Chapter 1: The Wedding After the Funeral

SCARLETT 

I, Scarlett Hilary, never imagined betrayal could wear the face of the woman who gave me life. My mother, Maria, once draped in black mourning for my father, now wears a white lace as though grief can be erased with vows spoken too soon. She calls it love. I call it treachery.

And him—Damian. The man she chose. The man who stood beside her at the altar while the earth above my father’s grave was still fresh. He is not my father. But he is everything my father wasn’t . Hard muscle, rough edges, eyes that burn with secrets, a very huge visible cucumber and a presence that unsettles me more than I dare admit. I tell myself I hate him. I tell myself I hate her more. But my body betrays me every time he looks at me, every time his voice curls around my name, every time his touch lingers in the air even when he hasn’t touched me at all.

I am caught between mourning and desire, between disgust and hunger. Maria (my mother) sees only her second chance at happiness. But me? I see danger. I see temptation. I see the one man I should never want becoming the only man I can’t stop thinking about.

The scent of lilies still clung to the black dress I hadn’t taken off since the funeral. Maybe that was why the world felt so unreal, as if the mourning wasn’t done, as if the dirt covering my father’s coffin wasn’t still fresh under my fingernails.

Two weeks. That was all my mother needed to move on. Two weeks since I cried over my father’s grave, and now I was standing in a hotel garden watching her in white lace, smiling like a bride should never smile so soon after burying her husband. Sometimes something in me always lingers to me that my mother is responsible for my father's death. But I don't have enough evidence to prove that.

I hated her for it.

I hated the way she held onto his arm—his arm, the stranger who had suddenly walked into our lives and taken the place my father should have occupied.

Her lover.

My gaze, though, betrayed me. It always betrayed me.

Because even as I told myself I despised my mother for marrying him, I couldn’t stop staring at him.

He was nothing like my father. My father had been slim, quiet, a man whose presence filled a room because of his calm intelligence. But him oh my Gods my mother’s new man was carved out of stone and sin. Broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his white shirt, veins snaking down tattooed forearms, and trousers that clung indecently to the outline of his thighs.

I couldn’t look away.

“Scarlett,” my mother hissed, her whisper sharp as a knife. “Stop frowning. Smile for me, just for today.”

Today. As if this wasn’t a mockery of everything we had lost.

I forced a curl of my lips, but my eyes slid back to him. To the way his jaw flexed when he tightened his grip around her waist. To the way his shirt buttons strained when he shifted. To the heat that seemed to radiate off him even though we weren’t close.

And when he looked up, his eyes locked on mine.

Not for long. Barely a second. But it was enough to make my stomach clench and my breath stutter. His gaze lingered, as though he noticed I had been noticing him.

A dangerous thrill pulsed through me.

I looked away first, my cheeks burning.

I shouldn’t be thinking these things. Not about him. Not about the man my mother had just kissed at the altar while her wedding ring still shone fresh on her finger. How foolish can I be ?

But my body didn’t care about morals. My body betrayed me every time I saw the way those trousers fit, every time his tattoos peeked from under his cuff, every time he brushed too close when he passed by.

I hated myself almost as much as I hated her.

The reception blurred past me. Laughter, clinking glasses, music all of it felt muted. I sat stiff at the table, watching my mother glow like a girl in love, her hand never leaving his.

But my eyes kept straying. To the way he cut his steak, knife sliding with practiced ease. To the muscles shifting under his shirt when he leaned forward to whisper something in her ear. To the way his lips curved when he smirked at some joke I didn’t hear.

I imagined those lips against mine. I imagined those hands gripping my ass so tightly.

A shiver ran down me so violently and behold my panties were fucking wet. I pressed my knees together under the table, hoping no one noticed.

When his gaze flicked to me again so briefly it could have been an accident I felt my pulse in places I shouldn’t.

By the time guests left and the lights dimmed, I was exhausted from pretending. My mother disappeared upstairs with him, giggling like a teenager. I stayed downstairs, sipping wine I wasn’t old enough to drink in front of her, letting the bitterness stain my tongue.

The house was quiet.

Too quiet.

I went to bed, but sleep didn’t come. My head spun with images I couldn’t banish—him shirtless, tattoos wrapping across his chest, trousers low on his hips, eyes dark when they met mine.

I pressed a pillow over my face, ashamed at how wet my panties were, how badly I wanted to slide my hand lower into his trouser.

But the shame only made the hunger worse.

I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to.

When I finally threw the pillow aside, sweat cooling on my skin, I swore to myself I would never let him know. Never.

But fate was cruel.

Sometime after midnight, I padded down the hallway toward the kitchen. I needed water. Something cold to calm the heat still pulsing through me.

And then I froze.

The bathroom door opened just ahead of me, spilling steam into the hall.

And he stepped out.

Shirtless. A towel hanging low on his hips, water dripping from his hair down his chest, tracing over tattoos that curved like art across hard muscle. His skin glistened, the towel doing nothing to hide the big headed cock dangling in between his legs almost the size of my arm. Gods right from that moment I swore that I must taste that cock even if it takes losing a close friend.

My breath caught.

He saw me instantly. His eyes widened a fraction, then narrowed, scanning me from my bare feet to the thin tank top that clung to my braless chest.

Neither of us moved.

The silence stretched, thick with everything unspoken. My throat was dry, but not from thirst. My body ached, betraying me with every throb between my thighs.

“Scarlett,” he said at last, voice low, rough, intimate. The kind of voice that could make a woman drip for two hours non stop.

Just my name. Nothing more. But the way it rolled off his tongue made it sound like a promise.

I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t breathe.

We stood there, two sinners caught in the dark.

And when his lips curved not a smile, but something darker I knew nothing in my life would ever be the same again.

His lips curved—slow, deliberate. Not a smile, but something heavier, a shadow laced with temptation.

I gripped the glass in my hand tighter, fingers slick with condensation, afraid I might drop it from the way my body trembled.

“You should be asleep,” he murmured, voice deep and rough, like gravel under velvet.

I swallowed hard. “I—couldn’t.”

The corner of his mouth lifted higher. He shifted, the towel dipping lower on his hips. My eyes betrayed me, sliding down to his huge cock before I could stop them, before darting back up to his face. He noticed. Of course he noticed.

Something flickered in his gaze heat, curiosity, danger.

I should have turned away. I should have run back to my room, slammed the door, and prayed the walls could keep me safe from my own thoughts.

But my feet stayed planted. My breath hitched as he took one step closer, water dripping from his chest to the hardwood floor.

“Goodnight, Scarlett,” he said, his voice wrapping around me like a secret only we shared.

And then he brushed past me, his shoulder grazing mine, heat sparking across my skin like fire.

I stood frozen, the scent of soap and sweat clinging to me long after he disappeared into my mother’s bedroom.

I knew I wouldn’t sleep that night. Not with the sound of their door shutting. Not with the images clawing at my mind. Not with the ache inside me screaming for something I shouldn’t want.

But I also knew something had shifted. Something dangerous had begun.

I woke with guilt burning hotter than the sun streaming through my curtains. But guilt didn’t erase the memory of his body dripping wet, of the towel clinging to his hips, how huge his cap was and his voice curling my name like it belonged to him.

That morning, I told myself to avoid him. Pretend it never happened.

But by the time I saw him shirtless again, in the backyard, sweat was shining as he chopped wood like some savage out of my darkest fantasies. I realized avoidance was impossible.

Because every part of me wanted to watch.

Every fucking damn part.