Page 7 of Ruined By a Devil

His eyebrow lifts. “You’re holding your breath.”

“You’re very observant,” I immediately let it out, annoyed that he noticed.

“It’s useful,” The corners of his lips turn upward just a little.

“For what?”

“Most things.” He looks down at me as he speaks and the way his eyes fall to my lips makes me suddenly become hyper aware that I should have applied lipstick.

I hate that he makes me think about this type of things and I hate how well he’s pretending right now.

“Your almost ex-fiancé is staring,” The knight in shining armor whispers in my ear, and it takes me a second longer than I’d like to admit for the words to get through to me and process them.

He even smells nice.

When I look in the direction of Papà and Nolan, I realize Nolan’s face is green with fury. I almost expect his clothes to rip and him to turn into Hulk, and my blood freezes when my eyes meet his.

“Do you two know each other?” I ask. Nolan is weird and annoying but his expression doesn’t appear to be someone who’s just upset to see the girl he wanted to marry dance with someone else.

“Yeah, kinda,” he replies.

“That’s incredibly vague,” I hold myself back from rolling my eyes, more than aware of all the eyes that are on us.

“It is.”

“What did you drag me into?” The unease spreads through me as the scene in front of my eyes begins to resemble one you’d catch in a random documentary about wild animals. “What’s happening here?”

He pulls away just enough to look me in the eyes as he speaks. “My name is Malachi Kavanagh…”

No way!

My smile disappears.

The Kavanaghs are one of the most powerful families in the city, but even more important, they and the Devlins are sworn enemies. Which means I accidentally got myself between two guys that already want to rip each other’s heads off, and I gave Nolan the perfect excuse to do it.

My stomach twists as everything about him starts making a little more sense. The confidence and the way he walked up to me like he already had all of this planned and knew exactly what he wanted.

“I refuse to take part in this game,” I try stepping away from Malachi without making a scene. “You’re not going to use me to provoke Nolan, or drag my family into your war.”

His eyes lift from mine and he looks in Nolan’s direction, his arm never leaving my waist. I feel panic washing over me at how serious all of this is. Papà is going to be furious.

“So that’s why you chose me,” I say.

“I chose you because you needed a way out,” his eyes are full of determination as he speaks.

“And you suddenly woke up one day and decided you wanted to save me?” I lower my voice while trying to maintain a neutral expression. “It’s just a coincidence that by marrying me you get to give Nolan a blow?”

“When you put it that way, it sounds worse than it is,” his voice remains steady as if we’re discussing popcorn flavors. “It’s a deal between two people who happen to have a common enemy.”

“What you did is called coercion,” I continue. “You should have given me all the facts before manipulating me into agreeing.”

“I see you know enough about law and how the world should work,” he smiles, unbothered. “But there’s no turning back now, we struck a deal.”

“How can there be no turning back when literally no one knows about our deal?” I ask, my eyes challenging him. “And all we have is a verbal agreement?”

“Because the moment you said yes, I became your choice.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I stare at him.