From Cora: An Age Gap, Arranged Marriage, Enemies-to-Lovers Victorian Romance - New release!
Gideon Wentworth barely glanced at her as she took her place beside him at the altar.
She could do it. Pick up her skirts and run away.
But she wasn’t doing that this time. Never again would she flee from this man. She would be cold and cool. Maintain her distance and her dignity at all times.
She spoke words.
His lips formed the same meaningless syllables. What did it mean to love and cherish someone you hated with all your heart and soul? She did not trust Wentworth to care for her from this day forward, in sickness or in health. She did not trust him at all. She never would.
“You may kiss the bride.”
Cora’s vision narrowed into a pinhole. She’d forgotten that she would have to kiss him, in front of their families, no less. Cora’s tongue darted out to dampen her lips.
It was very cruel of nature to have gifted Gideon Wentworth with a mouth like that. His lips were the only soft part of him, and for once, they were not twisted into a smirk. Mother Nature had gone out of her way to craft a diabolically handsome man, then given him the personality of a devil.
The air between them was charged. Electric. Cora held her breath, waiting.
“Well?” she prompted when he simply stared at her.
The banker—her husband—startled as if he’d been lost in reverie staring at her veiled face. Carefully, he pinched the tulle and raised it.
Then he bent his head and touched his lips to hers.
Cora’s eyes fluttered closed. For some reason she had expected his lips to be cold, but they were warm—so warm—against hers. He tasted faintly of mint and his skin carried the scent of sandalwood tinged with something muskier. She hated the way he smelled better than any man she had ever met.
Most of all, she hated the way her body yielded to him instinctively.
The instant his mouth touched hers, the knot inside Cora’s chest loosened fractionally. Air rushed from her lungs. She turned lightheaded, breathing him in. He kept their kiss light and brief, as befitted a solemn occasion. His hand came to her elbow, a meaningless gesture, but the contact turned her insides to jelly.
She broke off with a gasp.
She would not turn weak in the knees for this man.
With her heart pounding in her throat, Cora raised her gaze to meet his. She couldn’t not look at him, though everything inside her screamed in warning. What a waste to bestow the severe beauty of an avenging angel upon the worst man ever to live.
His eyes were a deep shade of umber, like the shadows of a Rembrandt painting, flecked with lighter hints of amber and framed ornately with a thick fringe of lashes. Beautiful eyes, haunted with regret and hard with determination.
Alight with triumph.
He’d won. She didn’t even know what game they were playing, and she’d already lost.
If you enjoy obsessive, possessive heroes who will stop at nothing to win over their women, then you will enjoy the Virtue & Vice series!
