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“Lesson learned,” he muttered, but his eyes went back to me. “No talking to guys. No taking drinks anyone brings you. If Pietro doesn’t pour it for you, then you don’t fucking drink it.”
I pressed my hand to the center of his chest. “I’m not going to be drinking anything but water. I promise that if any guys try to come near us, I will tell Pietro to swat them like flies. Stop worrying. I’m going to be fine.”
Covering my hand, he pressed it closer, trying to absorb my touch through his layers of clothes. “I love you.”
I nearly melted against him at the way his eyes shone down at me. “I love you too,” I whispered.
“And I love my bed,” Ciana said, turning so she could climb the stairs. “You two have a night out, and I’ll go show my blanket how much I’ve missed it.”
“No way.” I grasped her hand and pulled her back. “Let’s go.” I jumped up to kiss Ryan on the cheek, but I didn’t have time for more in case Ciana tried to make a break for it. “Be careful. I promise not to be out too late. Love you!”
“You be careful,” he called after us. “I love you, Nova.”
“I don’t want to go out,” Ciana complained as I dragged her out to the already-waiting limo. “I’m tired, and I just want to sleep.”
“All you do is work and sleep. More sleep than work.” Pietro opened the back door, and I pushed my cousin into the car. I rolled my eyes at my guard, and he smirked, shaking his head at my exasperation. Winking, I climbed into the vehicle. “I don’t know what is up with you, but you are not going to spend yet another Friday night locked in your room being a zombie.”
She covered her mouth as a yawn left her. “I can’t help it.”
I settled in beside her and gave her a once-over. She was wearing black slacks that were at least a size too big on her and a top that looked like it could double as a tent. I couldn’t tell if she’d actually gained weight like she’d said, but her recent choice of wardrobe was so beyond the normal attire Ciana was known for that I was certain something was seriously wrong with her. I had only seen a little of what Ryan had mentioned where she was concerned, but it was definitely enough to worry me.
“Are you sick?” I demanded as the driver pulled out of the compound, an SUV with my cousin’s two guards inside following behind.
“No, of course not.” Ciana yawned yet again and leaned her head against the window, closing her eyes.
“Are you depressed?” I wasn’t going to let this go. Ciana was the type of person who was consistently full of energy, her love of life contagious. Both of those things had been notably absent. I’d only witnessed it in the days since my graduation, but Ryan said it had been going on longer.
Ciana opened her eyes, and I gasped at the sadness I saw in their depths when she turned them on me. “My heart hurts, Nova,” she whispered. “It hurts so fucking bad.”
I slid across the bench seat and wrapped her in a hug. “Why?” I choked out, aching for her. “What made your heart hurt, C?”
She sniffled, and I felt the dampness of her tears on my neck. “Oh, just normal bullshit.” Pulling back, she wiped at her cheeks, laughing h
umorlessly. “Stupid, gullible girl falls for guy who seems too good to be real. Discovers he definitely is not who he claimed to be, and he breaks her heart into a billion pieces she can’t put back together again, no matter how hard she tries.”
“Who?” I demanded, ready to find the bastard who hurt my beautiful inside and out cousin and make him wish he’d never been born. “When?”
“I met him while on vacation.” She leaned back in the corner of the seat and tucked her legs up under her. “My security had a separate room on one side of me, and he had the one on the other side. Both our bedrooms had balconies, and each night we sat out there, listening to the waves hit the beach and looking at the stars. We confided in each other, whispering our darkest fears and secrets to each other over bottles of wine.” She twisted her lips into an angry grimace. “Well, I told him mine. I doubt anything he ever told me was even true. Fucking asshole.”
“Who is he, Ciana?” I asked again. I would have the motherfucker taken care of. If I couldn’t get it done, then I knew Anya would.
“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered, waving my question away. “It’s over, and I’m trying to move forward with my life.”
“It’s been months since your vacation, and you seem less capable of moving forward with each passing day.” I caught her hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “Let’s find him and kick his ass. Or take a golf club to his car. Where does he live? You met him on that damn island, so he could live anywhere in the world. I’ll call and get the jet ready, and we can be in the air as soon as we pick up Cali.”
She burst out laughing at how animated I was over the thought of causing this bastard some physical violence. “We are not going to break his car windows with a golf club,” she said with a giggle. “And he’s too big for either of us to kick his ass.”
“That’s why I have Pietro,” I reminded her. “He can subdue and tie the prick up, then we can take turns beating the shit out of him. Come on, C, you know you want to kick him in the balls at least once.”
“He’s not worth the energy,” she said, her laughter fading, but at least her smile lingered. “So, Lis… Sorry, Cali,” she amended. “She’s still not speaking to Garret?”
I accepted the subject change, but my eyes silently told her we would be revisiting her broken heart soon. A wave of guilt hit me, something I’d been feeling since the blowup after Cali’s confession to my brother earlier in the week. “No, and I feel so bad about all this. I convinced her that she should tell him, that he would understand. And when he reacted the way he did, I guess she realized she couldn’t trust him after all. I can’t really blame her. Garret is an idiot.”
“It was his guilt over his past treatment of her that made him react that way,” Ciana defended. She’d always been my brother’s biggest cheerleader. It was why he’d introduced Cali to her before anyone else. Over the years, he’d considered her more of a sister than he had me. “I agree that he was being stupid, but he needed a moment to accept his past fuckups. She should have given him at least a day to come around. I mean, it wasn’t like he exploded and started throwing verbal abuse at her. He just left, because he couldn’t wrap his mind around everything right away.”
“Look at it from her point of view,” I argued. “Every man in her life who she was supposed to trust has continuously let her down. Garret proved to her that he was no different. If anything, this was probably more of a slap in the face for her because she opened her heart to him even when her every instinct was not to trust a word out of his mouth.”
The redhead slumped against the seat. “I get that. Garret told me that her stepbrother abused her. I didn’t realize it was Manuel Ramirez, though. That poor girl. I saw him once, from across the room of a club, and even from that distance, I could tell he was soulless.”
