Rome's breath blew choppy and his hips lifted to meet mine, the force of our joining growing harder by the second.

"Romeo... Romeo..." I screamed as my stomach tightened and my orgasm surged, almost exploding from the inside out.

I locked eyes with Romeo as his eyes clenched shut and he, with one last thrust, poured himself into me. His mouth tightened as his hands relaxed on my legs and he exhaled, his heart thumping against mine.

A finger ran down my spine and I smiled against his neck.

"I've never felt anything like that, baby," Romeo whispered.

"It was perfect."

I lifted up and cast a look at my clock, my head flopping back to the crook of his neck. "Now we're bloody late."

"I don't care. They can fuckin' wait."

"Come on, we'd better go." I moved off his hips and walked to the bathroom to clean up.

When I came out, Rome was waiting for me against the wall, his hair tousled and sexy. "Last chance to back out," he said hopefully.

I picked up my silver clutch and held out my hand. "Come, Romeo, let us go to the ball," I teased in an old English Shakespearean-type accent.

Flashing me a reluctant smile, we left.

23.

"Wow, they've really outdone themselves," I announced as we climbed out of the Dodge to the waiting service of the valet. Twinkly Christmas lights glittered along the edge of the large white mansion and we crossed the threshold to the ornate foyer, both hyper aware, searching for his parents.

Remaining hand in hand, we walked out into the yard, where an impressive white marquee of equal opulence was full to the brim with Tide players, all in white. A string quartet sat to the side, elegantly playing "Canon in D."

Cass, Lexi and Ally spotted us first through the packed crowd and waved us over to their table in the far corner. A tuxedo-wearing waiter passed by and offered us a glass of champagne. On a teasing nudge, Romeo picked one up as I politely declined and took an orange juice. I wished more than anything that I could have used alcohol to numb the stress of the night.

We went to stand with the girls, greeting the team as we passed. Within minutes, I was flanked on either side by Austin and Jimmy-Don, who I could tell were going to take their protection detail seriously.

Romeo whispered something to Ally as I made conversation with Cass, and she suddenly paled, tilting her chin behind me. We turned at her action and Romeo's parents approached us with wide, fake smiles. Trailing behind them was Shelly, waving regally to the cream of Tuscaloosa society in a tight white dress, her long red hair pin-straight and falling to her large breasts.

Romeo moved to stand behind me and grabbed my hand so hard it was almost restricting the blood flow to my fingers.

His mother, who, as usual, reeked of alcohol, threw her arms out in the direction of her son. "Rome, my darlin'! Well done on your big win." She wrapped her arms around his rigid frame, air kissing his cheek, and moved along to me, the tightening of her mouth the only giveaway she was displeased with my presence.

"Molly! What a pleasure to see you again, and you look so stunning!" She practically sang as I stiffened at her embrace. "How are you both?"

I remained silent. She would get no showboating from me in front of her guests.

"Fine, Momma," Romeo answered blandly.

Joseph Prince stepped forward and shook Romeo's hand. "Son."

"Daddy."

He nodded to me in greeting. "Molly."

I gave him a tight nod.

The air around us turned stagnant as we stood awkwardly, trying to maintain an air of happy civility for everyone else's benefit. I noticed that the Princes ignored our friends and when Ally, their niece, tried to say hello, they blanked her too. By the amused look on her face, she wasn't exactly bothered.

Shelly stepped forward with a bright smile and went to hug Romeo when he stepped back, a look of incredulity on his face. "Cut the shit, Shelly," he spat viciously.

Her face dropped into a scowl and she retreated beside his mother, who was clearly pissed at his public rejection of the golden child. They all turned and walked off without another word.

"Whew! Awkward much?" Cass lilted from her seat at the table, causing the tense silence to break.

I pulled Romeo aside. "You okay, baby?"

He pressed a soft kiss to my cheek. "Yeah, I just can't fuckin' stand their falseness. And what the hell was that with Shelly?"

"I don't know. Only a few hours left now, though. We'll get through it."

His eyebrows arched. "Famous last words, Shakespeare. Famous. Last. Words."

The dinner lacked atmosphere and was predictably ostentatious and for the most part unnecessarily pompous, but we sat with our friends and tried to make the best out of a bad situation.

The speeches were horrendous. When Kathryn Prince talked of her beloved son and how proud she was of his achievements in football and her hope for his NFL career, I practically had to restrain Romeo from overturning the table and losing his shit again. I grasped his arm and leaned in close, convincing him to calm down, and told him how much I loved him over and over with his hand pressed against my stomach. It seemed to work.

The tables were cleared and everyone moved to the centre dance floor, and Romeo, on hearing the opening chords of Lynyrd Skynrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," stood and pulled me to my feet. "Let's go, Shakespeare. Every true citizen of Bama has to dance to this as a rite of passage."

I giggled as he wrapped his arms around me and moved seductively around the dance floor, singing the lyrics in my ear, badly out of tune. Hundreds of eyes watched as we danced with happy grins, Romeo spinning me in his arms and dipping me down for a dramatic kiss to rapturous applause. Bullet and his good luck charm once again in the spotlight.

I, unfortunately, also saw Kathryn Prince glaring at us, swaying unsteadily as a result of too much alcohol. She grimaced at us parading our relationship in front of all of her guests, and I couldn't help but smile her way. I knew I was fuelling the fire, but she couldn't do anything in front of her friends. Rome would make sure of it.

When the song drew to a close, the Tide coach came over, slapping Romeo on his back, asking him to go talk football to some important people.

Rome bent down as he sat me at the table. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Stay with someone, okay?"

"I promise."

"I'll hurry." He kissed my hand and walked away into the awaiting group of men.

I stayed with my friends for over an hour and Romeo was still nowhere to be seen. I'd drank more orange juices than I thought was possible and having newly acquired a bladder the size of a pea, needed to go to the washroom again for the umpteenth time that night.

I stood and Jimmy-Don stood too. "Jimmy-Don, I'm only going to the washroom... again. I can manage that on my own. Honestly, just stay here with Cass-dance, be merry, and all that crap."

"Nope, let's go, darlin'. You're stuck with me."

I squeezed his arm in thanks and shouted to the girls, "Just going to the washroom. Tell Romeo if he comes back." I turned to go into the house.

I'd just passed the huge central stairwell when Cait came over holding a piece of paper. "Hey, Molly, I've been told to give you this."

A note.

I rolled my eyes and opened it.

Needed to get away for a little while.

Meet me in the library.

Rome.

I quickly used the bathroom and when I came out, showed Jimmy-Don the note. He smiled and shook his head. "What's with you two? Come on, I'll see you there and leave you to it."

I hugged him and gave him a grateful smile and we moved through the packed house to the find the library. Jimmy-Don did as he said and I walked alone into the massive old library, shutting the door.

I was immediately mesmerised by the shelves and shelves of books, floor to ceiling, with several wheeled ladders sprawling along the casing to reach the higher volumes. I was in heaven, bookworm heaven. I could spend hours in a place like this, lost in the pages, transported to other worlds, other lives, forgetting reality for a while. My inner geek began doing back flips of excitement.

I peeked my head around the corner of the room to the large stone hearth and leather sofas, looking for Rome, but the room seemed completely empty. What was he up to?

I smiled excitedly and sang, "Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou, Romeo?"

No answer.

"Romeo?"

Nothing.

"Rome, are you in here?"

I heard the latch of a lock snap behind me and when I turned, Shelly and Kathryn Prince were stood at the entrance, smirking at me with identical bitchy expressions.

My excitement soon turned to dread.

Kathryn stumbled forward, grossly inebriated if the glaze in her eyes was anything to go by. "Well, hello, Molly. We meet again."

I shifted to the end of the centre table, creating some distance between us. "What do you think you're doing?" I looked first to Kathryn and then to Shelly, who lingered nervously in the background.

"You got the note, I see?"

My stomach sank. They'd set me up and I'd fallen for it like a mouse in a trap.

"Shelly here told me about you and Rome and your sickening, cutesy notes-she's been watching you-and I knew that'd get you from the protection of your friends."

We circled around the table like fighters circling the ring.

"I've been doing some digging on you, Miss Shakespeare from Durham, England."

She read the alarm in my expression and laughed wickedly. "Mmm... yes, it made for very interesting reading."

I jutted out my chin, trying to show I was unfazed.

I was anything but.

"Let's see..." She put her finger to her mouth as she pretended to think. "Poverty, working class, living in what can be described as nothing more than a hovel. Momma dies in labour and leaves you in the care of an alcoholic miner of a father, who, when you were only a little girl," she whined in a girly voice, baring her overly white teeth, "decided you weren't worth sticking 'round for and slit his wrists in the tub." She slapped her hands on the wooden table. "Am I close, Molly? Is it hitting you yet? That you don't belong anywhere near my family?"

Tears spilled from my eyes, but I stood firm, unmoving. I glanced at Shelly, who was skittishly guarding the door. She seemed shocked. Was it possible that she didn't know that the little intimidation chat would develop into the shredding of my life?

Kathryn stood only feet away; she'd taken advantage of my stalling. "Fast-forward eight years and Grandma gets advanced stage-four lung cancer from smoking too much, and little, lonely Molly has to care for her all by herself, until-oops! She dies too, leaving little Molly all alone and thrown into foster care."

My hand rubbed at my chest as I struggled to breathe, lungs smothered with the grief her words conjured. My legs grew weak, too weak to move as she approached, her putrid whiskey-laced breath almost making me retch.

"But that's not the end, is it? Molly becomes plagued with sinking anxiety and depression, so bad she needs help, therapy... lots of therapy. But it doesn't work. So she thinks of a plan-marry rich! She's smart and manipulative, so she flees to Oxford to try and catch a wealthy idiot who'd fall for her charms. Isn't that right, darlin'?"

I shook my head back and forth. "I would never do that! Stop making things up!"

Anger engulfed her face. "Makin' it up? Does the name Oliver Bartholomew sound familiar? You dated him, didn't you? An earl's son? Then when that didn't work out, you came over here and sank your nails into Rome as soon as you could, you gold-digging whore! You knew he was rich and you convinced him to be with you, didn't you? He was meant to be with her!" She pointed at Shelly, who was now pacing in the doorway, playing with her hands, seeming increasingly distressed.

"Oliver and I were friends. We dated briefly, but I didn't want anything more. He was a teaching assistant too, we worked together, but that was it. He was a good friend and a sweet guy. Don't make out that what we had was sordid or calculated, because it wasn't. The fact that he was rich didn't mean a bloody thing!"

She gripped my chin and jerked my head to her face. "Just like it doesn't matter that Rome is rich too? Give me a break! He shouldn't be with you, whore! You need to leave him alone so he can do his duty to this family and stop being such a fuckin' failure for once in his pathetic life! Or else you'll be sorry!"

My anxiety faded as the urge to defend Romeo powered through. I smacked away her hand. "Sorry how? He has dreams, you know. He wants to play football... will play football professionally, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Do you even know how talented he is? How he's regarded as the best player in all college football? He loves me and I love him, and nothing you do will tear us apart!" I leaned in and said in a low voice so only we could hear, "I know everything. He told me everything about you, Mr. Prince, his childhood, the beatings... everything. And I mean everything. You have no power over him anymore and never will again. Do you even know what you've done to him? How he struggles to contain his anger through years of hearing he was unwanted, useless?"

I marched around the table, leaving her seething on the spot, and hurried towards the door where Shelly pre-emptively shuffled to the side to let me pass.

As I approached the end of the long table, I heard a loud screech and sharp nails dug into my arm, spinning me around. Kathryn's curved backhand sliced across my face, knocking me off balance, and with a hard push, caused me to slam, stomach first, with huge force, against the edge of the antique solid mahogany table.

At first I was dazed, my movements slowed, and I tried to stand, but a white-hot searing pain stabbed at my stomach, causing me to scream out loud.

My vision blurred as unbearable jagged pangs racked my body, and I collapsed to the floor, trying to grip onto something to help me, to ease the hard cramps. I lifted my head to ask for help and saw Shelly gasping with her hands over her mouth, staring in horror at my legs.

I looked down and my white dress was covered in blood.

A tsunami of grief took hold of me and loud sobs tore from my body as agonising spasms knifed up my spine, in my stomach and legs, prohibiting me from moving. I lifted my hand and placed it between my thighs and when I pulled it back, it was coated in a wet glaze of scarlet. Shelly, seeing my distress, flew out of the room, screaming for Rome.

I crawled to the table edge and tried to hoist myself up, but I couldn't bear the agony of the convulsions.

"You're pregnant?!" Kathryn shrilled. "You little bitch!" She struck my face again, harder the second time, the strength of it knocking me flat on the floor, and I was met with my own dark pooling blood. I laid my cheek against the carpet, curling my legs into my chest, trying to pant through the pain.

A commotion sounded at the entrance of the library and when I lifted my head, hordes of people were staring at me in alarm.

"Move the fuck outta my way! MOVE!!!" Romeo's deep voice boomed as he burst into the room. The tormented expression that swamped his face almost made my broken heart rip completely apart.