CHAPTER 233: THE BRIDE’S LAST NIGHT

The party was still a storm of champagne bubbles and whispered sins, but my attention kept drifting to the rectangular weight in my pocket. Amanda’s hotel key card. A plastic invitation to burn Harold’s paper-thin world down from the inside.

The Appreciation Society chat wouldn’t stop buzzing, my phone pulsing with half-drunk goddesses firing off increasingly explicit promises. Vivienne already wanted me in her gallery vault. Anastasia was drafting chemistry experiments no FDA would approve. Celeste wanted to curate me like a priceless artifact.

But Amanda? Silent. No winking emojis. No playful promises. Just absence. Which told me she wasn’t typing because she was preparing. And that silence made my enhanced instincts hum like a predator catching the heartbeat of prey before the kill.

"Madison," I murmured, pulling her aside while Margaret spun stories about Miami real estate like a queen disguising smuggling routes as networking anecdotes.

"I know that look," Madison said, her grin sharp as a blade. "Someone’s about to get lucky. And it sure as hell isn’t Harold."

"Amanda gave me her key card."

Her eyes widened, then sparkled like stolen jewels. "The penthouse suite? The one Harold booked for their big ’romantic’ weekend?"

"The very same."

"Jesus Christ." Madison laughed low and dangerous. "You’re about to fuck his fiancée in his own honeymoon suite. That’s not savage—that’s art."

"You’re okay with this?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

Madison rose onto her toes, whispering into my ear with breath hot enough to singe. "Baby, I’ve been watching you collect them like holy relics. Go teach the bride what worship actually feels like. Just remember who you crawl home to."

Her kiss tasted of champagne, lipstick, and pure predatory approval.

"I love you, Princess."

*

The elevator purred as it carried me toward the penthouse level, Amanda’s key card glowing green in the reader like the final seal breaking on forbidden treasure. Every detail reeked of rich assholes mistaking money for intimacy—private elevator, velvet carpeting, and the Setai’s reputation for hosting the kind of weekends billionaires used to buy forgiveness.

"Master," ARIA’s voice whispered like static in my bloodstream, "I’ve patched into the hotel’s thermal systems. Amanda arrived fifteen minutes ago. She’s been pacing, changed outfits twice, and is now in the bathroom. Heart rate elevated. Breathing shallow. Classic pre-seduction ritual."

I smiled to myself as the numbers ticked upward. "Poor Harold... thinks rose petals equal romance. Meanwhile his bride’s about to learn what actual worship feels like."

"Update on the operatives?" I thought back.

"They’re still anchored to the rooftop, monitoring Margaret and Charlotte. Your departure hasn’t triggered movement—but they’ve logged it."

"Keep them on a short leash. If they twitch, I want eyes."

"Always, Master."

The elevator sighed open directly into Amanda’s suite, and holy fuck, Harold hadn’t held back. Floor-to-ceiling windows poured Miami’s skyline into the room, skyscrapers glittering like a jeweled kingdom. The living space was sprawling, sterile in its perfection, furniture worth more than most houses.

But my gaze locked instantly on the bedroom. Rose petals. Candles. A scene Harold thought screamed passion, when in reality it reeked of desperation. Stage dressing. A desperate man’s script for a woman who’d already rewritten her role.

"Eros?" Amanda’s voice floated from the bathroom, hushed and breathless. The kind of voice that had been building since the second I brushed her hand on the rooftop.

"It’s me," I answered, letting my voice roll through the suite like velvet smoke.

"I... I wasn’t sure you’d actually come."

"Did you want me to?"

The pause that followed was electric, a heartbeat stretched until it broke.

"Yes," she said finally, the word escaping like a confession. "God, yes."

Amanda emerged from the bathroom, and every coherent thought in my enhanced brain promptly shut the fuck down.

She’d traded her engagement party dress for something that could only be described as weaponized femininity—a silk negligee in midnight blue that clung to her curves like it had been engineered by scientists who specialized in male destruction. The fabric caught the candlelight, painting her skin in shadows and silver highlights.

Her hair fell in waves over bare shoulders, and her blue eyes carried the kind of hunger that came from years of sexual starvation finally seeing salvation.

"Jesus Christ," I breathed. The honesty in my tone made her blush spread from her cheeks down to her chest, a flush that only made her more lethal.

"Do you... like it?" she asked, voice trembling with the vulnerability of someone who hadn’t been looked at properly in years.

"Amanda," I said, letting my enhanced voice drop into the register that made women’s knees buckle, "you’re absolutely fucking gorgeous."

The way her breath caught, the way her pulse jumped at her throat, the way her body tilted ever so slightly toward me like it had been waiting for gravity to finally work in her favor—watching Amanda remember what desire felt like was better than any drug.

"I can’t believe I’m doing this," she whispered, her hands trembling as she reached for me. "Tomorrow I’m supposed to marry Harold as his ticket to my family’s support... a dream for any self-made millionaire, and instead I’m here with you."

"Do you want to marry Harold?"

The question landed between us like a blade. For a moment, her face flickered through a carousel of emotions—guilt, fear, realization—and then finally, blessedly, relief.

"No," she said, almost on a sigh. "I don’t think I ever did. Bow to me family’s command to marry him despite having only met him for just three months. But him? I never wanted him."

A forced marriage, huh? Typical rich family move.

"What do you want?"

Amanda closed the space between us until I could smell her perfume—something floral and expensive—mixed with the sharper scent of adrenaline and arousal. Her eyes locked on mine with the intensity of a drowning woman spotting land.

"I want to feel alive. I want someone who looks at me like I’m not just a trophy. Someone who sees me."

"And how do I look at you?"

Her lips parted, breath shuddering out of her. "Like you’re about to ruin me in the best possible way."

"I am."