The Outlaw Bride’s Billionaire Trap

Raven "You are marrying Nathan Vale next month." I didn't turn around. I held the keys to a silver Bentley and ticket stub #114, staring blindly into the dark gravel of the Greystone Heights driveway. My father’s voice was the last thing I expected to hear on a Saturday night. Two years. No calls. No texts. No lawyers. And the first thing Marcus Vance said to me was a wedding announcement. "Wrong girl," I said. I dropped the keys into the steel lockbox and let the lid slam shut like a vault. "I just park the cars." "I know. I got you the shift." That made me turn. My father stood at the end of the valet tent in a tuxedo that cost more than my motorcycle with bourbon in one hand. He looked rested. Healthy. Like a man who hadn't lost a single night's sleep over the daughter who walked out of his house with a duffel bag and a toolbox. Behind him, up the lawn, three hundred people in silk and black tie were toasting Celia Vale and her new husband under a white tent the si

Aaron I had attended enough parties like this one to know exactly when to leave. It usually happened right after the toast, when the champagne stopped hiding the desperation in the room and the smiles began to crack around the edges. I stood by the fireplace in Gordon Vale's great room with a glass of water in my hand, watching the city's elite parade their sins beneath the chandeliers. The room exploded. Applause. Whistles. Flashes going off like gunfire. I didn't clap. "Try to look like you don't hate everyone in this room…" Elena murmured as she stepped up beside me, her tablet pressed to her chest and her dark eyes scanning the crowd. Elena was appointed as the manager of Empire Group three months ago. She was the only woman in the company who could talk to me like that. "I don't hate them," I replied dryly, keeping my gaze straight ahead. "Hating them would require acknowledging they matter. How much longer, Elena?" "Ten minutes. You made your appearance. You sho

Raven The steel door rolled down behind me, and the night stayed on the other side of it. The Phantom Skulls clubhouse was an old warehouse at the dead end of Dock Road. It smelled like beer, motor oil, weed and cheap perfume. On the bar, Dutch and a prospect were arm-wrestling over a pile of crumpled twenties. The prospect's face had gone purple, and his elbow was about to go through the wood. Dutch slammed his hand down. The twenties disappeared into his vest. "Next!" he yelled. Nobody volunteered. In the middle of the room, Hooch sat in a chair with his leather cut hanging open, and a redhead was giving him a lap dance that had stopped being a dance three songs ago. In the dark corner by the jukebox, one of the brothers had a girl pinned to the wall with her leg hooked around his hip. Down the back hallway, a door was banging in a rhythm that didn't need explaining. None of it shocked me. I had seen worse at my father's Christmas parties. The lighting was just better. "W

RavenMy own cigarettes were in my purse, and my purse was in the back of my father's Escalade.So I took his.I knew what that pack was. Eleven years, he had told me. Reminder. I turned it over in my lap for a long time, the cellophane crackling under my thumb. Then I tore it open. I needed it more than he needed to remember.I was on my second drag when he came across the garage. He didn't hurry. Men like him never hurry, not even toward a woman who has just stolen their car.He opened the driver's door, and looked at the torn pack on my knee.Something crossed his face, too fast to name. He held out his hand. "The keys."I dropped them into his palm.He got in. His hands found the wheel and held on, like a man holding a door shut against the wind."Those were eleven years old," he said.I took a slow drag. "Tasted like it."He touched a switch on his door, and my window slid down.Two inches."Drive," I said. "Anywhere he isn't. I will pay for the gas."It was out before I could

AaronShe didn't say another word for the rest of the drive.She didn't try again. She didn't dress the idea up in prettier words. She leaned her forehead against the window and watched the city go by, and whatever had been burning in her face went out behind the glass.I preferred it that way. Silence was predictable. People weren't.The Peninsula rose out of the rain at the end of Kingsley Avenue, all pale stone and gold light. Private. Discreet. Nowhere near anything Marcus owned.I pulled in under the awning. She had her seat belt off before the valet reached the car.She didn't look at me. She opened the door, dropped something on the seat and slammed the door hard enough to rock the car.My cigarettes. Two missing.Tucked under the pack, two twenties, folded small and soft with rain.For the gas.I watched her climb the marble steps. Ruined silk. Soaked boots. My jacket, with ash on one sleeve. She looked exhausted and half broken, and still like the most dangerous thing on the