Heartless: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

  Heartless

  Jade West

  Heartless

  Dangerous Press

  Jade West © 2020

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Dangerous Press LLC.

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Want More Midnight Dynasty?

  1

  Lucian

  I’d always been a monster for seeking out the forbidden, but even I was pushing my insanity to the limit that night.

  Disguised by nothing more than a black leather mask covering half my face, I mingled my way through the guests. I was right at the heart of it – pompous bullshit, bloated pretences, false kisses, and fake smiles. Everything I’d have expected from the Constantines.

  “Champagne, sir?”

  I shook my head and fixed the little waitress in my evil stare. “Mineral water.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  She scuttled away, rattling her tray of glasses as she went.

  Tinsley Constantine’s coming-of-age masked ball was bursting at the seams. Hundreds of stupid fools chattering in stupid foolish costumes, and I was twisting amongst them like a vine with invisible thorns.

  I could almost smell them – the Constantines. They were crawling through the place, billowing through the masses with their idiot blonde bullshit. Vivian, Keaton, and Tinsley herself were prancing around as though they were on a film set, but not nearly so much as Caroline. The mother of the whole damn posse was dressed up like some kind of ice queen in a ridiculous diamanté mask, smirking at everyone she passed like she was royalty. The very sight of her made me retch.

  But, despite all her efforts with the crowd, it wasn’t Caroline Constantine who was sucking my attention like a black hole. It was the woman in gold. The woman owning the room without even trying.

  She was wearing a Venetian mask that covered so much of her face I could barely make out her features, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t need to see her face. The visible parts of her were enough to drive me wild.

  I’d been watching her swirling from guest to guest, swigging back the fizz and guffawing at each one like they were the most hilarious person she’d ever met. Her laugh was a school girl giggle with a tinge of sexy in the lower notes, enough to grate my teeth. Yet still, I couldn’t stop looking at her.

  The gold silk of her ballgown was a perfect fit on a perfect body. Sloping curves in a delicious hourglass – a gorgeous pedestal of glamour to highlight the elegance of her slender neck. Oh, how I’d love to crush that neck in my hands as I fucked her rough enough to hurt.

  Her blonde curls were held up in twists that glittered with diamonds. Her fingers were perfectly manicured and glittering to match, sparkling under the chandelier lights every time she reached out a hand for some moron to kiss it.

  Lust and disgust were a heady combination, twisting in my gut – and throbbing in my cock along with it.

  She had to be a Constantine. She reeked of it.

  I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to kiss or kill the bitch, but one thing was for certain.

  I wanted to take her body.

  Slowly.

  Deeply.

  Painfully.

  I wanted to see her hurt. I wanted to hear her cry. I wanted to feel her body fight me as she begged me to stop, even though her pussy was screaming for more.

  “Terence Kingsley? I wasn’t expecting to see you here!”

  I turned to face the voice at my side and pasted on my finest fake smile.

  It was Baron Rawlings, his bloated red face still recognizable under his opera mask. Jesus Christ, even the British aristocracy had flown in for this shit show.

  I gripped his sweaty hand and gave it a shake. “Good evening, Baron. A pleasure to see you.”

  My false accent was very well practised and delightfully British.

  “I loved your latest article,” he told me. “About the Windleys and their investment changes. Excellent research.”

  I smirked, more to myself than to him. “Why, thank you. I’m very pleased the National Telegraph opted to print it.”

  His nod and back slap told me I was doing a rather good job indeed of being Terence Kingsley. Which was just as well, considering I’d be dead in a blink if anyone knew Lucian Morelli was in the Constantine compound.

  I’d personally overseen the guy’s demise the previous fall. It was a bonus that the idiot of a journalist had a whole host of articles waiting for print. Steady releases served to keep people believing he was still alive. What an efficient little moron he’d turned out to be.

  Terence Kingsley was quite a talented wordsmith. Such a shame for him that he’d decided to write a story exposing my crimes for the National Telegraph. So long, asshole.

  It was another useful bonus that he could have been my twin at a squint, especially at a masked ball like this one. Bravo, Terence. Bravo.

  The waitress delivered my mineral water and scurried away again with another thank you, sir, thank you.

  I listened to Baron Rawlings’s boring small talk as long as I could stomach it. He blatantly tried to coerce me into writing an article on him and his bullshit heritage. Even Terence Kingsley himself would have rolled his eyes at that one.

  When Lord Eddington came cruising up with a “Rawlings!” I used the moment to make my exit, and there she was again, waiting to transfix me, the woman in gold.

  She brushed by me on her way to the next little cluster of guests, close enough that I could smell her. Orchids and plum. Rich. Posh. Fake.

  I could see the woman was trashed. Cocaine as well as champagne, no doubt. I could virtually taste it in the air around her as I heard the hurried clack of her heels against the polished floor. But there was more. Something . . . darker . . .

  Secrets.

  I could see them inside her, burning deep. A chasm in her façade that people were failing to see.

  A silly little slip of a girl in red came dashing towards her.

  “Elaine! My God, Elaine! You look A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!”

  And that’s when it floored me. Seriously fucking floored me.

  The woman in gold was Elaine fucking Constantine. The embarrassment of the whole Constantine family.

  I knew of her, the party animal freak with desperate eyes. Always on the raucous outskirts of Bishop’s Landing, hitting the clubs in NYC and getting pictured in every damn tabloid that would post her antics. I should’ve known it a mile off, Venetian mask or not.

  I glanced around the room, and it was so fucking obvious who I’d been staring at. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. Caroline
was scowling in her direction, gritting her teeth as Elaine let out another husky laugh. If the woman in gold wasn’t the Constantine matriarch’s daughter, she would already be dead.

  If I wasn’t Terence Kingsley, I would too.

  I guess that made us two fucked up peas in one fucked up pod.

  It only made my cock throb harder.

  I brushed up behind her, and she twisted her head to me; that’s when I first fixed her in my stare. Cruel. Bold. Dangerous.

  The bitch in red was laughing about some bullshit on the Bishop’s Landing social circle, but that didn’t matter. In that moment, eye to eye, Elaine Constantine couldn’t give a shit about the Bishop’s Landing gossip.

  She swallowed hard as our stares fixed and held, and I didn’t need to see the rest of her face. I saw enough in her gaze to know she was a doe in headlights. Her eyes were pools of blue, broken and needy, captured by the chill of mine, dark as charred coal.

  I didn’t smile and stepped away as though she was nothing but a fly in my ointment. It only made her eyes more desperate as they followed me through the crowd.

  I could feel it. Her curiosity.

  On the back of just a few seconds, Elaine Constantine was desperate for me.

  Her and the rest of the damn world.

  I sipped on my mineral water and talked politics with the Weston crowd by the grand piano, ignoring her as she made her way closer.

  She mingled. We stared.

  My gaze was cold; hers, hungry.

  There was chatter all around us, but still she made her way closer.

  She should have learned her lesson as a baby girl long ago, that curiosity killed the cat. Clearly, she hadn’t. She kept advancing, trying her best to keep her cool, but failing. I was loving it, smirking to myself when she was almost with me. This golden siren was going to get herself slaughtered.

  She was almost there. Almost. But no. The Happy Birthday song blared out as the charade of a celebration reached its peak. The whole gang of Constantine siblings assembled around the birthday girl as a massive cake appeared in a procession, all looking so damn proud of the stupid little bitch as she jumped up and down.

  But not the woman in gold, she didn’t look proud of anyone in the hall that night. She didn’t join her siblings. Didn’t clap along with the procession or sing any happy songs.

  No.

  Elaine Constantine did nothing but guzzle down another glass of champagne before making her retreat towards the rear exit. No one looked at her, not as closely as I did. But every move she made was coated in sadness, the sort that tasted like blood in the water to a predator like me. It may’ve been a happy birthday for Tinsley, but in reality, the Constantine kids weren’t all right. Elaine was most certainly not all right.

  Interesting.

  Maybe I’d let the pussycat survive a little while longer while I played.

  My cock made me follow her far more than my brain did. I was snaking in her wake as people cheered for Tinsley. I really was a monster for chasing the forbidden. A crazy one at that.

  Elaine’s manicured fingers were already digging in her clutch when I stepped out into the hallway to join her. I knew exactly what she was digging for, but I didn’t give her the chance to reach it.

  She let out a gasp as I spun her to face me, and a squeal as I slammed her up hard against the wall.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” she hissed. “What the fuck? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  She tried to push me away, but I wouldn’t budge.

  Her blue eyes were saucers through her mask. “You’d better get the hell away from me! Don’t you know who the fuck I am?” She gave a quick glance down the hall and lowered her voice. “Don’t you know what they’ll do to you if they see you with me?”

  The hallway was empty around us, everyone firmly consumed by Tinsley Constantine’s birthday bullshit, so I smirked.

  “I know exactly who the fuck you are, Elaine,” I told her and pushed my thigh between hers.

  Her eyes widened even more through the glitter of her mask. I wasn’t afraid of her crazy-ass family, but her words confirmed how isolated they kept her. She could mingle in public, but they would cut the dick off any man who dared touch their little princess.

  “Then you really are fucking crazy,” she said. “Just touching me could get you killed in seconds. SECONDS!”

  I shrugged, still smirking. “But it won’t.”

  She gritted her teeth. “I could scream!”

  “But you won’t.” I gripped a hand around her neck and pressed my lips to hers.

  I guess I really was fucking crazy.

  I hated her, the woman in gold. I hated everything about her. Everything about the Constantines. Everything about this pathetic fucking gig in this pathetic fucking compound.

  I hated the smell of her. I hated the taste of her. I hated her fucking voice, and her fucking stare, and her whole fucking life.

  But still, I wanted her.

  Insanity.

  My mouth was rough, and my hands were rougher. My thigh pressed hard against her pussy, hitting just the right spot to make her shudder.

  She should’ve fought. Screamed. Battled. But no. With a whole round of insanity of her own, at the height of her sister’s birthday party, the foolish woman kissed me back.

  Forbidden doesn’t even come close.

  She dropped her clutch to the floor, gasping into my kiss, but the way she danced her tongue with mine was a far different experience than I’d have imagined. She was messy and nervous – everything I’d never expect from a billionaire heiress addicted to the social circuit.

  Yeah, that tongue of hers was . . . way too damn enthusiastic.

  I guess that’s when I realized it. Right there and then. Elaine Constantine wasn’t a woman in her mid-twenties who’d fucked her way through every good-looking dick in the States. Not like the tabloids and the gossip would have you believe. Elaine Constantine was a girl who didn’t know what the hell she was doing. A broken toy, cracked on the inside yet still smiling beautifully through the window of her pristine box.

  “We should stop this,” she groaned into the kiss. “This is madness.”

  “I never stop for anyone,” I told her and snaked my hand between her thighs.

  Her golden silk dress and lace panties underneath were a thin veil over her wet slit. I could feel the heat of her. Delicious. She spread her legs and wrapped her arms around my neck, grinding against my hand like a cat in heat.

  “You really are crazy,” she hissed, and she was right.

  I was crazy. I’d been crazy since the day I was born.

  I forced her along the hall and shoved her into an ornate bathroom. The door made one hell of a slam as I pushed her inside and kept pushing until we were shut in the water closet, but I didn’t care. I hitched her dress up, biting her neck as my fingers circled hard around her clit.

  “Take it like a good little bitch, or I’ll make it hurt real fucking bad,” I growled, and I could feel the shock bristling right through her.

  Shock and something more. Something deeper.

  Her eyes were searching mine as I pawed at her. Seeking.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she panted, “Do I know you?”

  “I’m your true damn nemesis,” I said and forced two fingers inside her.

  She was so tight it made my mouth water.

  The bitch moaned for me. “Nobody touches me. Ever. They wouldn’t dare.”

  I laughed in her face and dropped the British accent. “I take whoever I want, whenever I want.”

  That’s when it must have clicked for her. That’s when she pushed me away hard enough to tug my mask off.

  The shock on her face was divine.

  “No! NO! It can’t be. You can’t be! My God. My fucking God . . .”

  I was still laughing. “Oh, I am, sweetheart. I am. You’d better believe it.”

  “Lucian Morelli! What the fuck? You’re Lucian damn Morelli!”

  “Please
d to meet you, Elaine Constantine,” I said and twisted my fingers inside her.

  2

  Elaine

  No. No. NO.

  It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t make sense.

  Lucian Morelli – LUCIAN MORELLI – had his fingers inside me at my sister’s masked ball.

  How in the damn fucking world did I end up with Lucian Morelli’s fingers inside me at my sister’s masked ball?

  He was dead. We were both dead. Fuck. FUCK.

  My head was spinning, stomach lurching hard enough that I’d have been sick if I had anything but fizz to spew up.

  “How the hell did you get in here?” I asked, but even at the height of the deadliest storm I’d ever known, my body didn’t care about the answer. My body only cared about him.

  Even through the spinning and the lurching, my flesh was a law of its own, bucking against him for more. My senses were screaming, needing him. Needing a man who would finally make me his. Finally.

  But it couldn’t be him.

  Please, god, no.

  It couldn’t be Lucian Morelli.

  He forced my thighs further apart and hitched me higher against the wall, and he wasn’t even slightly scared. Even in that moment, even knowing exactly what I was capable of in this place with security all around us, he didn’t flinch. Didn’t shy away. Didn’t give a shit for a thing I was saying.

  It was obvious that Lucian Morelli wasn’t scared of anything. The man was the devil, reigning over hell.

  “I get in wherever I want, whenever I want,” he told me, and I didn’t doubt it.

  I pasted on my bravado. “If I tell one single person you’re in here, you’ll never make it out alive. You know that, right? You’re a fool.”