“I hope you don’t mind.” He grinned at me.
I couldn’t say I minded. It was pretty sweet. He’d gone to a lot of trouble. I hadn’t even noticed him taking the ring.
“I think I’m going to have to keep my eye on you,” I commented, but the stern tone of my voice was undermined by the grin on my face. I couldn’t wipe it off, no matter how hard I tried.
Though it had to be said, I wasn’t trying particularly hard.
“Yep,” he grinned, unrepentant.
I laughed softly and my whole body throbbed with emotion, soft and wonderful, like floating on a sea of perfect contentment. The ring on my finger sparkled, the gold quickly warming until it felt like I had always worn it.
“It suits you,” he commented and I smiled a little. I didn’t think of myself as the sort of woman who could wear enormous diamond rings, but when I was with him, I felt like a different person.
A stronger, braver, bolder person. The sort of person who would fall in love and get engaged in the course of only a quarter of a year.
Somehow, I didn’t regret my decision. Not when I looked across the table and saw David looking at me with complete devotion.
Somehow, against all reason, it was the right choice. After all, I’d fallen in love, and it seemed I was the sort of person who gave my whole heart when I gave it at all.
This was the start of our life together. I’d already been committed to him and this just made it official.
“I love you, David Black,” I whispered.
He beamed back at me. “I love you too, baby.”
I was going to marry this man. If I had ever been so happy in my whole life, I couldn’t remember it.
David
Kaye wanted to wait a little bit before getting married, but obviously, I wasn’t going to be able to give her the long engagement she wanted. I needed to get her tied to me before she thought better of it, so I pushed for a quicker wedding.
A couple of months. I was willing to wait only so long—long enough for the arrangements to be made. Long enough for her dress to be ordered.
She gave in pretty easily, and I couldn’t help but find it flattering. She really did want to be married to me. Of course, the whole point of me courting her and wooing her had been to make her want it so badly she ignored good sense, but it was actually really happening.
I loved watching a plan come together. Really, I did. Otherwise, there was no way in hell I would be getting married. It wasn’t something I had ever wanted to do, and if not for this act, I never would have considered it.
As it was, it suited me to play the devoted fiancé, at least for now. She had invited me to move in with her, which had just annoyed me even more. It wasn’t fair or right. She was inviting me to move into the house that should have been mine—which would have been mine if not for her.
It sat wrong with me. I’d had to accept her offer graciously, and then I prepared myself for a couple of months of torment.
To my surprise, she was a good roommate—a fun person to live with. She wasn’t clingy. She willingly gave me my own space and didn’t try to take up all of my time, but was always glad to see me when we did interact.
Not to mention the sex. God, the sex. It had started off incredible and had only gotten better as she got practice.
I wasn’t getting cold feet about the plan or anything. It was just because I enjoyed living with her more than I would have thought. No real big deal. I wasn’t going to change my mind.
Even if I did enjoy her company.
There was no rule against liking her. I just had to watch it and not let myself go too far with it. If I were careful, it would be fine. It would just make the whole thing more realistic.
“We need to send out invitations,” I pointed out. It wasn’t the first time I’d said something about it, but for some reason she didn’t seem very excited about the idea. I’d gone into this whole wedding deal expecting her to go over the top. You had to spend money to make money, after all.
She wanted a small wedding. Thirty people max, she had told me emphatically. I was more than happy to go along with it. I couldn’t think of many people I would want at my wedding, especially since it was the next thing to fake. It was nothing but a means to an end.
Of course, I hardly wanted that particular knowledge to become common. I knew, and Brent did too, but no one else. It was better to leave it like that. Two people could barely keep a secret. Any more and it was practically begging to get out.
“I suppose we do,” she murmured, and I was struck again by how unwilling she seemed to be. Not about the wedding, exactly, but about this particular part of getting ready for it.
“Who do you want to invite?” I probed, wrapping a comforting arm around her. To my surprise, her shoulders were quite tense and she wouldn’t meet my eyes, though she had been open and friendly before I’d brought it up.
We were lying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep. Like a lot of couples, we did a lot of our talking then. We weren’t really a couple, of course, but it was still surprisingly comfortable to act like one this way.
A comforting illusion.
Maybe I would have been a bit more withdrawn from her if the situation had been different. As it was, I wanted to give her no doubt about marrying me.
“Joan. Angela.” Kaye was very quick to give those answers, and I arched an eyebrow. It was a bit odd for her to go there first.
I knew who Joan and Angela were. They were her best friends from work. Was it normal for people to think of their friends before their family? I had no idea. I’d never done this before.
“What about your parents? Or do you have any siblings?”
I didn’t really know much about her family at all. Awareness dawned on me as I realized how strange it was. I’d never even met her family, even after she and I had become engaged. In retrospect, it was fairly bizarre. I would have expected to be dragged off to meet them, to get their blessing.
“No siblings.” Kaye looked at me, her eyes and voice hesitant. “I promised Joan I’d think about talking to you about all of this, but I guess I put it out of my mind.”
Well, now. As far as mysterious statements went, that one was pretty impressive. I turned to her, arching my eyebrow, waiting for some clarification. “I think Joan is right,” I stated firmly, though it wasn’t a statement I would expect to make. I had met Joan, and I got a sense she didn’t like me very much. She was always perfectly polite, and so was I, but there was some sort of tension there. “You should tell me.”
When Kaye did finally speak, after a few minutes of pulling herself together, her voice was almost too quiet to hear. “I don’t have any family.” She paused again, and I considered asking for more details, but something told me to shut up and let her tell it her way. She would, I was pretty sure. So I held my tongue and waited, my arm around her, and my fingers stroking lightly over her smooth, bare shoulder.
“My mom and dad, they were in a car accident when I was fifteen,” she finally whispered. I had to lean in a little bit to hear her at all, but she was speaking and I didn’t want to interrupt her to ask her to speak up.
This was obviously difficult for her to talk about. I would let her do it on her own terms, but I struggled to be patient.
“I lost them. They both …died.” I could tell this wasn’t something Kaye talked about much, or at all. There was as much pain in her voice as there would have been if they’d died just a few weeks ago, even though it had been a decade.
I ran my fingers over the back of her hand. “I understand.”
God, did I ever.
“I spent the next few years in foster homes. They kept shuffling me around.” Kaye still spoke softly, but there was more passion in her voice. This had been a hard time for her and she didn’t need to say it for me to know it.
How could it not be a tough time for anyone?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked when it became clear she wasn’t going to say any more. I pressed a
kiss against her temple, trying to justify it to myself. Offering genuine comfort would only complicate the plan. And then I quit even trying and just let it be me reaching out to someone else who was suffering.
Someone who had suffered the exact same thing I had.
“I don’t tell people about it very much,” she responded, and I frowned a little bit. I heard what she said, but I also heard the words she didn’t say. I heard them because they were the same words I would say if only to myself.
I don’t talk about it much because it hurts.
We both knew it. Only those who had lost a parent so young could understand. She’d been younger than me, by a few years. She’d been alone and in foster care, and she must have been terrified.
It had been bad enough for me, and I’d been in a cushy boarding school. Still, I had some idea of how she must feel. More than your average person did, anyway.
“We’re the same,” I realized. I hadn’t even known I was speaking out loud, not until I saw her react to my words. “You and I. We both don’t have anyone.”
She gave me the sweetest smile, and I felt my heart clench in my chest. She wouldn’t look at me so affectionately if she knew what I was up to. Nor did I think I deserved the look she gave me.
I knew why I was doing what I was doing and nothing had changed. I still wanted what was mine.
For the first time, though, I found myself very strongly wishing there was some other way I could get it. If only I could get what was owed to me without hurting her …
It would hurt her. I knew it. Part of this plan was for her to fall hopelessly in love with me, and I knew she had done that. She was completely devoted, and when we got divorced, it was going to break her heart.
Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe she’d fall just as hard for Brent. Only he would break her heart, too, because he wasn’t any more interested in being with her than I was.
Kaye had been hurt so much. Maybe even more than I had been. She would end up with nothing and no one, whereas I would at least end up with piles and piles of money. Her heart was going to be trampled on.
Of course, mine already had been. What responsibility did I have toward her?
But she had no one. Only a few close friends.
It was just a little bit too close to my own situation for me to feel entirely good about it.
“We’re the same,” she acknowledged, still giving me the same almost unbearably sweet, patient, loving smile. She really had it perfected, and I tried to think cynically about how it was all an act—how no one could be as amazing, as saint-like as she was.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and I meant it on so many different levels, though I knew she wouldn’t understand most of them.
“It’s okay,” she said, clearly misunderstanding what I meant, which was really for the best. “It’s okay because we’ll have each other now. We’ll have a family. The one we’ll start on our wedding day. You and me.”
Damned if, for half a second at least, it sounded like a good deal to me. Damned if I didn’t want it.
Of course, I came to my senses soon enough and pushed aside the unfamiliar feeling. Even then, though, I had to admit something, even just to myself. I was spending an awful lot of time pushing down my feelings for her.
It was just so damn rare to find someone who understood where I was coming from.
Chapter 11
Kaye
This was going to be the best day of my life.
It sounds like such a cliché, but I knew it was true. It would be the best day imaginable, a magical day, because today was the day I married the one and only man I had ever loved. Today was the day I made him mine and gave him myself in return—forever and ever, ‘til death do us part.
I wore a dress that made me feel like a fairy tale princess. Cinderella or Snow White had nothing on me. It was silly and I knew it, but I felt elegant and beautiful in the white silk dress with the skirt that went on for days. The corset hugged my waist and pushed my breasts up, emphasizing everything feminine about me.
Not only did I look beautiful, but I felt it, deep down in my very core. My hair was a silken waterfall down my back and my makeup, which Joan had done for me, was flawless. I had never felt so desirable in my life.
Though part of it might have been the way David looked at me. It was easy to think of myself as someone who was precious and desirable when the look in his eyes spoke of affection, love, and desperate want.
“Will you, David, promise to love, honor, and cherish this woman as long as you both shall live?” the minister intoned, and I beamed at David, holding both of his hands in mind.
The black tuxedo David wore flattered his handsome features—his strong chin, his chiseled lips, and his eyes that looked at me with such adoration. “I will,” David replied, his voice sure and strong, not a hint of hesitation in it.
“And will you, Kaye, promise to love, honor, and cherish this man as long as you both shall live?” the minister continued, shooting me a tiny bit of a look. He’d wanted me to go with the more traditional “love, honor, and obey,” but I had balked. I would love David, and I would certainly cherish him, but to promise to obey without question?
I didn’t have it in me, and luckily, David hadn’t seemed to mind the substitution. He smiled at me, and he really seemed like he couldn’t be any prouder of me or any happier to have me.
“I will.” My heart was in my voice as I said the words and I knew all of my friends, and all of his, would know I meant it.
It was exactly what I wanted.
I smiled at my husband, and he smiled back.
David
I was going to strangle Brent. He was enjoying this whole thing just a little bit too much, to my way of thinking. Laughing, dancing like a maniac, and holding the woman who was now my wife by law.
I wanted to grab him and whisper fiercely in his ear a reminder about just what this whole thing was. Brent wasn’t supposed to actually be enjoying this. It was a job—nothing more. So why were his green eyes alight when he looked at my wife?
Brent in full hunting mode was something I’d seen before, of course. I’d been his wingman, just like he’d been mine. I knew how he could get, which was why I’d known he was perfect for this particular job. But I didn’t think he’d be enjoying it so damn much
As I stood there I had to remind myself more than once just what was going on here. Brent didn’t actually like Kaye. He was just doing this as my friend, so we could both become much wealthier men. He was doing his job and he was doing it damn well.
What did it matter? I should be happy about him doing it so well. The way she laughed …the way he flung her beautiful body around in an exuberant dance …I’d never seen her giggle for me the way she was for him.
Instead, what really made me happy had nothing to do with his performance at all. It had far more to do with how she kept looking back at me like she couldn’t stand to be parted from me. She always turned back to Brent, but she couldn’t look at him long before coming back to me.
It would be better if she fell for him now, of course. A lot easier. Still, it made me happy, somehow, to know she was still so devoted to me. As far as women went, she was definitely the most faithful I had ever known.
Which could be a challenge, I reminded myself. I wasn’t here to fall for her, and I hadn’t. I was only here to get what was mine. For some reason, I had a hard time remembering the plan sometimes.
I’d always been a little bit possessive, though I’d never allowed myself to get too serious with anyone. I’d always been able to fight those feelings off, and this situation was exactly the same, I told myself firmly. Kaye wasn’t special.
Still, there was an undeniable lightening in my heart when the song ended and Kaye pulled away from Brent with a laugh. The way Brent’s eyes lingered over the shape of her back as she turned to walk away made me want to punch him in the throat.
He didn’t have to undress her with his eyes, did he? The plan didn’t call for
him to check her out quite as much as he was doing. I fought back a growl, but pasted a smile on my face as Kaye walked up to me.
She was glowing. Radiant. I’d always thought the whole thing about radiant brides was a load of crap, but she really was.
“Your turn, husband,” she said fondly, reaching out her hand to take mine and tugging me gently onto the floor. I went with her, more than eager to take her slender body into my arms once more.
It was a slow song, which suited me. When she’d gone to dance with Brent, it had been a fast, fun number. He hadn’t gotten to hold her tightly in his arms as I did or sway with her.
At least, he didn’t get to do it yet.
“Did you like Brent?” I carefully kept my voice curious and light. I didn’t let her see the jealousy I felt. Or the guilt. I tried to deny both of them, but they were both there.
“Yes, I did,” Kaye said, and I tried to tell myself I was happy about it. It was, after all, good news for my plan.
I had the strangest urge to strangle Brent though. I knew it was unfair, but it was still there.
“So what’s this I hear about you spending more time with me?” Kaye asked me, and I pulled her close to hide a smirk. I’d almost forgotten about that particular part of the plan.
“What do you mean?” I asked, playing dumb.
“Brent said you’re going to be working from home,” Kaye commented, and it touched me more than I would have liked to see the pleasure in her face when she spoke. She really did like spending time with me. I didn’t really understand why, but it was obvious she did.
“What? Damn it, Brent,” I put on my best aggravated tone, as though irritated with my best friend. I wanted her to think me and Brent didn’t tell each other absolutely everything, so she’d feel safe cheating on me when the time came. “It was supposed to be a surprise. He shouldn’t have told you.”
“Shh, it’s okay,” Kaye soothed me as her breasts, displayed in all their perfect roundness by her dress, pressed against my chest. Having her hot body squeezed up so close to mine could get me hard far too easily. I could swear she was doing it on purpose.
Vengeful Seduction_A Submissives’ Secrets Novel Page 12