Chapter 47 Bridal style
RORY POV
"So... did you do it?"
Vivienne didn't even look up from the bowl. Her hands were buried in deep red batter, her knuckles dusted with flour. We were in the middle of baking a red velvet cake and she was about to ask me something deeply inappropriate. She didn't ask me all day which I was grateful for not knowing she was to do ask.
“Do what?” I said.
“What I told you to do,” she said. “Finger yourself.”
I hushed her immediately, my eyes darting toward the heavy oak doors. The guards were always hovering just out of sight, and the thought of them hearing this made my skin prickle.
I hesitated. Then decided there was no point lying to her.
“Yes,” I said, feeling the heat climb up my neck immediately. “I did.”
“Did you enjoy it?” she asked. “And who did you imagine...your douche ex?”
I had imagined her brother.
Not once. Three times. I had touched myself three times last night thinking about that face and those hands and the way he moved and it was completely sick because he had made it very clear I was not allowed to love him.
“I imagined your brother,” I whispered.
It was only fair I told her. I just hoped she didn’t tell him.
She smiled slowly. The most knowing smile I had ever seen on anyone’s face.
“I knew you liked him,” she said, slapping my shoulder casually.
“Why would you say that?” I said. “I’m not supposed to love him. He hates my guts. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if I disobeyed him.”
It was genuinely sick. And I had still managed to come on my finger three times imagining him.
“He wouldn’t kill you,” Viviane said. “If he wanted to kill you he would have done it the moment he first laid eyes on you. And trust me, it’s not just about you looking like Anastasia that’s keeping you alive. He finds you intriguing. Even I do honestly. You’re the closest thing he’s cared about since Ana.”
Maybe that was because I wore her face.
“Why did you say you knew I liked him?” I asked.
“Maybe the way your body reacts every time I mention his name,” she said. “Or the fact that you watched him kill two men in a ballroom and somehow still didn’t hate him.”
She was right.
I had tried to hate him. I had every reason to hate him — the threats, the forced marriage, the way he had looked at me with disgust when I said I loved him, the two men dead on the ballroom floor, the blood he had licked off his own finger. I had all of it lined up and ready and somehow none of it had turned into hate. If anything I was drawn to the danger of him, to the way he moved like a god and acted like a monster.A man so unhinged and so certain, who would go to any length to protect what was his.
"How did it go with Luke?" | asked, desperate to change the subject.
Vivienne's expression shifted, a flicker of genuine irritation crossing her face. She sighed, setting the whisk down.
“The sex was incredible but he ruined my entire night with his stupid boundaries lecture. Can you imagine? he took me five times that same night and then decided to tell me we can’t keep doing this anymore.” She rolled her eyes dramatically.
Five times. In one night. How was she standing upright right now?
“Maybe he’s worried your brother suspects something,” I offered.
“I doubt it,” she said. “If Alexander knew he would have killed Luke already whether anything was actually happening or not.” She set the cake tin down and began trimming the burnt edges. “We have to wait an hour before adding the whipped cream.”
“Okay,” I said, watching her work. This whole process was too long and too complicated. I doubted I would ever attempt it alone.
“I didn’t expect you two to get along this much.”
Rosemary’s voice came from the kitchen doorway.
She walked in, looked at me and gave me a small smile.
I didn’t return it.
I wasn’t ready to. What she had said to me still sat in my chest exactly where it had landed and I didn’t care if being cold to an elderly woman was rude. My feelings were still hurt.
“What did you expect,” Viviane said, “she’s my twin in every lifetime.”
I wasn’t sure if she meant me or Anastasia. I wasn’t sure Viviane was entirely sure either.
“It’s beautiful truly,” Rosemary said softly, something painful moving across her face. “Sometimes it’s just too hard for some of us to move on.”
She walked back out.
The kitchen went quiet.
“Do you miss your husband?” Viviane asked suddenly.
The question caught me completely off guard.
Did I miss him?
We barely spoke. He had been gone for almost two days. But I did miss him pressing me against his chest every night. I missed the way his eyes lingered on me too long. I missed him asking how my day went in that low unhurried voice like the answer genuinely mattered to him. I missed his suffocating presence that made every room feel smaller and more charged. I wondered where he had gone. I wondered if he was killing someone right now.
“You miss him,” Viviane said, reading my face.
I nodded.
“Does your brother always kill people?” I asked. “Is that like a side hobby for him?”
Viviane opened her mouth.
The atmosphere shifted.
The air changed the way it always changed when he entered a space, the warmth getting edged out and replaced with something darker and more charged. I felt it before I heard the footsteps.
Alexander walked into the kitchen.
Looking like nothing but a god. His coat. His dark hair. That face that did things to me I was now painfully aware of given last night.
His eyes found me first. They always found me first.
“Hello wife,” he said. A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth as his gaze moved over me slowly from head to toe. “You could always just ask me that question directly.”
I bit my lower lip.
He had heard me.
“Don’t be salty big brother,” Viviane said cheerfully. “You scared the poor girl half to death on your wedding night.”
He hummed. Then he turned back to me and stretched his arms out.
“No hug for your husband?” he said. “You haven’t seen me in two days.”
He was mocking me.
He was absolutely mocking me, standing in the kitchen with that smirk like he hadn’t been gone for two days without a word and now expected a hug like a normal husband.
I looked at his outstretched arms.
Then I turned back to the cake.
"Someone's mad at me," he mused. I could feel the heat radiating off his body, even without him touching me. "Did you miss me, Aurora?"
I scraped a bit of stray flour off the marble, my knuckles white. "I barely noticed you were gone," | lied, my voice remarkably steady despite the hurricane in my chest.
"I doubt that," he hummed. I could practically hear the smirk in his voice.
"Okay, I think I need to leave you two."
Viviane said heading to the door. Traitor.
He stepped closer, his shadow falling over the cake. "It's late. Let's get you to bed."
Before I could even think of a retort about the frosting, his large hand came down in one swift, deliberate motion. He smacked my ass with a firm, stinging weight that sent a jolt of electricity straight to my core.
A sharp, involuntary moan escaped my throat. a sound of pure, shocked pleasure that I couldn't pull back.
My face went so hot I thought I might actually combust.
Alexander chuckled. Low and dark and deeply satisfied with himself.
Then his arms came around me and I was off the floor before I had processed the movement — lifted clean off my feet, held against his chest, his arms completely effortless under my weight.
Bridal style.
He was carrying me bridal style out of the kitchen like I weighed absolutely nothing and I was too mortified about the moan to even protest.
"Alexander! Put me down!"
"No," he murmured, his eyes locked on mine with a possessiveness that made my toes curl.
As he turned to carry me out of the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of Vivienne leaning against the doorframe. She wasn't leaving, she was watching the whole scene with a triumphant grin. As our eyes met, she gave me a slow, deliberate wink.
I hid my face in the crook of Alexander's neck, the scent of cedar and whisky enveloping me as he carried me toward the bedroom, leaving the scent of red velvet and Vianne's laughter far behind.