Around ten o’clock, Riley falls asleep in my mother’s lap, petals stuck in her hair.
My father stays close, his arm draped protectively across the back of my mom’s chair as he watches the party unfold.
Siobhan dances with one of Raf’s men, scandalously close.
My brothers sit stiffly, sharing a table with our former enemies, smiling like a wolf pack baring its teeth.
And I drink champagne I can’t taste and wait for the inevitable—the moment I have to leave with my new husband.
The man I haven’t touched in five years.
My stomach twists as Raf appears beside me once more, sleeves now rolled, tie undone, shirt showing a sliver of collarbone.
He looks like sin and the promise of heartbreak, and I turn my eyes on him coldly, building my walls higher for good measure.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Not remotely.”
He huffs a laugh. Not mocking, just honest. “I don’t want to fight tonight,” he says quietly.
“Then don’t talk to me.”
His eyes darken. “Forgetting your promises already,focosa?”
I don’t answer.
But thankfully, I’m spared from him pressing the matter as guests start to pour into the courtyard, forming a tunnel as they prepare for our grand send-off.
Raf offers his arm, and I rise to take it.
Because I’m loyal to my family.
Not him.
Never him.
Music swells, cameras flash, and someone shouts, “Kiss! Kiss again!”
Turning to me with an expression that says,You’ve got to give the audience what they want,Raf scoops me into his arms once more, dipping me dramatically and making me gasp as I feel weightless for a moment.
Then his lips are on mine as I cling to the lapels of his suit jacket, trying to ignore the insistent hammering of my heart.
Then he’s setting me back on my feet as I suck in desperate lungfuls of air, feeling for all the world like I’ve just broken the water’s surface after coming dangerously close to drowning.
The sparklers ignite all at once—blinding, crackling, illuminating faces full of expectation.
We step beneath them, newly bound, publicly claimed, privately unraveling.
The sparks rain around us, gold and dangerous.
Raf leans in, his voice a low promise against my ear. “Remember,focosa, we’re supposed to be falling in love.”
My heart lurches painfully.
It’s a reminder to play the game, to fake this marriage convincingly—because this wasmyidea, the only way I could convince Rafael Chiaroscuro to marry me.
But as we step into the waiting car, sparklers exploding behind us, leaving the Murray estate for the Chiaroscuro one, I press a hand to my churning stomach and face a truth I’ve been running from since the moment our lips touched at the altar.