Page 34 of The Bratva's Innocent Sold Bride
Barely into her thirties, she acted like an old-time society matron, herding everyone together for pictures. Not many people knew that she secretly ran one of the most accurate gossip sites, or considered how it got so much insiderinformation. She was discreet as long as you played along and pretended not to know anything. Cross her and you could be ruined, or at least badly humiliated.
Mat looked like he was bursting with pride as he wrapped his arm around me in the small crowd of other couples while Dana got her photos. At first, I thought it was because he was in the mecca of the rich and powerful, but he only had eyes for me.
He was proud of me for little more than getting along with the people I’d known for my whole life. I didn’t get him, but it still made me feel good. I needed to be good at something, or it didn’t feel like I existed.
We went through the buffet, which was laden with rich and exotic food, including a whole roast goose and suckling pig. Everything was adorned with grapes, apricots, and tiny mandarin oranges, and there was a six-foot-tall tower of miniature cakes decorated to look like landmarks in Rome.
I popped a mini Trevi fountain into my mouth and led Mat to the sidelines to peruse everyone. We’d arrived about halfway, so there were still many working their way down the photo line, or planning on showing up late to miss it altogether.
“You’re amazing,” he said, scowling at his tiny frosted colosseum. “What a waste of time.”
“I told you,” I said, smiling because I knew he meant the elaborate confection.
“It would taste just as good, shaped like a normal slice of cake.
“But then no one could brag about how long it took the celebrity baker to make each one,” I told him. “Are you not entertained?”
He hugged me close to his side as his eyes swept the crowd. “I’m not only entertained, I’m enlightened. Is that the right word? I’ve discovered another facet to my little treasure.”
“What? Me?”
He nodded, still scanning the crowd. “Everyone loves you.”
“No, they don’t,” I said seriously, and he looked down at me. “Some of them are okay, some are my friends, at least I think so. But when word comes out that Taurus Ingenuity is bankrupt and my father is ruined, this all goes away.”
“It won’t,” he said, as solemn as a promise. “I’ll be running this place by the time that happens, and you’re my wife.”
I wriggled out of his grasp. “All my life, I was someone’s daughter, and now I’m just someone’s wife. Can you really not understand why—”
He cut me off with a kiss, wrapping me in his strong arms. “I do understand, CJ,” he murmured against my ear, swaying with the soft music. “But please, let’s enjoy this evening. Who’s that man with the gold cane?”
I nestled against him as we kept swaying, and I filled him in on everyone he pointed out. He was especially interested in the newcomers as they arrived, and the man with the horn announced them. But as the party got underway and more couples started dancing, he led me out onto the proper dance floor.
“Is it wrong to want to show you off?” he asked, his tongue practically in my ear.
I shivered and pulled myself closer as everyone around me drifted into the background. Mat could have started unzipping my dress, and I would have been okay with it.
“Probably, but I don’t mind,” I said, then tipped my chin to smile at him. This was better than arguing. Much better. “You don’t exactly make me want to hide in a corner.” He kissed me for the compliment, his hands moving lower. “We have to remember where we’re at,” I sighed when he started moving his lips down the side of my neck.
His hands slid back up to a respectable spot on my low back, giving me a mischievous look. “When we get home, we’ll have our own private dance floor.”
“Out under the stars,” I said, tilting my head so he could kiss that spot I liked so much, right behind my ear.
“Without so many clothes between us.”
“Do you promise?” I asked. When he touched me, he could twist me around his little finger, make me do or say anything. I wanted a little of that from him.
“That and more,” he said.
The horn blaster made him swivel his head around to check who was arriving, and the moment was lost. But I had that promise of more for later, and I was going to hold him to it. Someone who had started a huge nondenominational church in the last two or three years and was at all the big fundraisers came in with his haughty-looking wife.
“Those two can’t be more different,” I said, nodding subtly as they walked toward the buffet. “He’s just about as nice as can be, welcoming to everyone, and she’s always got that bitter lemon look.”
Mat smiled down at me, dipping me at a swell in the music, kissing me on the way back up. “I know something about the good reverend, I bet you don’t. All those refugees he took in last spring? Most of them weren’t fleeing anything except maybe bad debts, and he’s got them working for him in everything from illegal gambling to prostitution now.”
I was so shocked I stopped dancing and stared up at Mat with my jaw to my chest. “No. Absolutely not.”
“His wife tried to divorce him, but he’ll implicate her, which is probably why she looks like she bit into something that tastes bad all the time.” He looked smug. “You’re not the only one who can find out secrets.”
