That Don's Long Awaited Bride

A family alliance had sealed my fate: I was to marry Dante, heir to the Moretti family of the Chicago Outfit.

To escape this arrangement, I fled at twenty.

Then I met the gallant and charming Julian Thorne. He rescued me, sculpted me into a high-society debutante, and championed my career as an illustrator.

Finally, on my twenty-third birthday, we made love, and then he proposed.

I thought I had finally found happiness, but just as I reached for the doorknob, I overheard a conversation between him and his friends:

"Julian, you've been playing this long game for three years. Suddenly sleeping with her and popping the question? Aren't you afraid Scarlett will actually lose it this time?"

The man's voice was casual. "If I didn't force the issue, how else was I going to convince her to go back tomorrow?"

The room erupted in jeers, and a cold fist closed around my heart.

"So, you kept this Moretti girl on a string for years, and now you're just gonna toss her aside?"

The man chuckled. "She's pliable."

"You want her? She's yours."

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1

Roars of laughter echoed from the private club.

The blood froze in my veins. I stood there, paralyzed.

The tender voice that had whispered seductively in my ear only days before now felt like a shard of ice plunging straight into my heart.

"Possessing her is the ultimate humiliation for the Moretti family... Besides, I've been saving myself for Scarlett for years. It's time someone helped me scratch an itch."

A fresh wave of malicious laughter erupted. "She must be a tasty little thing, then."

"Cut the crap. Julian's been pining for Scarlett for years. He can finally win her back!"

"Julian's a fucking genius! Honed his skills, got his rocks off, and now the one that got away is finally back!"

The voices in the room swelled, mocking and cruel.

Tears streamed down my face. I clenched my fists, stifling a sob.

Scarlett—I knew that name. The walls of Julian's apartment were a shrine to her—countless photos of them together, the girl radiant as the sun, clinging to his arm. Julian had told me in a flat, dismissive tone that she was just a childhood neighbor. I had believed him without question.

The proposal replayed in my mind, vivid and painful. His eyes, hazy with desire, had gazed at me with such deep, convincing love.

"Elara, you're driving me insane... Will you marry me?"

His hoarse voice had grazed my ear, his hot breath a swirl against my skin. After I’d whispered yes, his embrace was so passionate, so real.

He played his part so perfectly. How could I ever have suspected—

Suspected that the man who had treated me like a princess for three years had only ever seen me as a pawn.

I ducked into the restroom, clamping a hand over my mouth, but a choked whimper still escaped.

Three years ago, to evade the men searching for me, I lived in the shadows, scurrying from the light like a rat. I was nearly dragged into a van in an alley behind a bar.

Julian had seen to it that those men were hauled to the police station before wrapping me in his cashmere overcoat and carrying me back to his penthouse.

When I first arrived, I was like a feral, wary animal. He didn't seem to mind, just patiently soothed me, found clean clothes that fit, and settled me into the guest room.

He escorted me to glittering banquets where champagne flowed freely.

He showed me a million-dollar fireworks display from the deck of a cruise ship.

Knowing I loved to draw, he set up the perfect art studio for me and supported my dream of becoming an illustrator.

...

He had burst into my gray world, flooding it with color.

But it was all just a meticulously crafted trap.

The phone in my pocket vibrated, yanking me from my thoughts. The message from an unknown number was blunt:

"You have one week. If Julian Thorne is serious about marrying you, I'll call off the arrangement."

The people and things I once feared most now seemed to offer a strange, twisted sort of comfort.

Rather than wait for Julian to give me away like a party favor, I would forge my own path.

I wiped the tears from my face and typed back with grim resolve:

"I don't need a week. Come get me from Julian's apartment tomorrow."