“I miss how your body seeks me out in the middle of the night as if even subconsciously, you need to be up under me. I miss how your mouth tightens just a little bit when you’re trying not to smile. Or how the vein on the side of your throat throbs when I piss you off. I miss how your hair curls up right along your temple and forehead when you sweat.” He presses a kiss right at the edge of my hairline. “I just miss you, ma.”
I don’t reply—Ican’treply. Asad has never spoken to me like this before. I didn’t know he was capable. The scared, leery side of me doesn’t want to believe him, wants to dismiss him and his words as him trying to fuck. But the other side…
That other side is going to be my destruction.
The song ends, and other couples move onto the floor surrounding us. After one more dance, Asad leads me off, and relief pours through me. I need the distance and space of the social hell laid out before me. At least then I won’t be pressed up against him, confused and needy.
The next thirty minutes or so pass with a blur of introductions to people currying favor with him. He presents me as his fiancée and Marcus’s daughter, never hiding my identity. And that frigid, silver gaze never fails to dare someone to ask an intrusive question. Which no one does. Apparently, they all value their lives more than some tea.
“Hello, Ember. We haven’t seen you in a few days.”
I excuse myself from a conversation with one of the designers of a couture house and her husband to face Michelle. My old friend rage simmers in my belly, swirling and working its way up my chest wall. I inhale a deep breath and force my muscles to relax.
You can’t crash out. Not here. You can’t kick the bitch in her pussy.
Life is so fucking unfair. People come up to you on that good bullshit, but the minute you try and match energy, you’re the bad person. They shouldn’t get to be protected by manners when they have none.
Good thing I don’t believe in that shit. I’m old-school. You show out on me in public, I show out on you in public.
“Yes, it’s been a very peaceful, stress-free week, thank you.” I offer Michelle an ingenuine smile—while brushing my hair back off my shoulders with my middle finger.
Her condescending smile slips, and her eyes narrow, the hate she’s never tried to hide for me shining bright. Her attention dips to the hand holding my glass of white wine. More specifically my bandaged finger. When a mock sympathetic expression replaces the flash of anger, I know what time it’s about to be.
Beside me, Asad stiffens, the hand on my elbow tighteningalmost to the point of pain. I look over at him, and he gives the tall, gray-haired man he’s speaking with a firm nod and then turns toward me, obviously not giving a fuck that the other man was still talking. The cold, menacing mask that drops over his face kick-starts a stampede of nerves down my spine.
“Oh, honey. What happened?” Michelle tilts her head and tsks. “Did you hurt yourself? That looks pretty nasty. You have to be more careful out here.”
I chuckle, and Asad subtly shifts, placing himself between me and his mother.
Like a shield. That was… unexpected. And though I can fight my own battles, welcome it. I stare at the wide expanse of his back, stunned, shaken. He really just knight-in-shining-armored me.
My chest constricts, and a low, quivering sigh escapes me.
No one, not even Sam with his best intentions, has ever stood in the gap for me.
No one except Asad.
“Michelle,” he growls. “Fuck you doing here? Your invite was rescinded.”
“No.” Clearing my throat, I hold up a hand, letting it hover over his back before tentatively setting it just below his shoulder blade. Stepping to the side of him, I press my shoulder to his. “Your mother was just expressing her concern over my injury. And I appreciate it. To answer your question, Michelle, no, I didn’t hurt myself. This”—I switch the glass to my other hand and hold up my bandaged one—“is what happens when people don’t know how to mind the business that pays them and have nothing else to do in their pathetic, miserable li’l lives but to be a shit stirrer. But luckily, or rather unluckily depending on who’s doing the telling, my fuck-around-and-find-out spirit is strong. So.” I wink at her. “Be safe out there.”
A gasp echoes from in back of me, and apparently the people Asad had been in conversation with didn’t leave fast enough and got them an impromptu show.
Shock slacks her facial features, and she shoots a look at Asad, but if she expected him to jump to her defense, his silence shouts just the opposite. That’s right. Cleave, muthafucka. Your son believes in cleaving.
“Asad?” Michelle snaps, mugging him. “Are you really going to just stand there and let this bi—”
“I will call security on your ass right now, and open the door and hoist a toast as they throw you outta here,” he warns her, his voice calm but holding a steely thread that she would be suicidal to ignore. “Now I don’t know how you got in, but you better start practicing your best apologies, because if my fiancée decides your presence is disturbing her feng shui, you’re out.”
Holy shit. My pulse thuds in my ears, races in my veins. My choice? He’s really choosing me before his mother?
Another first.
No one has ever prioritized me above Michelle. I swallow and turn my head, briefly squeezing my eyes shut.You cannot cry. You cannot cry. Bennie will beat your ass.
But given that I’m being championed like some princess at a real-life ball, I think she might forgive me.
“Are you serious right now?” Michelle’s head jerks back, and she glares at him.
