The Devious Husband (The Windsors, #6)

by Catharina Maura

“I’m not seeing anyone, not dating anyone.” His lips brush over my ear, and I take a steadying breath. “Are there any other verbs you’d like me to add in there? I’m not romantically involved with anyone, Sierra.”

“Seriously, Sierra. Do you truly think so little of me?”

“I don’t think of you at all,” I lie.

“You think of me every time you decide not to attend an event at the very last second, because you’d just found out I’d be there.”

“Sierra.” My name is a plea on his lips, a wish, one I can’t help but want to fulfill.

For years, I genuinely believed that he might be crafty with words, but he never lied to me, and I should’ve known better. He’s a deceitful, dishonorable liar, and I’m nothing but a gullible fool.

We searched for her for years, only to find her on our doorstep one night, bruised and broken, her clothes drenched in blood. She didn’t speak for months, and to this day, none of us know where exactly she was kept, or what she’s been through, though it’s not for a lack of trying on our part.

Is that why she’s been declining my calls? Not because she misunderstood my relationship with Valeria, but because I misunderstood her relationship with Graham fucking Thorne?

“Xavier,” she whispers, leaning in until her lips brush over my ear. “Go to hell.” She pushes against my chest and walks away, leaving me staring after her. “I’m already in hell,” I whisper, knowing I have no right to stop her.

Xavier’s eyes roam over the blouse I’m wearing and down to my pencil skirt, only to travel all the way up again, slowly, his gaze caressing every inch of my body. I suspect he does it to distract me and throw me off my game, but he’s sorely mistaken if he thinks that’s all it takes.

I wonder if she realizes how telling it is that she knows exactly where to go. Judging by his sour, forced smile, Graham has certainly noticed.

I raise a brow and bite back a pleased smile when I find Sierra standing next to my liquor cabinet, a glass of cabernet in her hand. She throws me a provocative look, like she expects me to reprimand her for opening such an expensive bottle of wine, but little does she know, I don’t even like red wine. I bought that bottle for her, in the unlikely event she’d ever come over.

“Your mother loves to read?” I smile. “Almost as much as you do.”

Hell, she might just be surprised I have a mother and didn’t just spawn from the depths of hell.

The Mrs. Kingston Protocol — a protocol that’s enacted the moment Sierra steps foot on any of my properties. She has no idea just how robust my security is, and just how many security personnel are on site and purposely stepping away when she breaks in. The Mrs. Kingston protocol allows her to do whatever she wants without setting off any of my alarms, and it always makes Elijah’s day when she breaks in.

“You don’t usually drink,” she remarks, her eyes zeroing in on my whiskey glass. “Even at events, I very rarely see you drink.” I smile to myself as I think about the monthly poker nights I attend with her brothers, that she has no idea about. One night of drinking with the Windsor brothers is enough for a whole month. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Sierra.”

Over the years, they’ve become brothers to me too, and though they couldn’t possibly know it, they were the ones who kept me going when dealing with Valeria’s absence became too much.

“I doubt she did anything,” Lex says, thrusting his phone in Luca’s face. “She’s been too busy parading around town with Graham. I have to say, they look pretty damn good together.” “Graham fucking Thorne,” I mutter, before knocking back my whiskey.

“I’m ready to collect all the favors you’ve all come to owe me throughout the years,” I say. “Every single one of them, at once.” Ares crosses his arms and leans back, a knowing look in his eyes. “And what, pray tell, is it you want?” I take a deep breath, knowing full well there’s every chance I won’t walk out of this room in one piece if I say what I need to, but I risk it anyway. “I would like to marry your sister, and I will need all of your support to make it happen.”

“That seat at the table has always been yours, Xavier. It always will be, provided you can win over both our grandmother and sister.” “And that, my dear future brothers-in-law, is where you come in.”

“I should’ve brought the Lex-board,” Lexington says nervously. “Shut the fuck up about that damn board,” Zane snaps, sounding equally on edge as the six of us stare up at Anne Windsor’s home.

“You know I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy, don’t you?” Dion claps my back and smiles menacingly. “If, for even one single second, I doubt that you are, we’ll have words.”

Lex chuckles, and I don’t have to look over my shoulder to recognize the sound of money exchanging hands. Assholes.

“They’ve danced around each other for years. He says he’s not certain it’s love, but speaking from experience, nothing else could possibly keep a man like him so enthralled with a woman he isn’t in a relationship with, one he claims to not even like.”

There are very few men that wouldn’t be intimidated by Sierra, but he’s one of them. She’ll be able to just be herself with him, without having to fear she’ll overshadow him. Sierra needs that — someone who appreciates her strong personality.”

After all, it’s the exact way Sierra looks right before she does something completely unhinged.

“Kingston men don’t cheat,”

The only bed you’ll find yourself in is mine, Sierra.”

“I’ll never want you,” she snaps. “Not in a million years.” I cup the back of her neck, my thumb brushing over her pulse point. “Then I’ll wait a million years and a day, Kitten. I’ll wait forever if I need to, so long as you understand that you’re mine as much as I’m yours.”

“Fuck the past and everything you think you know,” I snap. “Fuck every goddamn misconception you insist on having, and listen to me. I will never, ever, cheat on you. I am yours, and yours only, Sierra, whether you like it or not.”

“It isn’t really about what I see in him, it’s about what I see in you — and you, my sweetheart, have never had eyes for anyone but him.”

“You’re mine, Sierra Windsor. You can avoid me all you want, but there’s no avoiding this marriage. I’m being as patient as I can be, Kitten, but you crossed a line today. You never should’ve let him touch you at all.”

Zane rummages through the tools I have on site and grabs a wrench, and I only just about keep from sighing. He doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, so the sight he’s presenting me with is honestly more endearing than anything else. I have no doubt these men would hurt me severely if I were to mistreat their sister, but right now, there’s no need for me to fear them.

Lex grabs a bag and pulls out a bottle of whiskey. “Honestly, just release him,” he says, sounding defeated. “Dion was right. He’s fucking smitten with her. What were we even thinking?”

I can’t believe she’s about to become my wife. In what world does someone like me get to marry Sierra Windsor?

“You know how I said I wasn’t romantically involved with anyone?” I ask. Something akin to devastation crosses her face, like she expects me to tell her that I lied to her. “Circumstances have changed,” I tell her as I cup her face. “I’m pleased to inform you that I am, in fact, married — and I’m incredibly devoted to my wife.”

“I’d love to suffocate between your thighs.”

“I suppose it’s time I return your jewelry, hmm?” “I thought you said you wouldn’t return it until you got what you wanted?” He pulls me against him, both of us straightening. “I did. I got exactly what I wanted, Sierra. You.”

Xavier pulls me through, and I gasp in disbelief when I find myself standing in the most gorgeous library I’ve ever seen. It’s got two floors, a gorgeous spiral staircase, and more books than I can count. I’m in a daze as I gently touch the spines of some of the books, my surprise mounting when I realize that at least some of them are romance books — and not just any, but special or first editions of most of my favorites.

“What was that, baby?” I ask, taunting. “I can’t hear your lies over the sound of your desire.”

“I love the sound of that,” I admit. “Of me cooking?” “Of you calling yourself my wife.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” “You, if I’m lucky.”

“Are you doing okay?” she asks him, sounding concerned. “It must be hard to live with my granddaughter.” I gape at the two of them in disbelief when he nods. “I’ve never been more tired,” he replies, sounding aggrieved.

He’s never been more tired because he never lets me sleep.

No man has ever made me feel as insecure and threatened as Graham Throne does.

“I initially started reading it because I wanted to know why you loved it, and as I was reading it, I highlighted all the passages that reminded me of you. I added some notes in the margins to let you know why something made me think of you, when it might not be obvious from the text.”

“I want you, Xavier Kingston. The good, the bad, and everything in between.”

My wife collapses against me, breathless, and I smile to myself. Take that, Felix Osiris. Fictional asshole. How fucking dare he make my wife wet when he isn’t even real? Fucking prick.

“You look a little murderous. I think I like that look on you.”

“You’re mine, Xavier Kingston,” I tell him. “And I want the world to know it.”