Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 128290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
It’s ridiculous to be possessive over someone you hardly know, but the urge to do so is there regardless. Even if in the next second, all I want to do is knee him in the nuts for putting me in this situation.
A second wife. I’m someone’s second wife just like I’m the second daughter.
It just doesn’t end, does it?
It’s not until I’m slipping into the dress of the night that my mind settles on one thing, a thought that shouldn’t draw a smile to my face but does.
Enzo was simply trying to get a rise out of me earlier when he said he’d take Ann-Marie. He wouldn’t have. He couldn’t have…because these dresses weren’t made to be able to fit us both.
They were made for me specifically.
But that smile drops the instant I spin to face Grandma and see the sparkling monstrosities dangling from both hands.
“No.”
“Yes,” she challenges. “I’ve locked your door and the only way to get inside the room now would be to ask Enzo for the key. Should I show you to him?” Her tone is silky sweet, and honestly kind of bratty for being a seventy-something-year-old.
With a fake smile, I take the hazardous heels and sit.
It takes effort and about a teaspoon of Vaseline, but I managed to push through the pain and make my way into the elevator in time.
I close my eyes when the doors press together, and I don’t open them until the ding sounds, letting me know I’ve reached the first floor. I don’t expect Enzo to be standing there waiting the second they do.
My gaze instantly snags his, though he only holds the contact for one heartbeat, lowering it and following the length of my body at the same steady pace. When his attention falls to the shiny statement pieces on my feet, I fight the urge to curl my toes within them. Not that there’s much room for that, but a habit is a habit for a reason. As thorough as his perusal down was, it follows the same path upward, pausing a moment longer at the highest point of the slit, my entire thigh on display, more than it should be with the slanted way I’m standing.
“My first choice,” he rasps, his attention snapping to my hair and back.
The elevator doors threaten to close me inside, but his arm shoots out to stop them, his eyes not bothering to hurry their way back to mine, rather admiring the long rope-like diamonds in my ears.
“Odd, considering it was the exact opposite of the other options.” I push past him, staring at his reflection in the glass ahead as he turns, his dark gaze following my every step, settling on my ass.
It takes a conscious effort not to clench my muscles and I try not to wonder what he’s thinking.
Too round. Too soft to be a real dancer.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that over the years, but the way Enzo swipes a finger over his lower lip when no one’s watching tells me he doesn’t hate it. That or he can’t decide. Who knows.
“It’s the opposite if you only focus on how the others are open around the shoulder and this one isn’t.” He comes around to stand in front of me, blocking the old man waiting to open the door from my view. “But they do the same job.”
I consider his words, realizing he’s not entirely wrong. The dress, a soft pink in color, is full coverage with long sleeves and a neckline that reaches halfway up my throat, the material soft and stretchy, forming to my body like a second skin. Somehow, it reveals even more than the shoulderless options. It literally fits like the tightest of gloves. So no, there’s not much left to the imagination in this thing, especially with the slit at the bottom running all the way up, stopping but an inch from where my thigh meets my panty line.
A sudden self-consciousness falls over me and I flex my muscles, breaking his stare. “And what job is that, just so we’re clear?”
Enzo tips his head, recapturing my gaze, his jaw set in determination. When he speaks, it’s with arrogance, but there’s a hint of something else in there too, I just can’t place it.
“I want every man whose eyes fall on you to wish it were them you were going home with at the end of the night. I want every woman who witnesses the look in their man’s eyes to burn with jealousy.” His chin lowers, as does his tone. “I want every person with a heartbeat to see you at my side and know, without a doubt, that you are mine and mine alone. That you chose me and I you, and nothing and no one could ever rival what we have. I want them to see murder in my eyes when they look at me and the possessiveness in yours, because like it or not, you are possessive over me, so show them. Let them see.”