I awoke in the arms of Liam Warren.
My husband.
I'll never get used to calling him that.
Capitulated to deep, torpid listlessness, I nuzzled my cheek against Liam's sculpted chest and listened to his regular heartbeat. He's dead to the world yet sensed my nearness. Respiring a heavy sigh of contentment, he tightened an arm across the dip of my spine and brushed my hip with dutiful fingertips. His twisted, white-gold chain rested low on his torso. Alexa Haines' name inscribed one of the polished military tags, which required amendment. If it were a cold morning, I didn't feel it. Heat radiated off his body, so the skewed sheets, clustered cushions on the floor and our naked bodies can remain a while longer.
In my current state, I lacked vivacity and enthusiasm. I certainly have no interest in leaving the bed, not even for a bathroom break, but muffled conversations in the garden reminded me of early morning breakfast arrangements with friends and family.
"I love you," I whispered, pressing a kiss on his stubble jaw.
Disconnected from Liam's almost inescapable limbs, I soared from the bed, grabbed the coverlet from the floor and draped it over his unabashed bareness. He'll berate me for not awakening him. I hate to disturb a man who seldom sleeps, so it's worth the pending chastisement.
Previously, whilst I slept between intermittent sex sessions, Liam laid out a slate-grey suit alongside a black cape-sleeved knee-high dress and stiletto heels with gold-tone embellishments to match the Versace waist belt. It's a glamorous choice. I checked the coat's inner label with investigatory hands, saw the extortionate price tag and whistled appreciation.
Liam promised me a fairy tale wedding and a magical honeymoon. Thus far, he's exceeded expectations to honour those promises, not that I expected otherwise. He paid meticulous attention to details to ensure I had essentials for our flight this afternoon. The shoes, for example. I own the exact pair at home in beige, which tells me he scoured the Manor's wardrobe prior to recent expenditures.
Showered, dressed and primed for the day within forty-five minutes, I trailed the conveyed scent of bacon and ventured downstairs to the castle's concentric function room, where hired caterers in their all-white uniform served traditional breakfast amongst the scrumptious continental menu of fresh fruit, warm pastries, toasted sandwiches and hot beverages.
Handwoven rugs enriched the oak herringbone floor. Medieval portraits and wall tapestries illustrated several members of the English royal dynasty. Brass light fixtures illuminated the maze of alcoves and baroque ceiling, the wooden tables interspersed by constellated guests who enjoy distributed cuisine and champagne delivered by amiable sommeliers.
I felt the eyes of another before Vincent's lips skimmed my ear. "Do you plan to move anytime soon?" he asked, and even though I knew someone had been watching me, I bristled. "No need to flinch, Angel. I don't bite." Decked in luxurious fibres, expensive silk and eye-catching jewellery, he moved into my peripheral, a mischievous twinkle in his ice blues. "Not unless you ask nicely."
Was Vincent flirting with me?
No, don't be so ridiculous, Alexa.
"Pondering what to eat," I lied, pinching a strawberry from the service station. "Have you seen the others?" It's busy here, but I couldn't see my friends anywhere. "Tony?"
"Do I look like his personal bodyguard?" His eyebrow curved. "How should I know the whereabouts of your father?"
"Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine this morning."
"I try," he said lightly, rubbing a green apple on the lapel of his grey suit. "Where's my brother?"
"Do I look like Liam's personal assistant?" I retorted mockingly. "How should I know?"
His teeth sank into the apple, and juice trickled down his chin. "Did you not warm his bed last night?"
I popped another strawberry in my mouth. "Liam's asleep."
Lost in momentary reverie, Vincent hummed. "Will he join us for breakfast?"
"I imagine so," I answered warily. "Is something wrong?"
"No." He sucked apple juice from his thumb. "Brad."
I glanced over my shoulder to find the man standing ramrod behind me. "Hey, Brad."
Brad ignored me. "Fraternising with the boss' wife, Vinny Boy." An element of suspiciousness glossed his throaty voice. "I'll give you some loving guidance because I'm nice like that." Rudely pushing in front of me, he snagged a china plate. "Irritate your brother? He'll likely slap you on the wrist. Fuck with Alexa?" He piled seeded toast on his plate. "It'll result with you in an unmarked grave for homeless chums to piss all over, which, to all intents and purposes, is well underway and what I happen to wish for daily."
"Brad," I berated, and the man, unfazed by reprimand, jerked an insouciant shoulder. "Be pleasant."
Three heaps of sliced avocado abutted Brad's plated toast. "How's the hangover?" His question was for the bedraggled Josh whose shaded cheeks and sunken eyes exemplified a fun yet late night. "I heard everything," Brad punctuated theatrically, forking a cherry tomato in his mouth. "Just putting that out there."
Josh raked a hand through his unruly brown hair. "I need something to kill this headache."
Blond Suit snorted. "The consequences of a greedy fanny magnet."
"For fuck's sake." Josh rubbed his temples, irked by Brad's jovial mood. "Someone put a gag in his mouth."
"He refused to share," Brad tells me, licking melted butter from off his fingers. "Such a child."
"Don't be jealous." Josh poured himself an orange juice. "It's embarrassing."
"This isn't homage. You settled for two..." Brad side-eyed me. "Well, they weren't very wholesome looking."
"Are you mental?" Josh shook his head in disbelief. "Not every male species has misogynistic tendencies. I can condone unbecoming appearances in exchange for vivaciousness unlike he-who-shall-not-be-named."
Chowing down strawberries with moreish delight, I eyed Vincent, who paid no heed to their lovers' spats. With chosen emotionlessness, he watched Alberto Moretti from across the room. Alberto models a fashion line of Italian's finest as he ushered his small family to a round table whilst relaying breakfast orders to the waiter. I had no idea why Alberto attended the wedding, but I can only assume, based on the strained, heated confrontation between him and Liam and the enigmatically indirect discussion of perfect paragons, his attendance is a prerequisite for something greater than alliance.
"I am not strongly prejudiced against women." Brad put his back to the counter, his legs crossing at the ankles. "In fact, I quite possibly couldn't live without them."
"You fat bastard." Nate appeared from nowhere to claim the crispy bacon seconds away from entering Josh's mouth. "You had a cheat meal yesterday. Don't take liberties in my absence."
"Nate." Josh is heartbroken. "I am dying. Please, for one fucking day, cut me some slack. If I don't consume greasy food and sugar, I will pass out." His unwanted trainer resisted stubbornly. "I have abs for bastard days. What's the point in this healthy bullshit?"
Togged up to impress, Blaire stood beside me, fussing with her blow-dried hair.
My jaw clenched.
Her proximity made me want to claw at my skin.
"No," Nate protested vehemently. "It's about the gains. Less fat. More carbs. We need to turn these lean arms into muscle." He squeezed Josh's forearm and lifted his eyebrows. "See? I could put a dent in that tissue."
"A little birdy told me that you two caused a ruckus last night." Brad waved a fork between Nate and Blaire. "Educate me, Blaire." Her name projected from his mouth like bitter-tasting poison. "How big was the mouse?"
Nate's nostrils flared. "Don't start, Brad."
"What?" With feigned guiltlessness, Brad raised his hands meekly, a plate on one palm, a fork gripped within the fingers of the other. "It's a simple question."
Blaire chewed the inside of her cheek. "Big enough for me to lose clear-headedness."
"An adult then," Brad mused, not taking his eyes off the plate as he stabbed mixed berries to death. "How did it get on the ceiling?"
"It didn't climb on the ceiling." Nate handed Blaire plated deliciousness, buttery toast, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and Cumberland sausages. "Blaire panicked and misaimed."
"How does one lose sight of the target, though?" Brad sipped from a steamy mug of coffee. "Under pressure, you'd flinch and chip the wall or a piece of furniture. It's a likely event. The ceiling? Sounds like a diversionary tactic—"
"Come on, Brad." Nate's forlornness fractured my heart. He's invested in Blaire and wants nothing more than the favourable reception of his brothers. "We talked about this. You swore to me that you'd give her a chance."
I side-eyed Blaire. Even though the annoying parasite remained demure and silent, her eyes gleamed in triumph.
"More fool you." Brad set his mug aside. "You should never take a drunk man seriously. Christ, I'd sell my dog when under the influence."
Josh rubbed his tired eyes. "You don't have a dog."
"I know." Brad's shit-eating smirk raked a smile to my lips. "So, Mrs Warren. Did you have fun last night? Break any beds, perhaps?"
My smile endured. "No broken beds."
"Well, that's unacceptable." Brad frowned in contemplation. "I broke two."
Laughter flew out of me. "It's not a competition, Brad."
"It's disappointing, though." He aimed the fork in my direction. "If you were my newly beloved, I'd make sure you couldn't walk for a week."
I delivered a dramatic eye-roll. "How romantic?"
Brad winked, helping himself to a second portion of hash browns.
I accepted a coffee from Vincent. "Thank you."
He gave me a tepid smile.
"Honestly," Blaire whispered under her breath, and my ears perked up to listen. "You'd think she'd be grateful with one Warren brother."
Assured I heard incorrectly, I turned my head in time for us to lock eyes. "What did you just say?"
"What?" Blaire's eyebrows drew in slightly. "I didn't say anything."
"Yes, you did," I said in a harsh tone of decisiveness, and her critical eyes sharpened. "Don't hold back for them." Disguising ire, I flouted the men and their penetratingly clueless stares. "Go ahead. Finish your accusation."
"Alexa, I thought we agreed, for Nate's sake, to be friends." Offering me a sympathetic smile, she lowered her hypercritical eyes to my waistline. "Aren't you hungry?" Her knowing smirk unlocked a beast inside me. "You should eat more."
Demeaned furiousness setting bone-deep, I whacked the plate from her hand, scattering mangled up food and broken china pieces across the floor. It caused a scene. Seated people peered up from their tables to watch our bellicose exchange. "You should eat less."
Nate stepped forward to intervene. "Alexa—"
"Careful." Incomprehensibly furious, Vincent gripped Nate's suit sleeve, and the two phlegmatic men had an intense stand-off. "Alexa is no longer Liam's bed mate. She's his wife. Her position takes precedence over yours and any other member of the institution, including the brainless scandalmonger who dared to stigmatise superiors."
"A false accusation made by a man who wants to fuck his brother's wife," Blaire countered, and my spine lengthened at her scandalous accusations. "You are in no position to cause trouble."
His eyes imploring Blaire to pipe down, Nate ran an inked hand down his face. "Babe—"
"The meretricious woman has a risible reputation of untrustworthiness and slow-wittedness." Vincent's lips cracked into a dark, taunting smirk. "In contradiction to your line of falsifications, I speak the truth as I'm not afraid of it. You need to learn a thing or two about aphorism. As I am more than inclined to inculcate, I'll give you an example." He studied the second helping of fruit in his clenched hand. "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones." His teeth sank into the apple's waxy green layer. "Wouldn't you agree, Miss Pearce?"
It took everyone ten seconds to realise Miss Pearce was Blaire.
"What?" Inhaling a sharp breath, Nate pinned Blaire with an interrogatory glare. "Is he for real?"
"Well, would you look at that?" With an impish grin, Brad waggled his eyebrows at Blaire, who stands ramrod straight and wide-eyed. "It looks like little miss goody two shoes over here unearthed some skeletons."
"Technically, Vincent divulged." Josh caught me in his sights and smiled. "Alexa?"
I shook my head slowly. "I got lost at 'aphorism.'"
"Same." Josh barked a laugh. "But I didn't miss the fact Blaire lied."
"I never lied," Blaire snarled, her hands curling into fists. "At what point did any of you care enough to ask about my past?"
"I did." Fragments of best china disintegrated under Nate's shoes as he moved in front of her. "Pearce? Is that right, or is Vincent attention-seeking?"
"Attention-seeking?" Vincent laughed bitterly. "Don't be so foolish, Alzaim. I merely reciprocated Blaire's antagonism." Pocketknife flipped open. He pressed the sharpest point to the apple and peeled a layer to his mouth. "It's only fair. Surely, you can give credence to that, Jessica?"
Vincent's perturbingly self-satisfied certitude forestalled Blaire's counterattack. Sanguine yet misty-eyed, she disparaged everyone to address Nate. "Can we do this in private?"
"Jessica Pearce." Brad's voice was thick. "I don't know about you guys, but I feel wholly offended by this revelation."
Nate looked ready to pounce but propitiated himself. "Shut up, Brad."
"Nate, get off my fucking dick." Brad went from the omnipresent comedian to the redoubtable, splenetic man everyone loves yet fears. "I'll snap her neck without a second thought. Don't test me."
"That's a violation of The Brotherhood, and you know it." His back to Blaire, Nate shields her from the others. "Quit looking at me like that. I am allowed to argue my case."
"It's not your case to dispute." Hurling the place across the service station, Brad shoved himself in the firing line. Nose-to-nose, the men stood, neither backing down. "You let a woman come between us," he whispered so quietly, I almost missed it. "I'm your day one."
A lump shifted in Nate's throat. "Don't make this about you."
"Imprudent decisions can jeopardise the entire syndicate. You are goddamn selfish to expect me or any other brother not to consider possible defencelessness. We don't know this bitch from fucking Adam—"
Nate punched Brad square in the face, and horrified gasps resounded. On impact, Brad crashed into me and the coffee in my hand scolds our fall. "You motherfucker." Rolling off my sprawled-out body, he staggered to his feet and wiped trickled blood from his busted lip. I, however, laid on the floor like a starfish, unable to decipher the escalated madness. "I'll fucking kill you!"
Vincent's hands slipped under my arms. He helped me stand and dusted squashed toast from off my back. Dizziness abolished, I regained vision and saw Brad and Nate exchange blows as their heavy bodies landed on the table, where a congratulatory book laid for guests to sign. Two friends pummelling each other was an extremely upsetting display. "Josh!" I yelled, but the bored man continued to eat pancakes. "Do something—"
"That's enough." Liam's stentorian voice sent a shiver down my spine. "You incompetent idiots."
Emerging from the castle's shadows, Liam, provoked by their irrevocable brawl, fisted Brad's jacket and ripped him away from Nate, whose hellacious emotions spiralled out of control. Inked knuckles swollen, his green eyes shone like beacons, and the gash above his pierced eyebrow exuded a bothersome amount of blood. "Does someone want to tell me what the fuck is going on?" Both men separate with Liam between them. His angered expression was an impenetrable barrier nobody wanted to overstep, outmanoeuvre or challenge. "Answer me!"
As Liam objurgated his men, an air of uncomfortableness seeped through our hostilities as conversationalists quietened down to listen. Even the catering staff positioned themselves behind the hired bar to watch the nerve-wracking disturbance.
"You dare the road of impertinence." Liam regarded both men haughtily. "I am due to leave London in two hours. I should be outside, enjoying breakfast with my wife. Instead, I am to babysit a pair of infantile wankers to prevent them from killing one another."
"Misunderstanding." Brad glared at Nate as he spoke. "Isn't that right, brother?"
Nate's bottom lip wedged within gritted teeth. "Something like that."
"Something like that," Liam derided, his hands tucked inside his trouser pockets, probably to stop himself from lashing out. "And my woman was caught in the crossfire."
"Liam, it's a dispute amongst men." Uneasiness slithered through my veins. I will not stand here and let them face public humiliation because he believes I suffered a backlash. "It's not about me—"
"It's always about you." His raised, intolerant voice debilitated my body and mind. "You will not pardon their self-obsessed childishness. Those boys," he ridiculed them with conceited disparagement, "pathetically allow a woman to defend their honour."
Brad strived to intercede. "Bossman—"
"No." Liam scuffed scrambled eggs aside with his shoe. "You will both clean this mess and then pack your shit. I want you at the club before noon. That's if I can rely on my highest paid yet undeserving men to squash this pitiful segregation bereft of a bloodbath. You," he pointed at Blaire, "better open that trap of yours before I shove a fist down your fucking throat."
Blaire's terrified gaze called upon Nate in sheer desperation, but the man shied away, having lost the courage to boil his boss' blood further. "I..." Tears sprang to her eyes. "Vincent informed them of my birth name. Brad decided I lied by omission. Nate defended me."
Liam schooled his features. "Elaborate."
"I'm not that person anymore," she whispered, and a small, infinitesimal part of me felt sorry for her. "Please don't make me go there."
"On my request, Donny reached out to the NCA and sent recent images of Blaire. They found a match in the national database. Her mother filed a missing person's report upon finding a suicide note in her daughter's bedroom." Vincent elucidated, and Liam's interest piqued. "You never thought to do a background check?"
"Avenging Alexa outweighed everything." Liam's face was impassive. "Blaire wasn't a priority then, and she's not a priority now."
"I have nothing to hide." Blaire encroached on their deliberation. "So, you uncovered my real name. Did you find any other interesting facts, Vincent? Allow me the chance of interpretation. I hate my mother and my father, so I ran away and fell into the hands of Zamira Bajramovic. You know how that story ends. There is no conspiracy here. When Warren found me, I asked if I could stay because anything, even the blatant dislike from peers, was better than returning home."
Vincent could decimate a person with one sharp look. "Was bounteous good riches too unsatisfactory for our skittish runaway?"
Rendered into soporiferous boredom, Josh quietly excused himself and meandered across the hall to where Brad and Nate shared a round of whiskey shots at the bar. Nobody noticed Josh's departure. While half-listening to Vincent's and Blaire's altercation, I watched three of my favourite Suits conciliate. It amazed me how two truculent men can beat each other and then laugh together.
It made me smile.
"If Nate's happy with Blaire, who are we to interlope on their relationship?" Without a glance at Blaire, I looked at Liam and Vincent. "A difference of opinions caused two friends to fight. Nothing is worth the divide between brothers who pledged perpetual alliance to one another. Blaire, some friendly advice." Even now, I cannot meet her gaze. "Tell Nate everything, so he's not blind-sided next time. That way, he can inform the syndicate, and everybody can move on. Vincent, something you should consider. Brad is problematic. He purposefully foments trouble to get a rise out of people. In the future, if you feel the need to educate, let's wait until Liam's here to rein in his right-hand man. Liam," I added on a refuelled breath. His sternness faded once our eyes connected. "Can we revisit this morning's events at a later date? I might sound selfishly demanding but today is about us."
Liam dipped his head to whisper something undetectable to Vincent. He bid his farewell and reached for my hand.
Moulded to his side, I laced our fingers and led him to the beverage station. He hadn't requested coffee, but I prepared him an Americano. "I hate her," I mouthed as he pulled me into his embrace. "She'll break Nate's heart."
Liam's chin rested on my shoulder. "You look beautiful."
I lifted our joint hands to my lips, kissed his knuckles. "You always say that."
"That's because I always fucking mean it," he rasped in my ear and goosebumps sprouted across my chest. "Do you want to leave early?"
"Yes," I said without hesitation. "I can't wait to have you all to myself."
Liam waved down a passing Suit. "Bring the car around," he ordered, handing the man our room key. "And give that to Brad. Tell him to drop our bags at the Manor."
Young Suit nodded. "Sir."
"Come." With one arm draped across my shoulders, Liam strode to the castle's entryway. "Let's get this beautiful ass in the sky."
I made a mental note to swipe some drugs beforehand.
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I'll return to fix any typos.
Thoughts on Vincent?
Blaire?
Nate?
Was that the final upset between Nate and Brad?
Any idea where Liam plans to take Alexa?
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