Page 102 of Bound

When I hand the pen back, Paige places the box into a black-and-gold Bachman’s bag, folds the tissue over it, and ties the handles with a gold ribbon.

“There,” she says. “Official.”

I take the bag.

It weighs almost nothing.

Yet the promise it comes with is everything.

At the door, I pause and look back.

Through the front windows, Bachman Avenue moves around us. Daughtry Clothiers. Clara’s Children’s Boutique. Cass’s bakery isn’t open yet, but it’s coming. A street built on money and secrets and women who keep changing what Bachman men think they know.

The brownstone stands strong and proud around me, older than my grief, older than Carlos’s envy, older than the blood spilled beneath it.

A historical giant with too many secrets.

But not all secrets are ugly.

Some are love stories waiting behind locked doors.

Some begin with a stolen glance at a blue diamond.

Some begin with a girl selling one night to save her family.

I step out onto Bachman Avenue with Erin’s ring in my hand.

Ready to make her my wife.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Erin

I have learned several things about planning a wedding to a billionaire mafia king.

One: budgets are apparently a cute little hobby for normal people.

Two: if you say, “Wouldn’t it be pretty if…” within Lucian’s hearing, twelve people will arrive the next morning with samples.

Three: men who can coordinate armed security across three countries cannot correctly identify ivory from champagne.

Four: Lucian has opinions about flowers.

Strong ones.

“I said white roses.”

“They are white roses.”

“Those are cream.”

I stare at him.

He stares at the arrangement.

As a man whose proposal was a command, he does not back down.

The florist looks like she is considering climbing out of a window.