Page 136 of Brutal Collateral

“We’re going, baby. I want to get you out of that dress first. Do you want me to send it to someone to clean up?”

Yes, pops into my head. It’s the wedding dress I wanted. But if we’re getting a divorce, it will be discarded anyway. For now, I choose ambivalence and play the shock card. “Um, sure.”

“Anything, baby.” Griffin kisses me. “Anything for you.”

He takes my hand and steers me to the private elevator to return to the villas.

“Oh God, your brother-in-law’s hotel,” I shriek.

“Shane and Connor are handling it. It’s not your fault,” he assures me with a powerful look of pride.

In the villa, I numbly move through the rooms and let Griffin undress me. He sticks my dress in a black plastic bag that showed up out of nowhere.

“Where’s your suitcase?” he asks.

I point to the closet. We stayed here in the hotel last night. After a rubdown with a warm washcloth, Griffin helps me dress into the pantsuit.

Feeling a touch better, I get a look at my husband. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you changing?”

“There’s no time. I’ll have this suit burned.”

My breath hitches at how easily he’ll discard his wedding suit. But I guess he’s thinking more practically than emotionally.

Within ten minutes, I’m fully dressed and staring at the empty suite. The ball gown is already gone. I assume Aunt Helena got rid of it hours earlier. The box with her veil is also gone. She and the girls had come up to collect their things before the garrot-wielding guy tried to kill me.

I’m more thankful than ever that I didn’t ruin her veil with my reckless behavior. All I had to do was yell out, duck, and that man would have been riddled with bullets.

No, that’s not me, that’s not who my brother saw years earlier. A Zervas killing machine.

But I’m a Quinlan now.

Damn, I don’t think I want to leave.

***

WE GET BACK TO THEtownhouse well after one a.m. Zeke, Ace, and Bourne retreat to the wardroom, and I’m gladtheyweren’t eliminated.

Outside the door to our bedroom, Griffin turns to me. “I didn’t plan a honeymoon. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t think about it since the marriage isn’t supposed to be...”

“Real?”

“Right.”

When we step inside the bedroom, Griffin stalks toward me, removing his jacket. “Are you okay? I want to fuck you. I waited seven years to feel like this again.”

“I... I waited years, too. I haven’t slept with anyone else, Griffin.”

He stills at my confession. “Why?”

“Lack of opportunity. But I was lazy. I’d had the best sex of my life with you. I wanted to remember sex that way.”

“Oh, baby. I can do a lot better than that frenzied car fuck a couple of weeks ago. Or riled up in the shower getting it out of my system.”

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