The wedding day was gorgeous. The reception went off without a hitch. This garage is so clean, you could eat your damn dinner off it.
A shadow falls over me, and I realize that while I was stewing, Scorpion rounded the front of the golf cart and is now standing next to me, holding out his hand, palm up.
“I don’t need help getting out of a golf cart,” I snap at him, annoyed that he still looks and smells so good at three a.m.
Then I prove my point by emerging. But the garage tilts, and I start to fall.
Strong arms catch me against a broad chest.
“Right,” he says.
I resist the urge to stomp on one of his big feet with my Manolos. Mostly because I’m likely to fall over again if I try, and he’s still holding me up.
“I’ve got this,” I announce and push away from him. I only wobble on my heels twice before I’m standing straight and without his help. “There.” I spin around in a circle. “You see?”
But as I complete my victorious spin, I trip on something and go pitching forward.
Scorpion catches me and scoops me into his arms, holding me like I’m a baby.
“I see,” he drawls.
Well. This is embarrassing. Good thing I’ve consumed enough wine to take the sting out of my humiliation. I’ll save that for tomorrow.
He’s even super sexy from this angle, the bastard. Before I can think about what I’m doing, I reach for his jaw, running my fingertips over the stubble. All the heat in my body seems to go directly to my clit, making it throb.
“You can put me down.”
But even as I say the words, I’m still touching him. I like the rasp of his five-o’clock shadow. I like touching him. I even like the way he’s holding me. My new husband is strong.
He’s also the man who kidnapped you, Katya, I remind myself.
He’s already moving toward the garage door. “May as well stick with the tradition.”
He carries me past a sleek gray Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT, a big-screen TV mounted on the wall, and a line of black tool cabinets. He’s not even winded as he shoulders his way through the door and kicks it closed behind him. We’re in a gorgeous kitchen, with custom cabinetry and gleaming marble countertops. It tracks that the inside would be every bit as stunning as the outside.
The lights are already on for us, a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket, and there’s an assortment of snacks, along with white petals to match the roses in my bouquet. I stare at the careful spread and feel suddenly emotional, wishing I’d had a real wedding, that the man holding me in his arms was someone I loved, that everything was different.
But it’s not different, and today’s wedding wasn’t real.
I stop touching his stupid stubble and wriggle in his arms, needing to get away. “Put me down, please.”
He grins. “You sure you have your sea legs,cara mia?”
Damn him and those dimples. Why does he have to smell so good?
I shove at his chest. “Very funny. Put me down, Andriani.”
But he doesn’t, of course. He just stands there with me in the kitchen, holding me like I’m a kid who needs to be carried to bed after wearing herself out.
“Now that we’re married, you can call me Lorenzo.”
For some reason, that makes me think of Chiara, and she’s the last thing I want to think about now.
I glare at him some more. “I’d rather call youzasranets. Where’s the wine you spoke of?”
“Zasranets,” he repeats slowly, making the word sound slightly off. “Is that a Russian term of endearment?”
My lips twitch.