| BOOK FOUR | THE LONDON CRIME KING | A DARK MAFIA ROMANCE NOVEL |
This book contains adult language and subject matter, including graphic violence, drugs and explicit sex that may be disturbing to some readers.
This series is NOT a typical romance...
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Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" honoured the ballroom with his mellifluous harmonies. Half-eaten dinner plates, empty glasses and soiled, folded napkins strewed white-clothed tables: fresh foliage and fragrant floral swags mantled chairs with pendulous vintage lace. Discarded handbags, impressive shoes, and decorative fascinators disordered the circumference of the zestful dancefloor.
Six vodka shots and four rounds of champagne laced my system. Unchosen soberness alienated the minority—yours truly. In contradiction of the bevvied assemblage, I am sober as a judge. Unlike every other hopeless inebriate, alcohol refused to cooperate.
Nevertheless, I experienced a night to remember. It'll be a calamitous morning for everyone nurturing their hangovers while I ingest warm pastries and consume orange juice, fresh-faced and energised.
Due to Nate's sewist adroitness, I can urinate effortlessly. No toilet paper malfunctions or lace layers above my head.
I left the cubicle, washed my hands in the basin and checked the state of my reflection in the light-lined mirror.
My pout required a top-up. I unclasped my velvet clutch-purse, found the lipstick and stained my lips. I am midway on the rim of my upper lip when the cubicle door behind me crashes open.
Rummaging a hand inside her designer handbag, Blaire stumbled out, the heels of her shoes scraping across the white and gold marble effect floor.
Thirty furious seconds transpire before the dimwit catches me in her sights. "Alexa?" she burped, yanking the cold tap with blundering hands. "I didn't know anyone else was in here."
Breathing through my nose, I blinked away any vivid dreams of flushing her head down the toilet, stepped to the right, away from the infectious parasite, and proceeded to paint my lips red.
"You look great." Jutting a hip to the sandstone counter, she cocked her head and watched me apply makeup, a bizarre expression of fascination on her pallid face. "You hate me, don't you?"
Is she seriously choosing the day of my wedding to air our dirty laundry?
"I don't know you enough to hate you," I said in a bored tone. "Don't take distance personally, Blaire. I simply prefer to keep a small circle."
"But we understand each other. It makes sense for us to be amicable." Her pink-polished fingernails strummed my purse that's laid open on the counter. "Is it because of him?" she asked, and Liam's face immediately came to mind. "Flamur?"
Acidic bile clogged my throat. "You will not speak of that vile man in front of me."
"Oh," she whispered, furrowing two brows. "I think, for everyone's sake, it'd be easier if we got along. I mean, we can even be friends?" Her hopeful eyes had mascara smudges. "Nathaniel, he'd love that. Please, Alexa. Us girls, we should stick together."
