The Wife Breaker (Dark Vows Duet 1)

“Oh, you have to go?”

“I have some business to attend to,” I lie smoothly. “Pick anything you want for tonight and keep the rest. I’m excited to see you.”

I feel her eyes burning my back as I walk out of the room, but she doesn’t call out for me, and I don’t turn back.

Once I’m safe in the confines of my study, I lean against the desk. It’s getting really fucking hard to stop this hungry feeling. My body wants drugs and my mind only hesitates for a second before I pull open a drawer and pull out a bag of white powder.

I snort it off the edge of a knife and put it back into the sheath at my belt. The powder kicks in fast, making me dizzy as I stumble to the chair behind my desk. I sit down as the world spins around me.

Fuck, this addiction is getting worse. Now, the thing I once saw as my enemy is something I can’t live without. And while I’ve been taking less now that Rain’s here... I’m nowhere near done with this shit.

I don’t know how much time passes as I sit back on the chair and watch the world spin, but all the business I was supposed to do is forgotten. I hear the phone ringing but ignore it and stare at the ceiling instead. I’m so fucked up. And it feels so damn good.

Hours later, I stand in the grand hall of the Palacio with my hands clasped behind me. Rain appears at the top of the grand marble staircase, and I’m pleased to see she picked the first dress I was so in love with.

She descends the stairs, her eyes finding mine in the room and silently begging for me to be kind.

I can tell she’s afraid of this dinner, but I have nothing sinister planned. This is an evening I want to bring Rain to, not my newest toy. Tonight, she doesn’t get to be Xavier’s wife. She gets to be mine. And something tells me she’s going to love that.

She reaches me, and I wrap my arm around her thin wrist. The only jewelry she’s wearing is a dainty gold necklace and a matching bracelet. She looks intoxicating, and I whisper as much in her ear.

“Thank you,” she responds. “I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be. You’re just going to meet a couple of my friends.”

I lead her into a room that’s thick with cigar smoke and lit by soft, sensual lighting. There, my friends are sitting on couches, some of them playing pool on a billiard table and some on the balcony overlooking the grounds.

Rain presses her body against mine, trembling.

“You already know most of them,” I tell her softly. “And they all know who you are already.”

“They do?”

“Yes,” I smirk. “Now come on, let’s say hello.”

Liberato sees us first, quickly approaching and smiling at Rain.

“Good to see you,” he says politely before turning his attention to me. “How did the call go?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” I mutter, dragging Rain past him and onto the couch. I pull her onto my lap and steal Cannon’s glass, taking a long sip while he laughs, shaking his head at me.

“You going to properly introduce us?” Cannon asks. “Since she’s crashing, I think we deserve it.”

“I’m crashing?” Rain narrows her eyes at me. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“This is our weekly night together,” Liberato smirks, joining us. “You’re allowed to bring a date, but only one.”

“Only one per visit?” Rain asks.

“No,” I smirk, nuzzling her neck to whisper the rest in her ear. “One per lifetime.”

Her eyes zero in on mine and she pales. She just realized how fucking serious I am about this, and now that it’s sunk in, I’m wondering if she’ll get scared. But she doesn’t budge, just smiles at me knowingly before pulling me in for a kiss.

For the time being, Rain is my date. I’d never let a toy push my buttons this way, but I can’t help myself around her, not with the way she looks tonight.

We chat to the men while she sits comfortably perched on my lap. She keeps touching me, and I wonder whether she even notices how much she’s touching me. Her fingers tangle in my hair, she kisses my neck, grinds against the hardness in my pants. Her attention is constantly on me, even as she chats to the other men.

I excuse myself an hour into the evening and call Cannon aside. In the hallway, I lean in and ask him to monitor Rain for me.

“Anything particular you want me to pay attention to?” he asks.

“How she acts with the other men. I want to know if she’ll misbehave.”

“You got it,” Cannon nods, heading back inside the salon while I head upstairs to make the call I’ve been avoiding all week.