Page 38 of Heartless Sinner

Vince smiled. “You like it? We can pick out a different one together if you don’t…”

“No, no, I love it. It’s perfect.”

“Good.” Vince kissed my forehead. “Then let’s head out.”

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Chapter Seventeen

Vincent

* * *

This dinner was going to be important. The Petrov’s were hosting it, so I hoped that the fact that Marla was Russian would be a positive for them, but I was ready to meet some resistance because she was so much lower down the totem pole than I was.

I knew that if I was going to get married, people would want it to be to someone from a family just as powerful as mine. I hadn’t been blind to all the mothers shoving their daughters at me during dinners just like this one. Choosing, of all people, Marla Preston, was going to make waves.

But I also knew that once they had a conversation with her, once they saw how beautiful and brilliant she was… they’d understand why I had chosen her. I would never settle for anything less than the best.

The dinner party consisted of only about forty people. Mobsters are old-fashioned and tended to cling to the remembrance of the ‘good old days’ and one of those things was holding onto shadows of the old powerful New York society, like having exclusive dinner parties where you only invited other families you thought were worth your time. Even enemy families sometimes rubbed elbows because hey, we all want to be civil or at least pretend we were, right?

I’d heard of quite a few bloody endings to these dinners, someone insulted and then going home to start a war against the person who’d offended them. You could never relax in our world.

The dinner was held in a private room on the upper floor of a hotel, because neutral ground was essential for things like this. Marla was on my arm, looking like an actual goddess. When I’d seen her dolled up in that dress, wearing the necklace I’d gotten her, it had taken everything in me not to fuck her right then and there. My whole body throbbed with want.

I was excited to flaunt her. That possessive part of me wanted to show everyone, look at this amazing woman—and she’s mine.

We entered the elegant, private dining room where the dinner was being held, and a hush fell over everyone.

I had planned for us to enter a little late so that we could really make an entrance. Dad had taught me that power plays started the moment you entered the room, and I agreed with him.

The other thirty-eight people who’d been invited stared as I walked in with Marla on my arm, my engagement ring on her finger, wearing a dress and jewelry that were obviously bought by me—clothes that she never would have afforded on her own.

“Vincent!” Our hostess, Tatiana (or Tati, to her friends and men she hoped to marry—I was the latter up until this second), swept up to us. “Always so good to see you, darling. And who is this?”

I didn’t miss the critical way she scrutinized Marla. “Tati, meet my fiancée, Marla Preston.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Marla said in Russian.

I grinned. With that one comment, Marla had cut off at the knees any claims her family wasn’t Russian enough, and made it clear they couldn’t talk about her behind her back by using Russian instead of English.

That’s my girl, I thought.

Tatiana’s smile turned a little stiff. “I’m afraid your name isn’t familiar to me.” She glanced over at me, a calculating look in her eyes. “Is she… one of us?”

“My family is rather small,” Marla replied before I could, letting the other woman know she could hold her own. “We’re under Russo protection.”

“Vincent!” someone else called to me.

I leaned into Marla’s ear. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Of course.” Marla gave me a warm smile, and I saw that glint of determination in her gaze, the same one that had appeared when I’d told her to follow my orders in bed.

I kissed her on the cheek and left her to go and speak to some others. I knew I was going to be asked questions about the woman on my arm, but there were also business arrangements that I had to discuss. Including questions about my brothers.

They’re not traditional, Vincent. I’d heard it all before, and I was ready to defend my brothers, but I had to admit that I worried about both of them and I worried about our family structure if they didn’t shape up.

Of course, people congratulated me on the engagement once I told them, but quite a few people wanted to know why I had chosen the woman I had.

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