me into this?”