Page 3 of The Queen's Game (Ruthless Games 1)

TWO

ANTHONY

“You need to propose.” My father’s shaky voice made my stomach twist.

“Papa, get off my back.” I leaned on the mahogany bar, staring at the crowd wearing expensive clothes and fake smiles. “I told you, I’m not ready.” I faced him. “She won’t be happy with me right now. And we know how an unhappy wife in our world can hurt us.”

My father grunted and yelled to the bartender. “I’m waiting for my damn Chivas.”

“I’ll get your drink.”

“You’ll get Rebecca to dance with you. Touch her. Let everyone here at least think you and she are engaged.”

A shock of lust rolled through me, picturing my hands all over Rebecca’s curvy body. The way Bastien had squeezed her tits while they made out in high school... I swore I could feel the sensation, how firm they were when I watched the two of them fuck in the backseat of his car. That was a long time ago. Now...

“All she does is give me dirty looks.” I took a one-hundred-dollar bill out of my wallet and waved it to get some damn drinks. “Do we want to advertise that she hates me?”

“She’s yours. Giovanni promised me. Her father’s word is still gold in our world.”

I shook my head and didn’t bother reminding him that this wasn’t the old country where a woman had no say in her fate. Plus, if the rumors were true that Nate Domenico planned to stay in L.A., Rebecca would find herself with a considerable amount of power.

A powerful woman didn’t need a husband and there was a strong possibility Rebecca would tell me to fuck off. If I truly wanted her as my wife, I had to try to make her like me. Stomach me, at the very least. She could never love me because she still loved Bastien. I saw it in how she looked at him.

A shudder went through me, thinking he could be the next King of New York if I didn’t step up and make a play for Rebecca. If Bastien challenged my claim to her, I’d lose everything. He broke up with her after finding out her father and my father made a deal five years ago.

She’s barely smiled since. A fucking shame, since she was truly one of the most beautiful women I’d ever laid eyes on. Our children would be goddamn gorgeous.

I watched her seat Giovanni, that greedy father of hers at a table near the dais. Politicians and billionaires paid extra to sit with them. A look of stress painted her features even more than usual. This was my chance to bring her around to my side. Be a hero. Make her laugh. Make her wet between the legs for me. My specialty.

Crossing the room with nearly every set of female eyes on me, I felt like a god. “Dance with me,” I whispered to Rebecca from behind.

Inhaling the sweet scent of her dark, shiny hair falling in soft waves down her back, I closed my eyes and imagined waking up next to that bundle of silk on my chest every morning. A blissful look into my future with her sent not only a jolt of heat straight to my cock, but made my heart flutter.

No.

Falling for Rebecca was out of the question. I refused to love a woman who loved someone else.

“No thank you, Anthony.” She stared at me like she knew I was full of shit and didn’t really want to dance with her.

“Dance with the man, Rebecca,” Giovanni crowed from his seat and laid a creepy wink on me.

“I’m not here to dance, Dad.”

“Please.” I smiled at her, reaching inside myself to show her I could be nice. “Just one dance?”

Exhaling, she said, “Sure.”

When she laid her hand in mine, a shock went up my arm. No. Come on. I couldn’t have useless feelings like love for her. Yet, I had to convince her to marry me. “You look beautiful.”

“Fuck you, Anthony.” She cut me with a smile.

Blood rushed through my veins, and I lowered my hand to grip her ass. Pulling her against my growing erection because I fucking loved a challenge, I whispered, “Say the word, princess.”

“In your dreams.” She pulled my hand back to her waist.

“I don’t have to dream of you. I heard you moan with Bastien plenty of times. And you know what?” I licked my lips. “You loved it when I watched you.”

“I was seventeen and stupid.” Those blue eyes focused on me this time and shit, the sadness there gutted me. “And if you touch my ass again, I’ll take one of those knives tucked into your jacket and you’ll lose the hand.”

“Fair enough.” I swung her around. “How are you, by the way?”

“Fine.”

“Becca,” I slipped with the name I called her when we were friends. When she looked at me like the nice guy I was in high school and not the ruthless manwhore she saw now. “Give me some credit to know when a woman says she’s fine, she’s anything but.”

“It’s none of your business how I am. How’s that for an answer?” She truly had no idea her father promised her to me.

With Nate out of the picture, surely Old Man Domenico would hand his kingdom over to me and my father. When I married her. If she agreed to marry me.

“That’s terrible about Giancarlo’s brother, huh?” I figured I’d change the subject. “Going missing like that.”

“His mother must be beyond heartbroken. Salvatore was the light of her life.” Her eyes strayed across the dance floor, and she began biting her lip.

I glanced in that direction.

Bastien. Figures.

When she met my eyes, to my surprise this time, they burned dark and hot, sifting wild fantasies through my brain.

“Have dinner with me next week, Rebecca.” Let’s turn the tables on that motherfucker. Have him watch us. Watch me lick your pussy, then fuck it till you scream my name. Leave you breathless and dripping.

She cinched her eyebrows together at me, creating an adorable anger line in the middle. “For what?”

Call me sick, but I liked it when Becca was mad at me. I bet she fucked harder that way. I’d punish her right back. Agony and ecstasy were my brand. Smiling, I said, “It makes sense for us to be together. You and me.”

“Who says I’m looking for a husband?” Her glance slid once again to Bastien, staring at us while leaning against his table. She backed away, holding her throat. “Dance over.”

Sebastien Daria was too hot as fuck for his own good, sending heat to my cock. But he was clearly the biggest idiot because he could parade around enough gorgeous women, advertising how much pussy he was getting. Surely that would turn Becca off.

If not pussy, then dick.

Sebastien Daria had more secrets than I had knives.

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