“How’s your wife in the sack?” I asked.
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Actually, I don’t think I will, Preston. Miss Rossi’s age does not give you the permission to talk about her like she’s a piece of meat.”
“But…”
“Enjoy the rest of the party.”
I sauntered past him, inwardly cursing Arthur for being an asshole, Angelo for existing, and myself for ever wanting to lay a hand on the beautiful siren dressed as Nemesis. The decision to marry her was supposed to chain Arthur further to my plan and clean up my reputation. Instead, it made everything a thousand times more difficult and complex. When I slanted my gaze sideways to look for Nem in the throng of partygoers, I found Kristen instead, cradling her drink and raising it in my direction with a cunning smile.
It was an invitation I declined by ignoring the gesture, roaming the room with my eyes for long minutes only to find that Francesca and Angelo were not in the room anymore. I climbed up to the second floor, checking her room, and every single other bedroom in the house, then the bathrooms, before I remembered that my fiancée was fond of gardens. I figured if Angelo and Francesca were going to fuck, they’d go somewhere private. But I forgot one little thing. Nemesis claimed to have loved Angelo. A few stolen kisses and rushed promises under the pink sunset were just as rewarding to them as a rendezvous between the sheets.
I descended the garden’s stairs to find them sitting on a stone fountain, their knees angled toward one another. He caressed her cheek, and she let him.
He tucked a curl behind her ear, and she let him.
He plastered his forehead against hers, and she let him do that, too. Their breaths were heavy, their chests falling and rising in harmony.
And I stood there, watching, simmering, fire coursing through me, I regretted humiliating her in front of her father. For I learned, for the first time, that my actions toward her had consequences.
I compromised her honor, so she was compromising mine.
The only difference was, I did it to spite someone else. She truly loved another.
Bandini leaned toward her face, brushing his thumb along her lips. Her eyes drifted to her thighs again, drunk on a moment they both knew they couldn’t prolong. There was pain and sadness in his touch, confusion in her expression, and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I stepped into something bigger than I’d anticipated. This wasn’t puppy love. This was the real thing.
She looked up and said something, taking his hands in hers and bringing them to her chest. She was begging for something.
What the hell can this boy give you that I can’t? But the answer was obvious. Love. He could give her real love, something she would never receive in the Keaton mansion. Not from me and not from her vegetables.
He nodded, getting up and walking toward the balcony’s double doors. I was surprised and disturbed by the relief I felt before hardening again. She probably noticed me and told him to run off before I killed him with my bare hands. I took a step toward the garden, ready to reclaim her and make sure she did not leave my sight again the rest of the evening. But as soon as Angelo walked away, she looked left then right and approached a group of middle-aged women. Making polite, disinterested conversation, she kept her eyes stuck on the second floor of the house the entire time, and after no longer than five minutes, she disappeared inside the house.
I followed her steps again, convinced they were going to the same place, when a feminine hand clasped my forearm, making me turn around.
“Do you at least go down on her?” Kristen smirked, her freshly applied red lipstick and precisely pinned blond updo showing she’d freshened up before hunting me down. I shook her off, laser-focused on going upstairs and finding my fiancée, but she blocked my way to the staircase, which was already teeming with people as it was. I had no particular objection to shoving her out of my way, but considering the amount of security, media, and the fact that she, herself, was a journalist, it wasn’t the best idea of the century. Yet again, I had to face the question that seemed to be eternal since Francesca had walked into my life—my career and reputation, or catching her little cheating ass red-handed?
Good news? I still had logic on my side.
Bad news? For now.
“I dug around.” Kristen snapped her fruity gum in my face, batting her lashes.
“Did you find a bone, or someone to bone you, for that matter?”
It irritated me that my internal thoughts bled outside my mouth. I usually prided myself in an admirable dose of self-control. But knowing my fiancée was probably fucking another guy upstairs made me want to rip the walls off with my own fingernails. Whereas I was quite content letting Francesca scratch her Angelo itch a few weeks ago, now was a completely different matter.