Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“Sir, you have never, in the eleven years I’ve known you, missed an appointment.”
“I have never, in the eleven years you have known me, chained my destiny to that of a beautiful sociopath.”
It was the last thing I said before the elevator doors shut in her face.
I navigated my driveway, forcing myself to fix my eyes straight. Or risk blowing a fuse that’d end up splattered across every local paper. Not to mention social media, under the ever-growing hashtag I shared with Dallas.
I was unable to reconcile the fact that my nineteenth-century estate, which once housed a prominent Union general, had been reduced to the witching grounds of a spoiled Georgian heiress.
People spilled out of my grand entry. Someone body-checked my Bentley, sloshing beer onto the windshield. I didn’t recognize a single one of them.
My blood, which usually ran as cold as my dormant heart, sizzled hot with anger and the urgent need to inflict pain on someone. A certain lovely someone.
I’d never felt more alive in my life.
Or as psychotic.
Eighteen different cars occupied my sixteen-car garage. It took me eight minutes to locate a parking space on my own property.
I stomped my way inside, shouldering past a panicked Vernon, who tried to run back outside.
A flushed Hettie met me at the door, both hands raised. “She said a small gathering of friends. I swear, Rom.”
Shortbread’s idea of a small gathering, apparently, consisted of an entire country club. Who were these people, anyway? She’d been in Potomac for less than two months.
I recognized my friends, the personal shopper at Hermès, two three-Michelin-starred chefs whose restaurants Dallas frequented, and remarkably, what appeared to be the vast majority of people I’d saved on the black-book spreadsheet in my home office.
The do-not-engage-with crowd.
People I systematically avoided at all costs.
Somehow, she’d found them and invited each and every one of them to my house. Incredible.
If I weren’t so furious, I’d be deeply impressed.
“Out of my way.”
Hettie hung her head, stepping aside.
I shoved past the mass of bodies. Most hadn’t bothered to dress up, enjoying the majority of the fine liquor from my wine cellar—the bottles I saved for special occasions—in Ferragamo leather slides and Bally tracksuits.
A full catering spread stretched across every counter, courtesy of Nibbles, a local boutique service that charged $1800 per head for parties.
People laughed, ate, mingled, and helped themselves to tours of my home. Which, by the way, was loud. Unbearably so.
My soul, if I indeed possessed one, itched to burst out of my skin like a bullet and run for its life.
I bumped into a shoulder on my quest toward the stairway. The person turned.
Oliver.
The first thing I did was punch him square in the face.
Not hard enough to break a nose, but certainly with enough rage to show what I thought of his recent behavior.
For reasons pertaining to my shitty upbringing, I possessed an overdeveloped fight instinct. My first instinct in any situation, really.
For decades, I’d reigned it in. Already, Shortbread had unleashed it on many unsuspecting victims.
“Aw.” Oliver rubbed his cheek. “What was that for?”
“Saying sexist things about my wife, offering her sexual favors to my face, and frankly, because your face is annoying.”
He sighed. “Fair enough. For the record—I am no longer interested in joking about bedding your wife. I figured it would hinder any future attempts to get with her sister.”
Is anyone in my life over the mental age of thirteen?
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
He took a swig of Belgian beer they didn’t even sell in the States. Jesus. How much money had this curse of mine spent during our brief marriage?
Oliver’s brows pulled together. “Regarding what?”
I lost patience. “What on earth inspired you to RSVP to her party?”
“Oh. There was no RVSP.” He twirled his finger. “This little shindig was all spur-of-the-moment. She pulled it together last minute. Incredible, right? She could do this for a living.”
The idea of Shortbread possessing a job—or reporting to anyone other than her irresponsible self—was both laughable and inconceivable.
This conversation chipped away the remainder of my patience.
Oliver lifted the mouth of his beer bottle to his lips. I held the base in place, forcing him to finish every last drop or risk getting waterboarded by the pilsner.
“Oliver. Why are you here?”
When I released the glass, he recovered with a grin, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “Well, the fact that she throws bomb-ass parties. She said there would be special catering, international alcohol, and fire theater. And so far, Derbyshire hasn’t let me down.”
Fire theater? In my house?
I fisted his shirt, losing all traces of the control I was so fond of. “Where is she?”
Oliver shrugged—or tried to beneath my fists. “Last I saw her, she was trying on some chick’s cocktail dress, and that chick was trying on her dress.”
“She was naked in front of other people?”