Page 14

The malice in it is almost impressive, the petty little bitch.

When I first arrived, Dana had me covering her worst tables and running her drink orders, and I did it to keep the peace. That peace ended the afternoon I overheard her in the break room, doing an impression of me squeezing into a chair for two giggling bar backs. I poured her fresh latte straight into the trash while she watched, and she has hated me ever since.

“It is such a shame, really,” Dana goes on, pouting for effect. “A scene like that, and not one photo made it online. A body like yours getting thrown around, that is practically porn for this floor.”

The whole floor has stopped pretending to work now. They love this. It beats their morning coffee.

“I heard she was the groom’s dirty little side piece,” someone murmurs behind the bar, and the words travel the way whispers travel, gathering weight as they go. My chest heaves once, hot with fury.

I keep my voice level, because a level voice is the one thing Dana cannot stand. “If you want to be famous, Dana, go flash your own tits at a party. Leave mine out of it.”

Her smile freezes solid on her face. “At least I never have to worry about my clothes bursting at the seams,” she says, folding her arms across herself. “That fat ass of yours should stay far away from a fitted skirt.”

“And that register of yours, forty short again last week, should stay far away from the manager’s eye,” I answer. “Two months ahead of me and still stuck on the worst section. Remind me which one of us is actually splitting at the seams.”

Her mouth opens and shuts. She sputters, and all she manages is my name, twice, before it dies in her throat.

“Spend a little less energy on my body and a little more on your own tables,” I tell her, and I knot my apron. “They pay us to pour drinks here, not narrate my love life.”

Stifled laughter leaks out of three separate corners of the floor. Dana burns through rage and mortification in about four seconds flat, glares hard enough to strip the paint off a wall, and stalks back to her own station.

Margo wheels close, delighted. “Remind me never to fight you. Nobody walks away from your mouth in one piece.” She would have jumped in for me anyway. She always does.

“For the record,” she adds, quieter now, “your body is a filthy little dream and nothing like what that bitch claims, and the man last night obviously agreed with me.”

I nearly choke on my own spit right there behind the bar.

She leans in, dropping her voice to a hush meant only for the two of us. “So, he made Maksim Volkov and his own fiancée apologize in front of a whole room. That is not some passing gentleman, Delaney. Who is he?”

“He just peeled me up off the floor. That’s all it was.”

“Your ears are the color of a stop sign right now.”

“It is warm in here today,” I say.

“The AC in here could hang meat.” Her grin sharpens to a point. “You are a terrible liar. You are practically a canary in heat, perched there singing the whole truth without saying a word.”

She’s right, and she is the worst possible person to lie to, because she’s the one who first befriended me in this place, who sat with me the night I learned about Maksim and Vanessa, who has never once turned a secret of mine into a weapon.

I check that the others are buried in their side work. “He is Maksim’s brother,” I say, barely moving my lips.

Margo goes very still. Then her whole face opens as it clicks into place. “That’s why Maksim apologized. Same blood.” Her eyes go round. “Wait, did he take you home?”

I stay silent.

“Oh my God, you fucked him,” she says, far too loud for comfort.

I don’t clap a hand over her mouth, because that would summon exactly the eyes I’m avoiding. “Please, be louder,” I mutter, staring at a reservation book I’m absolutely not reading. “The people down in the lobby missed it.”

“This is completely insane,” she whispers. “That’s your ex’s brother. You screwed your ex’s actual brother.”

“Thank you for the recap. So very helpful.”

“Okay, but how was he in bed, though? Details.”

My pen stops moving on the page. “I have no idea what you mean by that.”

“You absolutely do. He looks like the kind who doesn’t soften a single inch for anybody. I bet he fucks just as merciless as he looks.”