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‘Oh, wow.’ The assistant stares at us in wonder. ‘The chemistry between you two is palpable. How long have you been together?’
I’m prepared to lie, but apparently Dominic deems it unnecessary. He looks at the chunky silver on his wrist pointedly, before slipping the ring into his suit pocket. ‘Twenty-eight hours officially.’
The assistant bursts into laughter. I assume she thinks he’s joking. He leaves her none the wiser as we exit the shop.
‘What now?’ My mouth is dry and my feet are sore from the cuts rubbing against the inside of the leather.
‘Now we eat.’ His pupils dip to my lips, then bore into mine again.
Is he going to spend the next year tormenting me with his innuendos? Still, it’s a marked improvement on ‘I’m going to fuck every hole you own,’ I guess.
The two men fall into line behind us as Dominic steers me towards a small À la carte restaurant tucked on the edge of the shopping village. He hands one of them the Apple bag. ‘Set Aoife’s phone up,’ he adds ‘please’ as an afterthought before guiding me inside the restaurant.
The décor is warm but dark. The walls are panelled in dark wood. A single red rose and a tealight punctuate each table. The ceilings soar overhead, but there’s little natural light. The entire setting is utterly romantic.
From the fear glinting in the manager’s eyes, he recognises my fiancé. He takes our order and rushes off as quickly as his scrawny little legs will carry him.
‘Are you sure we’re safe?’ I whisper from the leather seat across from him, tapping my fingers off the mahogany table. ‘What if Rory hears where I am?’
‘Rory is still on a drunken rampage. I have eyes on him all over the city.’ Dominic reaches out to still my fingers. ‘Relax.’
Huh. That’s easier said than done when I’m torn between a constant fear for my life and the fear I might do something stupid like throw myself at my saviour—the leader of the largest organised crime syndicate in the city. The man indirectly responsible for so many deaths, including my brother’s.
A waiter brings over the wine Dominic ordered for us—a crisp white so pale it’s almost clear.
‘So, tell me about the future Mrs Kincaid.’ He brings his glass to his full lips, without taking his big black eyes from me. The weight of his attention is as thrilling as it is intense. ‘My family will fire questions at us. I’d like to have at least a few of the answers.’
‘I assumed a man with your resources could find out every boring detail of my life in ten seconds flat.’
‘I might have done a little digging—with a JCB.’ He smirks. ‘You graduated from Trinity last month, right?’ I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. ‘Smart as well as sexy, huh? I told you Mama K will love you.’
I have no idea what to say, so I opt for nothing, in case my mouth fires off again.
‘You know, you kind of look like a teacher…’ he muses, those huge eyes perusing me. ‘You’ll drive the teenage boys wild. They’ll all be wanking themselves stupid over you.’
Heat surges up my neck. I swear I’m three seconds away from breaking out in a full-blown rash. ‘You can’t say things like that!’
His filthy mouth might be the undoing of me. No one has ever spoken to me that way, and I’m ashamed to say, his filthy mouth does things to me. Makes me wonder what other filthy things it’s capable of.
The mere thought of it sets an ache throbbing between my legs.
Being around him, feeling this intense sexual awareness is… utterly confronting.
I don’t want to want him.
But I can’t help it.
‘Besides, there will be no teenagers and no boys.’ Clearly he doesn’t possessallthe facts. ‘I just got a job teaching five-year-olds at a Catholic all-girl school at Fernbank. I’m supposed to start in September.’
‘Fernbank,’ he repeats.
‘Yes,’ I sigh, dragging my eyes from his. ‘Though that’s not going to happen now.’
‘Why not?’ He demands, sitting straighter.
‘While becoming your wife may save my life, I have a sneaky suspicion it may end my career. Pretty certain the board of governors won’t want a Kincaid on the school premises.’
He skims his fingers over his sharp jawline. ‘You don’t need to work. Not while you’re with me.’
