Page 78 of The Malibu Destiny

Should we invite Spielberg? Get Max to reach out to him? I'm starting on the guest list now.

I toss my phone onto my desk. Christ. One dinner invitation and she's planning our wedding and Hollywood guest list. My phone buzzes again. Does this woman ever actually work?

My phone buzzes again and again and again throughout the day. Thirty-fucking-plus messages from Sera about "our special day." I grimace through the barrage of messages that are filled with her wedding wish list.

Annie Leibovitz for photos. Gordon Ramsay himself handling the menu. Jamie Oliver for appetizers. Vera Wang designing her gown. Christ. She drops these celebrity names like they're waiting by the phone for her call. As if Annie Leibovitz gives a shit about wedding photography. As if Gordon Ramsay isn't busy running about 50 different restaurant chains and appearing on approximately a gajillion television shows. The only one who might actually do it is Jamie Oliver—didn't he offer something for Prince Harry's wedding? That's what Sera thinks we are. Royalty. Delusional bitch. I'll give her Vera Wang though—she did design something for Celeste when she married my brother. But still.

Each message makes my jaw clench tighter until I taste blood from biting the inside of my cheek.

I should feel guilty about what I'm about to do to her, but all I feel is rage burning through my veins when I think about her threatening Lilith. The bitch crossed a line. I've always been ruthless in business—crushing competitors, finding weaknesses, exploiting opportunities—but I've never stooped to blackmail. Never needed to. Serafina, though? She's a snake. And I'm about to cut off her fucking head. The five insider trading deals I have documented will destroy her. Not just her career. Her entire life. And I won't lose a second of sleep over it.

I arrive at Bone and Brass at 7 and freeze mid-step. Serafina. Jesus Christ. She's wearing black—not just any black—a dress that clings to every dangerous curve like it was painted on her skin by the devil himself. Her blonde hair cascades down her back, catching the golden hour light like a halo mocking her intentions. Those blood-red lips I used to devour are curved into a smile that's both invitation and weapon. The hemline barely exists, revealing miles of toned legs that once wrapped around my waist, and the neckline plunges so deep I can practically see her heartbeat. Yep. She thinks we're getting back together.

“Roman!" she says, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "I can't wait to show you a picture of the church where I want the ceremony. I'm thinking the Church of San Giovanni Battista in Varenna—that enchanting fishing village on the eastern shore of Lake Como, just a short drive from your resort. The church's weathered stone facade has stood since 1010, watching over generations of lovers. And that town! The Way of Lovers pathway hugs the crystalline water, while Villa Monastero's gardens burst with Mediterranean flowers and centuries-old cypress trees. Those narrow cobblestone streets wind between homes painted in warm terracottas and sunny yellows...I couldn't imagine anything more magical than saying our vows there as spring blossoms perfume the air."

My blood boils. "Sera, we're not getting married. Not today. Not ever."

"Oh, but we are. We are!" Her bottom lip juts out, trembling. "I texted you all the wedding plans today and you never got back. If we weren't getting married, if you didn't want to get married, you would've texted me back to tell me that."

Jesus Christ. The twisted logic hits me like a sucker punch. I don't respond, so that means full steam ahead? My jaw clenches so tight I can hear my molars grinding. How the hell did I miss the Cat 5 hurricane of crazy all those years we dated?

I look Serafina straight in the eye. "Sera. I need you to understand something. What we had—it wasn't love. Not for me." My jaw tightens as I think about the countless nights in hotel suites across three continents. Great sex, nothing more. "It's Lilith. She's..." The words catch, then break free. "She's everything. And I’m in love with her.” There, I said it to somebody not named Lilith. Something shifts inside me—like I've just signed my name to a declaration. Even with Sera's mascara starting to run, I can already imagine saying those three words at the resort, at family dinner, anywhere Lilith stands beside me.

Her eyes flash. "Lilith." She spits the name like venom. "She bewitched you. She admitted it to my face." She leans forward, voice dropping to a hiss. "Black magic. The darkest kind. She's invaded your mind, Roman. Violated you." Her fist slams the table. "How can you not see it? She's cast a goddamn spell on you! She doesn't love you—she's after the Kensington fortune!" Her voice cracks with desperation. "She'll drain every account, every asset. If you marry her, she'll hex you into your grave, and before your body's even cold, she'll be sprawled on some Mediterranean yacht, champagne dripping down her throat while boy toys worship at her feet—all paid for with your money."

I can't help but laugh at the absurdity. Hexes? Black magic? Lilith confessing to some elaborate supernatural trap? Christ. If anyone should be writing fiction, it's Serafina. She'd give my sister-in-law Celeste a run for her money, and Celeste's no amateur—Netflix limited series, Paramount features, even those saccharine Hallmark romances she cranks out like clockwork. "Damn good," as Max always says. Maybe I should connect them; Serafina's delusions could fuel a decade of screenplays. The woman runs hotels, but clearly she's wasting her talents. Hollywood's missing its star fantasist.

I sigh. A village is missing its idiot.

I lock eyes with Serafina, her perfectly plucked eyebrows arching in challenge. "Tell you what," I say, my voice dropping to that dangerous octave my brothers recognize as the calm before the storm. "I'll take my chances with Lilith." My jaw clenches so tight I can feel a muscle twitch beneath my five o'clock shadow. "And you might think in your twisted head that she's an actual witch, stirring cauldrons and casting hexes. I think you actually believe that, which makes you as narrow-minded as anyone I've ever met."

My hands curl into fists at my sides, knuckles whitening. The familiar heat of anger floods my chest, but it's different this time—protective, possessive. I shouldn't care what this woman thinks, but goddamn it, I do. The thought of anyone slandering Lilith—my Lilith —makes something primal rear up inside me.

Now, Serafina's perfectly plucked eyebrows draw together, her crimson lips thinning to a dangerous line. Her manicured fingers grip her champagne flute so tightly I'm surprised the crystal doesn't shatter.

"I still don't believe you're falling for her games," she hisses through clenched teeth. "Wake up, Roman! The woman graduated from City College. City College!" She spits the words like they taste foul on her tongue. "I heard her telling somebody at your gala that she sewed her own dress—with actual thread and needle, like some kind of peasant from the Middle Ages. She probably thinks Chanel is a TV station. Thinks Balenciaga is a kind of cheese. I bet she stares at the row of forks at Eleven Madison Park like they're ancient hieroglyphics. She might know service protocol—left to serve, right to clear in America, ladies first in Europe—but only because she's been a fucking cater waiter, not because she has a single refined bone in her bohemian body. What could you possibly have in common with her?"

Ha. Good question. Truth is, Lilith and I have very little in common. Her tiny Venice Beach townhouse could fit in my master bathroom. Her idea of breakfast is some kind of green smoothie with ingredients I can't pronounce, while I have a personal chef at the resort who prepares eggs Benedict with caviar. She wears flowing skirts with jangling ankle bracelets; I wear Tom Ford suits that cost more than her monthly store rent.

But none of that matters when I'm with her—when her eyes crinkle at the corners as she laughs, when her wild chestnut curls tickle my chest as she sleeps. She makes the constant buzzing in my head quiet down for the first time since I was ten years old. No, she didn't attend Harvard-Westlake prep school, or Harvard undergrad, or Stanford MBA, or Cornell PhD like I did. I don't understand how her tarot cards work or why she thinks holding a piece of rose quartz can heal a broken heart. But when I'm with her, I'm not Roman Kensington, hotel magnate with the weight of a $50 billion-dollar empire on his shoulders. I'm just Roman. And that feels like finally being able to breathe after drowning for twenty-nine years - since my mother died.

And the fact is, she’s everything to me. Light. Heat. Oxygen. Everything.

I lean in close enough to smell the Chanel No. 5 on Sera's neck, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper that only she can hear in the crowded restaurant. "It's over, Sera. Not just over—fossilized. Ancient history." The crystal tumbler in my hand catches the amber light from the chandelier as I take a slow sip of eighteen-year Macallan. "And I know exactly what you did, threatening Lilith at her bookstore."

Her perfectly glossed lips part slightly, the first crack in her porcelain façade. I slide my phone across the white tablecloth, its screen displaying a series of damning financial records. "Five separate insider trading violations, all meticulously documented. The Cohen and Friesz merger you somehow predicted; Flicka and Pojke, whose stocks you dumped right before it came out that their wooden train set would be recalled; Boeing's nosedive—both literal and financial—that you escaped unscathed." I tap each transaction with my index finger, the platinum Patek Philippe on my wrist catching the light. "The Chinese battery breakthrough. And my personal favorite—Orion's miracle weight-loss drug that's currently financing your new Aspen chalet."

The blood drains from Sera's face, leaving her MAC foundation a shade too dark against her suddenly pallid skin. Her French-manicured nails dig into the leather banquette. "How did you possibly⁠—"

"Not important," I cut her off, enjoying the way her sapphire earrings tremble as she swallows hard. "What matters is that I can picture the whole scene now—federal agents in bulletproof vests storming through your hotel, boxes of evidence stacked in the elevator, your Louboutins clicking desperately as they escort you past all those employees you've terrorized." I smile, not the practiced one I use for investors, but the predatory one my brothers know means someone's about to bleed. "So here's the deal, simple enough even for your Harvard Business School brain: you stay completely silent about my father's past and Lilith's spiritual practices, or I make one phone call and your next outfit comes in prison orange. Understood?"

She nods, finally knowing she’s lost. For good.

Sera's eyes glisten with tears. "Roman," she chokes out, clutching at my sleeve. "Please don't do this. Please. We loved each other, I know we did."

I wrench my arm away. "Sera, here's the thing." My voice turns to ice. "What we had wasn't love. It was convenience. Lust. A goddamn business arrangement with orgasms." I lean closer. "Real love? It's a fucking inferno. It's choosing to burn alive, screaming in agony, rather than watch her shed a single tear. It's lying awake at night memorizing the rhythm of her breathing." My fists clench as Lilith floods my mind—rushing that dress to her at the gala; rebuilding her shop after that flood, her smile worth every penny of the six figures I spent. The blood I would spill for her. The bullet I would take for her. "I would tear this world apart with my bare hands for her. And I wouldn't think twice."

She sighs. “Roman.”