Illicit Temptation (Astoria Royals #3)

CHAPTER SIX

Trace

“ I ’ll say we need to talk since you apparently have been sleeping with another man while married to m e,” I rough out a blistering objection to her being with that dosser—who will be bleeding at my feet in a minute.

Just the idea of him touching her scrapes my insides.

“Married? Ha,” Shea snaps at me, weaving around exquisitely decorated tables filled with flowers and candles. “That was three years ago! Where have you been?”

“An undercover assignment. I told you that in a message, one you never bothered responding to.” I stay close on her heels.

“You said you’d be away for a couple of months.” She stops and glares at me. “When I didn’t hear from you, I figured you moved on.”

“You don’t just clock out of those jobs, love.” I do owe her a break since I’d been gone way longer than I intended. “And this one took three years.”

“Look...” She leans across a table and whispers, “I was already seeing Archer when I met you in Vegas. I... I don’t recall us getting married, and I don’t remember us having sex.”

“Pity. It was fucking amazing. You were amazing, princess.” For three long years I’ve been waiting to come face to face with the woman I took to wife, fucked, and then never saw again.

When I got my phone back after the Algeria assignment that kept getting extended, I was crushed to see she hadn’t reached out to me. Not once. Now I know why. To her, the marriage wasn’t real, something she could ignore.

Her complete and utter silence only fueled me to bide my time and strike at the perfect moment. And that moment is finally here.

My body tenses and a wicked smile breaks across my lips. I can’t believe I get to watch her eyes flutter, feeling my cock for what she thinks is the first time. I get it twice in this lifetime. Relish in that thrill again. A thrill that got me through all these years.

“Since you’ve broken our wedding vow, let’s get out of here so I can lay a proper punishment on you. Refresh that damaged memory of sex with your husband.”

“Sex? Oh no. We can’t. You’re my bodyguard .” Just the way she says that tells me she’s never crossed that forbidden line.

That night went beyond getting married. I got to know her. The fun side of her. She’s no spoiled princess. She’s mouthy and strong.

Fuck, I loved that. I got one clear vibe from that lush body, she needed some serious fucking to blow her mind.

I’d been drinking when I suggested we get married. She agreed by kissing me. That first taste of her lips sobered me and then drowned me in a different kind of intoxication. A thrill that sets my heart pounding to this day whenever the memory flashes back to me. Mission Accomplished.

With the rustling of voices from the vestibule getting closer, signaling this party room will soon be filled with guests, Shea speaks in a shaky voice that rattles my nerves. “Now that you’re here, can I please have a divorce?”

The request cuts an ache into my chest that I wasn’t expecting. “A divorce? Why?”

“That’s a stupid question. We got married one wild night in Vegas. That’s not a marriage. I haven’t seen you in three years, Trace. I want a divorce. As soon as humanly possible.” She holds up two fingers to someone on the other side of the double French doors. “I did some Googling and apparently, we can go back to the chapel where we got married and ask for it to be invalidated. Like an annulment. It’s something their city council enacted recently since people keep getting drunk, married, then regretting it.”

My heart erupts with crushing rejection, her wanting to divorce me. “You looked that up on your phone, knowing your brother tracks your search history?”

“I’m one step ahead of you. I posed it as a question for a client.” She winks, looking quite the clever girl. “There’s one hitch.”

“Interesting choice of words,” I scoff, and run a hand through my hair.

“They mention a three-year time limit for Nevada to accept a no-fault invalidation. We’re a few months over, but sometimes these things go by calendar years.” She swallows.

I expected her to be angry for me being gone so long. Angry for not calling her all this time. And I can forgive her for using that billionaire douchebag to satisfy herself while I was away. But divorce? Unacceptable. I need to stall.

“We’d have to fly there, do it in person.” I cross my arms. “I can’t have these calls recorded. But I also can’t leave New York right now. Don’t ask why.”

Because I haven’t come up with a fucking good excuse yet.

“Damn it.” She bites her lip. “The timing’s bad for me, too. It’s August in East Hampton . I’m busy with back-to-back events.”

“Must not want to be rid of me that badly.”

She tilts her head, anger tightening her jaw. “I’ll figure something out.”

A lot has changed for me in three years. The spur-of-the- moment marriage was a reckless impulse. Any video evidence of us in the casino and that chapel would have proved my princess was drunk. If this all got out, that I married her and left her, even though I had little choice, the O’Rourkes would find me and...hurt me. Maybe even take out their anger on my cousins who work for them.

According to my cousins, Shea has nothing to do with her brothers as far as their business in Astoria. But she is very much theirs.

“We’ll figure it out together, princess,” I growl.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay, wife .”

She gasps. “Not that either. How about my name?”

“Mrs. Quinlan?” I tilt my phone screen to show Shea her contact name in my phone.

She leans in. “Oh no. You... You have to change that. If Balor hacks your phone...”

“You forget, Shane is my cousin. He’s just as sharp as Balor. My phones are protected. Even from your hacker brother, who I immensely respect and regard.”

She looks at me, thinks about that, and moves to the doorway. She’s struggling to decide which side of the loyalty she wants me on. O’Rourke or Quinlan.

Fuck, I don’t want to start a war.

“When... When are you going back to Dublin?” she asks, opening the door and letting guests stream in holding cocktails from the bar area.

I find a break in the crowd and pin her behind a fake tree. “I’m not going back to Dublin, princess. And I’m not done with you. But right now, I have a rude motherfucker to deal with who’s going to regret being born.”