Page 51 of Reckless Promises

The prostitutes, the weeklong binges on boats. He’s half Sascha’s age but already has a worse reputation.

“You can’t do that.” I look up at Cillian with wide eyes.

I don’t know Fallon well, just enough to know any girl who ends up with Joey Moreno is being handed a death sentence.

“Technically, I can.” Cillian narrows his gaze, always making sure he keeps me in my place. “But I won’t. I have no interest in tying my family to the Morenos.”

I’m sure there’s more to that, but he doesn’t expand on it, and I don’t push given where we are. Cillian doesn’t want anyone here to think he cares about anything, and that’s fine. So he disappears into another mind-numbing conversation just like the last one, and we both pretend Joseph Moreno’s comments don’t bother him.

But I see the truth. Because I seehim.

Cillian stops to talk to a man he introduces as Reggie Porter. I don’t recognize him, and I all but zone out as they discuss the diamond market. It’s even more boring than when they talk guns, and my feet are starting to ache in these heels.

Glancing around the room, I catch a glimpse of a man I don’t know staring at my cleavage as he walks by with his wife on his arm, and I once more wish I picked a different dress instead of trying to piss off my husband.

Or maybe I’d hoped to grab Cillian’s attention.

Of all the things I’ve learned since being married to him, it’s that there’s nothing quite as exhilarating as the power to sexually frustrate him. It’s what he gets for rejecting me on our first night. Whether I wanted him or not is irrelevant. He made me feel unwanted, and he’ll pay for it.

My gaze moves around the room, focusing more on the wives than the husbands, and I wonder if I look like them. Dead in the eyes.

No soul.

I’d like to think I still have mine, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before these nights drain it away.

Most of the wives here are pretty, ranging in age. Expensive clothes, miracle face creams, diamonds and shimmer. But only a few of them look happy. And I wonder how many married for love, if any.

I glance up at Cillian and watch him talk to Reggie. He hasn’t shaved these past few days, and a dark scruff coats his strong jaw. He grinds his teeth every time he hears something he doesn’t like, and even when Reggie tries to be funny, Cillian’s smile is always as forced as his conversation.

He doesn’t want to be here either.

When I’ve been staring at him longer than I probably realize, Cillian glances down at me. But he doesn’t askif I’m okay, he just stares into my eyes. The intensity is overwhelming, so finally, I’m the one to break it.

Once more my gaze moves around the room, scanning the hundreds of cookie-cutter faces. Men with too much money and power, and the women who can’t break free of them. But as I look around, I freeze when a set of eyes turns my insides to ice.

Cold blue and focused on me from across the room.

My breath catches and I blink. But then he’s gone. And as quickly as he was here, he’s vanished, so I wonder if I imagined him.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve thought about the man who gave me the scar on my throat. But ever since Cillian asked me about it, the reminder has sat in the forefront of my brain.

How helpless I felt that day. How terrified.

“We’ll talk soon, Reggie,” Cillian says, guiding me away.

But instead of pulling us deeper into the crowd, he leads me to the side of the room and through the hallway that heads to the kitchen.

“What was that?” Cillian turns me to face him.

“What was what?” I try to play dumb, but his eyes narrow.

Cillian sees everything whether I like it or not, so he no doubt felt me tense beside him.

“It was nothing.”

“Odette.”

“I just thought I saw someone, that’s all.” I shake my head. “I was imagining things. It’s probably the champagne.”

---