He lifts a shoulder, nonchalant. “Then it doesn’t matter if I notice how hot she is. Did you look up any of her performances on YouTube? I bet she looks hot as fuck in those ballerina costumes.”
Heat crawls up my neck, because yes, I did look her up on YouTube. Before I kidnapped her and then again after. And she lookshotterthan hot as fuck in her costumes. Those legs of hers, long and elegant and muscular and so graceful. Every time I look at them, I imagine them wrapped around my waist. I can’t stop thinking about the ways I could put all that flexibility to good use.
“It’ll probably be like fucking a pretzel,” Lucky adds, apparently having no will to live.
I pick up the nearest object—a vintage crystal ashtray that costs more than the average car—and throw it against the wall behind him. It hits and smashes into thousands of tiny shards, raining to the floor.
“I liked that fucking ashtray,” I tell him.
“Forget I said anything.” He gets up. “So, Mom, Bianca, and Camilla can come to the wedding?”
“Bianca and Camilla can come,” I correct him. “If there is a wedding at all.”
He gives me a look like I just kicked his puppy in the head. “Mom’s going to be devastated. She already missed Priest’s wedding.”
“Antonella should have thought about that before she fucked off and left us,” I snap.
Lucky holds up his hands in surrender. “Fine. Groom’s choice. But I get a plus-one, right?”
“Right,” I grit, disliking being called the groom. It’s too fucking real. Too commitment and babies and picket fences and all that shit. “Not two or three,” I add, because this is Lucky, and he’s always got more women dangling after him than anyone I know. “So pick your favorite flavor of the month and bring her. It’s going to be small, if there is a wedding. The fewer people who witness it, the better.”
“Got it.” He walks past what’s left of my thirty-thousand-dollar ashtray, his shoes crunching on the crystal. “Might want to have someone clean that up so you don’t cut yourself and bleed to death before the wedding.”
I grind my molars. “Get the fuck out of here,stronzo.”
He just laughs as he walks out the door.
Chapter 9
KATYA
“There is a guest to see you, miss.”
The heavily accented voice of Misha’s housekeeper, Yana, interrupts my Navasana pose, and I lower my legs back to the yoga mat. “Who is it?”
I hope it’s not Svetlana. I’m trying to keep her as far from Misha’s toxic reach as possible.
“Mr. Andriani.” Her lip curls like the name leaves a bad taste in her mouth.
Scorpion.
My body tenses, instantly undoing all the good accomplished by the last forty-five minutes of practice. The last time I saw my future husband, he was walking away from me. I haven’t heard anything from the Andriani camp all week while I endured a manic rush to prepare the details of the wedding from hell.
I instinctively want to reach for a weapon, but Misha isn’t stupid enough to keep anything sharp in the gilded prison he’s arranged for me to inhabit until I do his bidding.
So I force a smile for Yana, who has a habit of looking at me like I’m the gum stuck to her shoe. “Show him in, please.”
She nods and disappears from the doorway while I get to my feet, mentally preparing myself for what’s about to happen. Misha’s not at home, and I doubt he would have arranged a meeting between my husband-to-be and me without his presence. My brother doesn’t trust me. He’s not wrong in that. He shouldn’t trust me, because I’m putting my theatrical skills to use.
I’m good at pretending.
I feel Scorpion’s presence before I see him. My body reacts like the air becomes charged with electricity and if I make a wrong move, I’ll get zapped. He’s wearing a navy suit that fits his body as if it was tailor-made for him. And it probably was. His dark hair is tousled and swept back from his forehead. The stubble of perpetual five-o’clock shadow on his sharp jaw makes me wish I could feel it rasping against my skin.
His ice-blue gaze travels over me like a caress, and I’m suddenly aware I’m wearing leggings and a sports bra. I cross my arms over my chest and lift my chin.
“What, no handcuffs or duct tape this time?” I ask.
He moves into the room as if he belongs here, playing with a cuff link like he’s bored. “I save that for first dates.”