Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 93347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
“No. You talked. I listened.”
Her lips bowed into a frown. “Apparently you didn’t listen. Do you have any idea how over-the-top Machiavellian this all is? Do you feel nothing for that poor girl? No compassion?”
After that kiss, compassion wasn’t the word I’d use.
“This is business, Arabella. Stay out of it.”
She thumped her fist against the center of her chest. “This is Diamanti business, and last time I checked, I’m a Diamanti, too!”
“She will marry into one of the richest families in the world. Can we not dramatize this as some tragic opera?”
Arabella folded her arms over her chest as she squared off against me, one eyebrow raised. “I could always just warn Sabrina.”
My glass met the table with such force that the crystal cracked.
I curled my hands into fists at my sides and turned my full wrath on her.
Taking several steps backward, she stumbled in her haste to escape me.
“Try it, dear sister, and I’ll have you married and shipped off to our Lac de Gras mines so fast your pretty little head will spin.”
Our Lac de Gras diamond mines were in a subarctic region of Northern Canada so remote it was only reachable by air or a seasonal ice road. My sister, who thought a chipped manicure or a cold espresso was cause for tears, would not thrive under such isolated conditions.
It was not an idle threat.
And she knew it.
“You’re no better than Father!”
She spun on her heel but paused in the doorway, adding, “And you never will be.”
With my eyes closed, I absorbed the well-deserved but despised comment.
Rafaello released a long breath. “She didn’t mean it.”
I ran my hand through my hair then turned back to the bar to pour myself a straight scotch. “Yes, she did.”
My father was an absolute piece-of-shit human being.
The truth was, he wasn’t much better than Sabrina’s father, Judge Delluci. They were cut from the same fetid cloth.
There was no bar too low for my father. People were a disposable means to an end, his family included.
I couldn’t recall being anything but a prop to my father.
The dutiful son.
The heir to his diamond dynasty.
As long as I played by his twisted set of rules.
Rules I had tried to reject…until now.
Until Sabrina.
Who the fuck was I kidding, believing that, somehow, I'd survive this mess with my soul still intact.
Rafaello put his hand on my shoulder. “Whatever you are doing, it’s for the family. The family must always come first.”
I held up my glass in a mock toast. “To the family,” I said, before draining its contents.
I checked my watch. Sabrina should have arrived by now.
Just then, my driver entered the room. “Your pardon, Dottore Diamanti.”
The space between my shoulder blades tightened as I took in the driver’s strained expression. A sinking weight settled in my gut when I realized Sabrina was not with him.
Had someone gotten to her first? The unknown man lurking under the awning earlier? Benedict’s text warning me of the judge’s men in Paris came back to haunt me.
The glass trembled in my hand. “Where is she?”
Rafaello squeezed my shoulder, already sensing trouble. For once, no longer finding humor in the situation.
“Easy, Sebastian. I’m sure there is an explanation.” He looked at the driver. “Right?”
The driver’s knuckles turned white as he worried the brim of his chauffeur hat. “She wasn’t there. I waited and waited. She never showed.”
Rafaello grabbed my upper arm when I turned to leave. “Sebastian. What are you going to do?”
I shook him off. “I’m taking your suggestion.”
His eyebrows rose as he pointed to the center of his chest. “My suggestion. And what suggestion was that?”
I buckled my gun harness over my shoulders before shrugging into the coat a staff member held out for me, then I stormed toward the door.
Rafaello called after me, “Not the kidnapping one, right?”
“What do you think?”
CHAPTER 10
SABRINA
Iwasn’t supposed to be here.
My phone screen glowed in the dim light of the cafe. A few heads turned as I slammed it facedown against the tabletop.
It was one minute past when I was supposed to meet Sebastian Diamanti’s driver.
Hating myself for doing it, I flipped the phone back to face up and hit the screen again.
Two minutes past.
The screen dimmed.
Doubt crept over me as my fingers clenched around my glass.
I shouldn’t have disobeyed Sebastian and come to this party instead.
Disobedience to his commands wasn’t really an option.
He’d made that clear earlier.
But something deep inside me rebelled against the idea of being his possession. I’d been told to obey my whole life—by my mother, by fear, by men like him. Not tonight.
I wasn’t sure if I was being brave or reckless, but I knew one thing: I couldn’t let him win.
The table erupted in cheers as one of the seamstresses stood to make a toast. “À nous, à notre succès, et à cette incroyable aventure ! On l'a fait, et on a survécu! Santé!”