Flame – Carmichael Family Read Online Adriana Locke

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Insta-Love Tags Authors: Adriana Locke Advertisement

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Papers shuffle in front of Landry. Thoughts shuffle inside my head.

Bianca takes a deep breath and blows it out steadily. She’s holding it together well. For now.

But how the fuck do you deal with that level of betrayal? My father would burn in hell before he’d ever betray us at all, not to mention like that.

A swell of heat rises in my chest, and I cover my face with my hands. There must be a way to ensure this deal is thoroughly fucked, especially if that means it’s a fuck you to Reid Brewer. It seems like Bianca marrying someone is the easiest solution. But she would have to trust that person to have that level of responsibility. That sort of sway. That kind of trust is hard for anyone, but even harder for Bianca. Such trust is—

“And the one person I trusted, although he was on my payroll, left me …”

—hard to find.

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Her bottom lip quivers ever so slightly. She’s scared, feeling alone—feeling betrayed.

My gut sours as the few times that Bianca has mentioned marriage as a non-option for herself sneaks through my mind. I’m not certain why she feels that way, and I certainly wouldn’t want her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I wouldn’t want her to resent me.

But as I watch the wheels turn in her head and how defiant she is about not letting this go through—and the shimmer of fear hiding in her beautiful green eyes …

There’s a serious chance she does something big, something like marriage, to stop her father. And the thought of her marrying some other asshole with bad intentions makes me want to fight.

Here goes nothing.

“Okay, I have the solution,” I say.

Their attention turns to me. The weight of their gazes, their curiosity, is hefty.

This is ridiculous. It’s downright asinine. And after our argument last night, I won’t be surprised if Bianca laughs in my face and tells Jason to send a plane for her immediately.

And I won’t be surprised if Jason never looks at me the same again, either.

I have no idea what marriage to Bianca, fake or not, would look like, and I don’t know how I’ll manage without driving myself mad. But the fear in her eyes puts my needs in the back seat. Even if she blows me off and Jason pulls me aside to ask me what the hell is going on—I must do this for her.

I must try.

She grins softly. “I wish you did.”

My heart swells in my chest.

“Unless you can come up with some brilliant plan to solve this impossible puzzle, I can’t do this.”

“What are you thinking, Foxx?” Jason asks.

I square my shoulders to the computer monitor and brace myself.

“You can’t kill Bobby or Charlie,” Bianca says. “Love how you think, but it’s a hard no.”

“That’s not what I was thinking.”

The tension is thick between the five of us—a thousand miles be damned. Everyone’s eyes are on me. I just hope their swords aren’t ready to be drawn.

“Let’s hear it,” Gannon says. “How do we fix this?”

I look at Landry. He crosses his arms over his chest and grins.

I look at Jason. He’s holding his breath.

I look at Gannon. Is he smirking?

Finally, I turn to Bianca. She licks her lips, her foot tapping against the floor.

This woman.

I smile as confidently as I can. “Marry me.”

CHAPTER 10

Bianca

“Marry you?”

I blink once. Then twice.

My lungs burn from the breath I’m holding. He’s kidding—he has to be. But the words, sounding so unbelievably serious, nail me in the heart.

I’ve never wanted to get married, and I actively avoided a proposal by the one boyfriend I had in my early twenties whom I feared was on the verge of asking me to be his wife. Nothing about marriage has been attractive to me. What is it about having another person in your life to take care of, to consider—to manage, makes people want to do it?

But my reaction to Foxx’s proposal isn’t what I felt when I imagined Peter proposing years ago.

I don’t want to run. I want to fall into his arms.

I don’t feel vulnerable. I feel safe.

I don’t feel like a heavy, dark cloud just fell upon me, and I’m struggling under the weight. I feel … joy.

I’m not scared of it.

I want it.

Oh God.

“Marry you?” I ask again. The words come out in a laugh injected with disbelief. “Did you just ask me to marry you?”

Foxx shrugs.

I have no idea if he’s serious or not—and that shrug of his tells me nothing. But he can’t be. He just told me we can’t be together at all, and now he’s proposing marriage? This is a sick, terrible joke.

“Why would you say that to me?” I ask under my breath. “Now isn’t the time to find your funny bone.”

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