Page 29 of Pretty Lies

SIX

“DELLA.”

She stiffened, the cigarette between her fingertips—she only smoked when everything in her life felt like it was going to shit, or right after a good fuck—bounced from the shiver that raced through her body. She knew his voice entirely too well because she heard it in her dreams far more than she would admit. It was a little different in her dreams, yes. Rougher and breathier because the last time she’d heard it, he’d been fucking her. It was just her luck that neither her body nor mind wanted to forget it.

Whether or not he noticed her reaction to him saying her name when he stepped out into the back alley of the restaurant, Della couldn’t say. She did her best to hide it, all the while avoiding his gaze as he crossed the damp pavement to lean against the wall beside her.

She didn’t need to look at him when she’d already done that more than enough between the club, and earlier … not to mention, her anger was still quite present. Oh, she understood good and well he was just there to do a job, but sometimes misplaced anger was a woman’s second-best friend. Or it was certainly hers.

Della would bite at anyone when she was mad. A fault of hers she hated more than anything, but one she’d never been able to fix.

Yet, even staring down at the ground gave her a view of his black jeans tight to muscular thighs, and the scuffed combat boots tied around the ankles. His entire aesthetic was a drug to her senses, and he probably didn’t even know it.

Fuck him for that, too.

“It’s Della,” he said, breaking her daze.

Not enough to make her look at him, though.

“Your name, I meant,” he added. “I couldn’t remember it. Not that night, and not until I stepped into that dining room and saw you. Not surprised, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“Pretty things are lies, girl. Pretty always lies. Nothing that looks pretty is ever what it seems on the surface. Of course, you weren’t just some beautiful woman in a club—you had to be more. Can’t trust pretty things. No offense, or whatever.”

She tried to laugh it off.

He had been drunk. It didn’t hurt her feelings. He also was kind of right.

It just wasn’t a memory she wanted to revisit for too long because then he would see the heat start to climb in her cheeks, and she just couldn’t afford that right now.

“Well, to be fair, I already knew yours,” she replied, “or enough, anyway. I just didn’t think it mattered. We were only having fun.”

“Yeah, you’re not wrong. Still, what were the chances, huh?”

Didn’t she know it?

“But hey,” Cory said suddenly.

He snatched her cigarette from her fingers before she could stop him as she was still staring at the ground like it was her new best friend. Not that it mattered because all she could see was the cloud of smoke he exhaled and his carved-from-stone profile while he peered down the other end of the alley. He’d slicked back his dark, tapered fade; the strands wet-looking but she knew that just kept his hair in place.

Despite the fact he’d taken her cigarette, he already had one stuck behind his ear. The ball piercings in the cartilage of his ear glinted in the small bit of light that was afforded into the alleyway. The silver hoop that hugged his lower earlobe matched the one in his nose. God. All the little details of his face that she’d forgotten came rushing back, and she could only see part of it. He truly was a godly man.

“With that out of the way,” he added, not missing a beat or knowing that she was staring at him like a love-struck girl, “let me fill you in on what you seemed to miss back there with your father.”

“Don’t bother.”

“I’m sorry, you thought I asked if you wanted to hear it? Because I didn’t.” He didn’t even let her correct his attitude. Just continued right on, anyway. “You know, if your father thought you needed a man to just … take care of you, as you said back in there,” Cory drawled, his words slow, and sensual instead of the condescending arrogance she expected, “then you wouldn’t have ever touched his business in the first place.”

“Excuse me?”

“Be real, babe. Women who get taken care of in this life don’t even have to worry about chipping a nail on even the suggestion of something illegal most of the time. They’re happy, pleased women, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but they don’t touch mob shit, enjoy their privilege, and not much else. They’re fine like that. It’s how they want it. You get what I’m saying?”

Della chewed on that, considering … “I do, but—”

“Nah, see all you needed there was the I do, the rest is just you trying to save your pride because you threw a temper tantrum and kind of showed your ass. I bet it’s hard being a chick in this business—they do say it’s a man’s world, right? But your father had already taken the familial aspect out of what happened to deal with you and the business side of things. It was you who hadn’t, and it’s okay to admit that.”

Fire blazed through her.