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I snorted. “As if.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” I retorted. “Again, you’re letting your conceit cloud your perception of reality.”
“Mm-hmm,” he mocked lightly.
I clenched my fork and knife. Fantasies of stabbing him danced in my head. “You’re impossible.”
I refocused my attention on my plate, which I belatedly realized had been changed to another dish without my noticing. He was impossible, I thought as I viciously stabbed my fork into a sausage of minced meat and spices. Keep that in mind, Jewel. He’s impossible. They’re impossible.
He leaned in and threw me a bone. “It’s going to be a long dinner. Why don’t we pick it up at a later point in time…when we’re alone?”
Of course, I’d want that, but I cast a look over my shoulder at Cat in worry. Having caught me, she gave me a bright smile and a wave.
I returned her smile and waved back, inwardly groaning. No, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t allow a repeat of what had happened at her engagement party. If I’d at least confessed to her that we’d hooked up, then maybe the guilt wouldn’t be so all-consuming.
Turning back around, my gaze slammed into Nicu’s blazing one. He knew what I was thinking.
Have mercy on me. Let me go.
With a purse of his exquisite lips, he shook his head in disappointment. My belly dropped. I didn’t enjoy rejecting him. If we’d met under different circumstances, I would’ve made different choices, but Cat aside, he was a criminal bad boy. The worst kind of man for me. I couldn’t fall for him, not when I could so easily conjure up the image of my father in that awful, gray-colored Otisville vising room.
He gave me a searing look of fury, switched seats with Tatum and struck up a conversation with him. I shivered at the sudden loss of his heated looks and the sparks that flew at our sparring. He was sparing me; he was even tossing another bone my way by not returning to patently flirting with the girl beside him again. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel like he was doing me a favor. Irrational as it was, it felt like he was freezing me out. Truth be told, fighting my attraction to him was feeling worse and worse.
With a sigh, I returned to my plate and picked at my food. Despite the wonderful savory fragrance wafting off the seasoned dish, I’d lost my appetite.
