said to her.
I will love you forever.
Liar.
Fucking, fucking liar.
She was here on her own—and that changed everything.
Rafael wanted to tear his hands through his hair to relieve some of the pressure on his skull, but he couldn’t because she’d see, and she’d guess.
Fuck.
Matt should have told him she’d be on her own. Okay. Unfair. It was his own damn fault Matt hadn’t told him. He’d been so focused on pretending Veronica’s presence—or absence—was immaterial to him that when Matt had cautiously volunteered that she’d sent in her RSVP, he’d laughed it off with a flippant “Too much water under that bridge.”
Matt had instantly dropped the subject. Leaving Rafael to kick himself for not giving a more open-ended response that might have gotten Matt to slip up on the radio silence for once and reveal if she was dating anyone now that her second divorce had gone through.
The only way to find shit like that out about a Johnson was for someone in the know to straight-out tell you. Johnsons didn’t have social media accounts, they didn’t give interviews—at least not the personal kind—and when they were photographed at society events they were polished and PR’d to the hilt, not a hair or a word out of place. End result? Only the easy stuff was out there in cyberspace. Which is how he knew she was working as an acquisitions editor in the Johnson/Charles Book Group (Daddy’s publishing company—no surprise there), which authors she’d signed, and the charities she supported with her ambassadorial presence as well as her dollars. He’d seen photos of her with her husbands at society parties, but no accompanying gossip.
The only romantic gossip he’d ever read about a Johnson involved Veronica’s younger sister, Scarlett—and he’d only discovered that because the guy had been from some backwater town where he’d made the local paper after a drug bust. It had pissed Rafael off because Scarlett dating some lowlife druggie, even temporarily, made a mockery of his own sacrifice in leaving Veronica. Like, what were her parents thinking to let that guy within touching distance?
Digression. The important thing was that he knew nothing about the current state of Veronica’s love life. The fact that she was here solo didn’t mean there wasn’t a boyfriend stashed somewhere, a new fiancé in the wings. It’d be just like her to have turned up alone for no other reason than to play a game with his head, as though she hadn’t tortured him enough.
Veronica: Why would I bring someone, Rafa? I can’t be bothered to make you jealous.
Him: Yeah, well, I haven’t been pining for you, either, and I don’t care that you weren’t pining for me. God damn you to hell, Veronica!
He looked down at his hand, fisted on his thigh. It was vibrating with an unholy mix of impotent lust and outright rage.
Felicity put her hand over that fist. “Stop, Rafa!”
He hissed in a breath. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? I’m supposed to be in love with you, aren’t I? And anyway, it’s what your mom calls you.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“I’m not her, you mean.”
He laid a deceptively gentle hush finger over her lips for the benefit of any spectators. “Get your hand off me and shut up.”
Felicity, the brat, sucked the tip of his finger into her mouth.
“Stop it,” he said under his breath.
“How about I kiss you on the mouth?” she whispered back. “See what she thinks of that?”
He didn’t answer. He was too irritated at himself for dragging Felicity over from Los Angeles for a performance now rendered unnecessary.
Felicity craned up to get her mouth close to his unaccommodating ear. To the uninitiated, it probably looked like she was cooing love words but what she actually said was, “How much is Matt worth, anyway? That engagement ring on Romy’s finger’s a whopper—I can see the sparkle from here.”
Rafael’s hand went instantly, instinctively, to the breast pocket of his jacket—where the ring he’d bought Veronica once upon a time, which he always carried with him, was. Nothing like Romy’s ring. Or either of Veronica’s. Thank God he’d spared himself the indignity of producing it all those years ago.
It was exactly the memory he needed to bring him back to the moment. “More than you and I put together times a hundred,” he said.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “You’re going after her, aren’t you?” she said.
He breathed in. Out. “Yep.”
“Am I going to be able to stop you?”
“Nope.”
THE WEDDING WAS over and she hadn’t fainted. Yippee.
Now for the tricky part. Getting out of the chapel ahead of Rafael, fighting her way to the front of the throng of well-wishers swamping the bride and groom, and pretending she wasn’t interested in Rafael’s exact whereabouts while doing the kiss-and-hug routine with the wedding party.
But all it took was Romy’s sympathetic voice in her ear, asking, “You okay?” to make her want to scream from nerves.
“Hello!” she said, exasperated. “I told you I’d be on my best behavior. What did you think I was going to do?”
Matt dragged her away from Romy, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug. “Hire a hit man, of course,” he said.
Veronica kissed him on the cheek. “Now there’s an idea!” she said as he released her. “I must call Scarlett and get the name of hers. Although I think she calls him an enforcer, not a hit man.”
“What the fuck? Go, Scarlett!”
“She’s not dating him, Matthew. She knows him in a strictly client-privilege way.”
Matt swung around to beckon to Teague, who was multitasking with a piece of paper in one hand and his cell phone at his ear. “Keep an eye on Table Two tonight, will you? Do your best to stop the bloodbath V’s planning.”
Veronica gave a thump to one of Matt’s massive shoulders. “I’ll hire the enforcer to take you out if you’re not caref—” Breaking off as the implication hit. “Hang on. What do you mean Table Two?”
“He’s on Table Two,” Teague chipped in, disconnecting his call and leaning in to kiss Veronica on the forehead. “And he’s about a hundred feet away, waylaid by at least seven, eight...no, ten autograph hunters, who are besieging Felicity, because Romy’s friends clearly have no pride. So if you want to get away, now’s the moment.”
Veronica
