Marrying My Best Friend's Sister: A Billionaire Enemies to Lovers MC Romance (Secret Love) by Nikki Bloom (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

and already the phones were ringing off the hook. I had to change cars three times to shake off the paparazzi tail I’d acquired and go in through the back. Since all they had of Nico was one picture, she was able to slip in unnoticed. Mostly because she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Who would expect Domenic Cliff’s fiancée to be dressed like that?

I wanted to take her for breakfast afterward, to celebrate, but she was feeling too insecure in her down-home clothes.

“Hey, okay, how about you come over to my place and we can have breakfast there?”

She hesitated, biting her lip. “I did skip breakfast.”

“See? We can’t have that. Let’s go.”

She wasn’t too excited about the evasive maneuvers, but she went with it. Fortunately, it’s not possible to hang around my building without someone coming to move you along, so we were able to enter with no issues.

I crossed to the kitchen as she made herself comfortable, putting some coffee on as I fried up some eggs and toast. She wandered into the kitchen as I was cooking and leaned on the door, arms crossed.

“I never pictured you as the cooking type.”

I smiled. “Yeah, well, I would have sworn you were a great cook, but Morgan says you burn water.”

“That’s not true!”

I laughed at how gullible she was. She came up to me and slapped my shoulder. “Bitch.”

“Hey, watch the merchandoise.”

I plated the eggs and added toast, putting it on the table. I searched out the honey, sugar, and cream, and placed them on the table too before pouring her a cup of coffee.

We sat down, with twin sighs. “So, how are you feeling about this wedding idea? Cold feet yet?”

She laughed. “Nope. Haven’t had time to think about it yet.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Thinking never led to anything good.”

The meal was surprisingly companionable and just sitting in my kitchen together felt so natural, it freaked me out a little.

After she finished eating, Nico stood up and took her plate and mine to the sink. She washed them and put them to dry on the rack as I blinked stupidly at her.

“Do you have to go back to work?”

She shook her head. “Nah. It’s the strangest thing. I explained to my boss that I had to meet you to get a marriage license and she literally fell over herself to give me the whole day off. It was weird.”

“Not really. If she knew who you were marrying.”

She laughed. “You know I came up with this idea for this very reason, but seeing it in action is just…” She shook her head wonderingly. “It’s crazy.”

I leaned back in my seat. “You’ll get used to it. Give it time. One day you’ll wake up and find that you took it all for granted.”

She crossed herself, kind of. It was more of a rounded motion rather than a sign of the cross. “God forbid.”

I smiled, feeling oddly content. “Well, since you don’t have to be anywhere, would you like to plan a wedding with me?”

“I thought we were just going in front of the Justice of the Peace.”

“Yeah, we are, but don’t you want to have like a wedding breakfast?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

I leaned forward, grinning like a loon. “Yeah, you do. You wanna book a private room at the Waldorf Astoria and have a lavish breakfast for ten of your closest friends.”

Her lips twisted doubtfully. “I don’t think I have ten friends.”

“Five?”

“Three.”

“Three it is. You’re two up from me. I only have one friend.”

Her face closed off. “You mean Morgan.”

“Yeah, Morgan’s my friend.”

Her shoulders moved uncomfortably. “To be honest, I don’t understand the relationship you guys have.”

“He’s my family. I know he’s your blood brother, but when we met in NOLA we were both so alone. We began watching each other’s backs. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for each other.”

She sighed. “I just hope that it’s not as one-sided as it looks.”

“It’s not.”

Our eyes met and held. Her protectiveness of Morgan was cute. I appreciated the evidence of loyalty. Because as much as she was worried about Morgan and me, I had had my doubts about her. After all, from what Morgan had told me, she seemed quite happy to let him take all the beatings their stepfather wanted to dole out.

“Shall we move to the living room?”

“Yeah, sure.” She got out of her seat and followed me to the living room. We sat down on the sofa, facing each other, an air of anticipation in the air.

“So, our wedding’s tomorrow and we have never even kissed.”

She snorted. “It’s not that kind of marriage.”

“Well, according to your contract, it is.”

She looked away, blushing slightly. I reached for the notepad. “But we can put a pin in that for now. Let’s talk menus.”

At some point in the discussion, we got really passionate about crepes versus fondues. Things might have gotten heated enough for us to get in each other’s faces as we extolled the virtues of our chosen breakfast pastry.

“First of all, crepes get either too rubbery or too crispy. They’re kind of flat and there’s just no poetry to them.”

“No poetry? Are you eating them or reading them?”

“You know what I mean you…philistine.”

“Oh, you’re calling me a philistine? In that sweatshirt?”

She looked down at it, a puzzled look on her face. “What’s wrong with my sweatshirt?”

I shrugged. “Nothing…but 1985 called though. They want it back.”

“Oh, ha-ha,” she said as she took it off. Beneath the sweatshirt, she was wearing a crop top and I gave her a disappointed look.

“Honestly, which year does your fashion live in?”

“Fuck you, Cliff.”

“Gladly. Just say when.”

“Oh, you wish.”

“Do I?” From one minute to the next, we went from screaming to kissing. My hands were burrowing beneath her crop top without my permission, running over her skin as if I hadn’t had sex in years. The only consolation I had was that her hands were digging into the flesh of my shoulders with just as much studied abandon.

Our tongues did battle as my