Somehow, this arrangement with Violet already seems more personal than a gold-digging wife ever would be, though.

“Why, thank you, Ross,” Violet says, resting her hand on my thigh just a little higher than is friendly.

“Violet? Ross?” Dad asks as Mom looks on with equal parts surprise, hope, and glee in her eyes. “Is there something going on?”

“You know we should wait until dinner, Dad,” I reply. “You taught me that lesson. You don’t strike until the right moment.” It sounds like a compliment, but my gaze is hard. I respect him, look up to him—hell, I love him—but that doesn’t mean that I’m not still furious with him for throwing his weight around, threatening me, and putting us all in this position.

“Well,” Mom says, trying to interrupt the tension, “how are things with Colin, Violet? The last I heard from Abigail, you were going to get married soon?” She asks it lightly, but her eyes are definitely laser-locked on where Violet’s hand rests on my thigh. To make a point, I lay my own hand over Violet’s, interweaving our fingers.

I swear my mother is going to have a conniption fit. Only her years of keeping up appearances hold her back from peppering us with the questions I know she has.

Violet tries to remove her hand, but I hold her steady, and she blushes, a pink tone that I want to see flushing her entire body as I bring her to the edge of coming and then make her wait for my command to fall into the pleasure. I mentally smack the shit out of myself. Seriously, what is it about Violet the past twenty-four hours that has me as horny as a fourteen-year-old boy seeing tits for the first time?

“Miss Courtney Andrews,” Karl announces, and Court comes in, looking like a million bucks. I swear, if she wasn’t intent on making her own path in the family corporation, she’d be able to pull seven figures as a fashion model.

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” she asks, smiling when she sees Violet. Violet stands and gives Court a quick hello hug. “Hey, Vi. How’s the wedding prep?”

“Uhm . . .” Violet says, glancing at me to take the lead on this one as she sits back down at my side.

Courtney’s looking from Violet to me, and I can see in her expression that she saw the newspaper article about Vi and me this morning. Dad might’ve missed it if he had a busy day, but Court always reads the gossip pages first.

“I’m not with Colin anymore,” Violet blurts out.

Courtney and Mom gasp, and I can see that Mom wants to comfort Vi as she tuts out, “Oh, my dear, I’m sorry.” But Violet doesn’t need comforting. She’s fine—more than fine—at the loss of an ass like Colin. Especially now that she has me, I think cockily.

“What?” Courtney says. She knows Colin’s family better than I do. One of her sorority sisters in college actually dated Colin’s brother, so I can see she feels a little closer to this. “What happened?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I reply, holding out my hand to Violet, thankful when she takes it easily. “Last night, Violet and I met up, and well . . . one thing led to another, and we realized something we should’ve realized a long time ago.”

A pregnant pause stretches out, and I rub at Violet’s bare finger, suddenly wanting my ring there as a sign that we’re doing this, that we’re in this thing together. I can’t wait until dinner, don’t want to play the strategy game with Dad. I need to mark her somehow, if only a little.

“Hey, Abs, a little help here?” I raise a brow at her and her mouth opens into an O before she jumps up and runs to the foyer.

She reappears a moment later with a small velvet box in her hand. “Here you go, Ross,” she says at volume. Under her breath, I swear she whispers, “Don’t fuck this up.” But her face is frozen in a sweet smile so maybe I imagined that.

Courtney, Mom, and Dad all look like they just got dropped into one of those off the wall British sitcoms that Mom used to watch on BBC America.

“N–F–W,” Courtney says, pronouncing each letter out loud as I open the box and reveal Violet’s ring. “No effin’ way!”

“Way,” I reply, taking the ring and getting down on a knee. “It took me too long to see what I should’ve seen all along, and for that I’m sorry. But I promise, if you’ll let me, I’ll make it up to you each and every day for the rest of our lives. Violet Russo, will you marry me?”

Chapter 9

Violet

I stare at the ring, the entire world slowing to a stop.

I know I shouldn’t be reacting this way . . . I mean, we just went shopping for this ring fewer than eight hours ago. But looking down at the band of platinum and diamond with pink rubies dotted around it, I can barely breathe.

It’s gorgeous, but more important is the look in Ross’s eyes.

I was so ready to smack him when he patted his knee earlier, silently ordering me to sit like some obedient little Barbie doll. And I could tell he was enjoying the uncomfortable silence as Abi fetched the ring, the cocky smirk on his lips making me sweat bullets while his parents and Courtney stared at us like goldfish in a bowl.

But now, there’s no laughter in his eyes. There’s no teasing, no deception. He’s looking into my eyes, just me and him as the rest of the room disappears. And in this instant, I can almost imagine that this charade is real, that I’m actually marrying the boy I had a crush on a decade ago.