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I shouldn’t care that he is safe. If the Irish don decides to kill Luka and Ivan, so much the better. I can go back to my apartment and my old life. I can forget this last week with him ever happened.
Except, I don’t want to forget.
I throw the dress back on the bed, not bothering to refasten the buttons or hang it up the way the designer instructed me to, and put on the white slip I had on earlier in the day. Then, I take a silk robe off a wooden hanger in the armoire. It is one of the few things Luka bought for me that I actually like. The delicate material gaps pretty severely around the collar, showing off more of my chest than I’d usually care to show while walking around the house, but it hangs down past my knees, making it one of the more modest pajama options available to me. I shrug it on over my white slip, tie the knot around my waist, and pad barefoot out of my room and down to the kitchen.
I want to cook, but the thought of eating anything makes me feel sick. I’m too worked up for food. So, I open the oak liquor cabinet. Just like the rest of the kitchen, it is well stocked. Bottles of gin, vodka, tequila, and more are spread across three different shelves. Off to the right, there is a cache of supplies: mixing glass, spoons, shaker and strainer, and a baton for mashing or muddling ingredients. I took a class in culinary school on drinks, and Luka’s liquor cabinet is more impressive than my professor’s. I decide to start simple and go for a cocktail.
Plucking the perfectly square cubes of ice out of the mini refrigerator built into the cabinet and pouring out the proper amounts of gin and vermouth feels like therapy. It gives my mind something to focus on that isn’t Luka standing at the end of the aisle in his tuxedo. That isn’t Luka’s warm hands around my waist when he tipped me back and kissed me. As I shake the cocktail, pour it into a martini glass, and garnish with a lemon twist, I’m finally able to think about something other than the pressure of his mouth on mine and the fire it stoked in my chest. I lean against the kitchen island and drink it back in sips, letting the alcohol warm my bones and muddle my thoughts.
As soon as I’m done, I pull out more liquor and glasses and start with a new recipe. This time, an Americano. Equal parts Campari and sweet vermouth over ice and topped with soda. The bitter-sweet taste coats my tongue and slides down even easier than the cocktail. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear a voice telling me to eat something—to drink a glass of water and walk away from the liquor cabinet—but I go back to the cabinet again. The Milano Torino, as I learned in culinary school, is the predecessor to the Americano. It is the same drink without the added splash of soda at the end and the bitters hit a little harder, but my body is too warm and it tastes too good to care.
By the time I hear the front door to the mansion open, the island is littered with bottles and glasses sticky from the remnants of my cocktails, shaker bottles and empty ice cube trays, and slices of lemon and orange and lime spread across a cutting board. I grab the glass in front of me, a cocktail from my own imagination with one of each citrus pressed to the rim of the glass, and spin around, holding it out just as Luka walks through the kitchen door.
He stops and takes in the scene in front of him, his forehead wrinkling.
“Welcome home, honey,” I say in my best approximation of a 1950s housewife.
Luka’s eyebrows don’t lift or relax, but his eyes trail slowly down my body, clearly enjoying the robe, which has fallen open even more as I’ve flitted around the kitchen.
“What are you doing?”
“Staying busy,” I say, stepping forward and pressing the glass into his hand. “I’ve been making drinks.”
He takes the glass from me as uses his other hand to grip my chin, holding my face up to his so he can look in my eyes. “I see that. Are you drunk?”
I shake my head, the room going a little blurry around the edges. “No.”
“Yes, you are,” he says, dropping my chin.
I stumble slightly before righting myself and pointing a finger at him. “Tipsy is not drunk. Tipsy is tipsy. I’m tipsy.”
He rolls his eyes and takes a drink from the glass. Immediately, he spits the liquid back into the glass and wipes a hand across the back of his mouth.
I pout out my lower lip. “You don’t like it?”
“What the hell is that?” he asks, walking past me to drop the glass on the countertop like it might jump out and bite him.
I pick up the glass and sniff it. “I don’t know. I made it up.”
“It’s disgusting. Is that what you’ve been drinking?”
“No,” I say defensively. “But what if I was? Why would you care?”
He presses his palms into the corner of the island, his muscular shoulders shrugging up around his ears. He still has his tuxedo pants on, but he ditched the jacket somewhere. His shirt is still tucked in, but the tie is gone and the top few buttons are open, revealing a swath of dark chest hair. The sleeves are rolled up in the way that makes me wonder how one man’s forearms have the right to be so damn alluring. When he turns to look at me, his green eyes are stormy, narrowed and frustrated.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it sounds like.Why would you care?You don’t seem to care about me at all.” I remember the shadow of him standing in front of me as the bullets rang out. The warm smell of his cologne washing over me as I cowered behind his body, too afraid to look around to see what was going on. The feeling of his hands on my shoulders as he hid me behind the alter and ran into the melee to stop the madness.
“I don’t care about you?” he asks, one dark eyebrow raised in a challenge. “I fucking saved your life this afternoon.”
I snort. “Hardly. I could have found a hiding spot on my own.”
He takes a step towards me, and I stumble back against the open liquor cabinet, the bottles inside rattling on the shelf. “I saved you with this proposal.”
I’m not sure what this means, but I’m too angry to ask questions. “Oh, my hero. Locking me away in this mansion with this fucking tracker bracelet. I love spending all of my time alone. Especially on my wedding night. Thank you for saving me from my terrible apartment where all of my comfortable clothes are. Thank you for saving me from the restaurant job I spent years training for. How can I ever repay you?”
His hands slam into the wood on either side of my head, the cabinet shaking. If I was completely sober, I’d be terrified, but the alcohol has made me loose enough that I don’t even flinch. I just glare up at him, putting as much fire behind my gaze as I can muster.
