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6
Kira’s heartbeat thundered in her ears.
Her nerve endings pricked, but not in a good way. No. Apprehension and complete deception came down on her, sharper than the tip of a hunter’s knife. She’d been looking at him for the past few minutes.
When he’d left, she considered using the restroom herself. Then she walked around the immense living area, telling herself not to feel out of place as she bumped shoulders with the wealthy and the beautiful.
Then, she had let her gaze roam, bored, hoping he wouldn’t leave her for too long. He couldn’t ghost her since they were married, right? She’d thought amusingly.
Then, she saw him.
Talking to a stunning woman on the second floor, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
She turned around, beelining through the crowd, dizzy and overwhelmed. How the hell did she get betrayed even in a fake marriage? God. Cold sweat sheened her forehead. What if someone else caught that moment? What if someone took a picture? You’re just being paranoid, she told herself. There are no paps here and it happened too fast.
Still. If word got out, she’d be humiliated for the entire world to see. Forget about taking him to her parents’ anniversary party. Definitely, she would not want to show her ass in Hope Springs. She’d be the butt of the jokes, what with managing to lose her husband after one week of marriage.
Husband. She scoffed and picked the hem of her dress so she could walk faster. When she reached the entryway, she looked at the employee who had been opening doors and talking to guests when they arrived.
“Do you need anything, miss?” the woman asked, tilting her head as if she cared for her answer.
“A cab, please,” she said with a cool voice. She could run outside and hail one herself, but it’d take longer, and the paparazzi would take pictures of her leaving the party in a rush. Maybe she could say she had a headache or something. She’d text Richard later.
As much as she hated Luc right now, she couldn’t jeopardize her role in this bargain.
“Kira, talk to me,” the devil himself said, walking up to her, catching his breath like he had rushed to get to her. All part of his own damage control, she bet.
“Oh, cupcake,” she said, in a voice as fake as their marriage. “I was asking for a cab because I don’t feel good… but I didn’t want you to have to leave. I texted you, honey,” she lied. “So you wouldn’t worry.”
The woman’s gaze darted between the two of them. “I’ll leave the both of you to it. Excuse me,” she said, then went back to chatting with the staff.
“What are you doing?” he said in a low voice, shortening the gap between them.
“I could ask you the same thing, cupcake,” she said, drawing the last word with enough cold sarcasm to freeze a Texan summer.
He motioned to clasp her elbow, but she jerked away. “We need to talk,” he said, a trace of plea in his voice. Like a man who’d been caught red-handed. Much like Andrew when he’d been caught fucking her sister in Kira’s apartment.
She drew in a breath. “I…”
“Not here. Let’s go home,” he said.
Home? To the place where they slept? To the massive penthouse they inhabited? Sure. She didn’t want to go to her old apartment and bug her cousins anyway. Billie and Poppy would worry, and poor Poppy already felt guilty enough even though Kira had tried to talk her out of it.
“Don’t say anything until we’re alone,” he whispered.
She had a few choice words to say to him, and a couple names to call him. But even she knew a public scandal wouldn’t benefit either of them. So she kept quiet during the ride home, her anger still boiling inside her, and avoiding looking at him. What if the driver heard them? Right now, she couldn’t trust anyone.
The arrival at the building was a blur. A couple joined them in the elevator, and the young couple hugging and murmuring sweet nothings only added to her anger. Why couldn’t she ever have a healthy relationship?
The couple left a floor before theirs, and when he closed the door behind him, she turned to face him.
The deception that had been simmering in her blood the entire way here reached a boiling point.
“Why?” she asked, the word leaving her without her consent. She should talk to him, question him, yes, but in her head, she’d sound a lot more neutral. Without the undercurrent of vulnerability in her voice, like she was one heartbeat away from losing control of her emotions. “Why did you take me there and leave me to go flirt with a woman you just met?”
She could understand, even if not agree, with her parents’ favoritism toward Shelby, for instance. There was a logic: they’d loved Shelby, and had her with them for six years before Kira came along, basically to help save her life. They had a rapport with their first daughter. Fine. But, for her husband to simply leave her aside and go talk to someone new?
His jaw clenched. Was he mad at her for calling him out on his bullshit behavior, or at himself for getting caught? Theirs wasn’t a real marriage, but that didn’t mean he had the right to humiliate her and cause some real damage. “Kira, je suis désolé. I’m sorry. I know what it must have looked like, but I wasn’t flirting—nor talking to her with the intention of bedding her.”
