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Eli stopped in front of me, his chest rising and falling in anger. His eyes were on me, and there was a fire in them that made me squirm as he looked me up and down.
“What are you wearing?”
The question caught me off guard, and I felt my shoulders stiffen. I didn’t want to give Eli any sort of power over me. He already irked me in a way that I’d never experienced before, and I hated that the way he sneered as he looked at me in the dress made me hate the gown.
“Your mother said that there’s some sort of event going on this weekend, and I needed a dress.”
He looked over at the large pile of clothing we amassed.
“But this is the one.” Sophia jumped in between us. “Don’t you think she looks incredible?”
Eli’s dark eyes roamed over my body, and I stiffened. The breath in my chest caught, and I waited to see what Eli would say. Not that it mattered. If he didn’t like the dress, who cared. Eli always seemed to dress like a preppy schoolboy in J.Crew t-shirts and chinos. He was not exactly a fashion plate.
“It’s fine,” he grumbled out. “Are you ready to go? My parents are wondering where the hell we are.”
I doubted that, but I kept my mouth sealed. Eli and I had developed an unspoken agreement, and I was not going to be the one to destroy it between us.
“Can you bag all of this?” I asked the shopper.
Sophia looked at Eli with discerning eyes. “You didn’t answer the question.”
Eli looked frustrated, and I tried not to laugh at the expression on his face. It was one I was familiar with, but it was one he never gave to others.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “And what question is that?”
Sophia smirked, and I knew that she was having a good time with this. “Doesn’t she look beautiful?”
There was a teasing lilt in her tone, and I wanted to be irritated at her for using me to mess with Eli. Sophia told me that Eli was the most serious Blanchi, and I knew she was using me to try and break what she thought was his cold exterior.
I would have been fine with it, except the way that Eli was looking at me made me shiver.
“She looks beautiful.”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
Carla and I had a sort of unspoken agreement, which meant that we spent the bare minimum time together. When I saw her in that gold dress, I realized that distance was for the best.
Now, in bed, I couldn’t get the sight of it out of my mind. The material clung to her body as though it were a second skin, and the color was just a shade darker than her skin. From afar, she looked as though she were naked, and I had salivated at the thought of her.
Even hours later, the thoughts of it were burned into my brain.
Groaning, I tried to close my eyes and go to sleep. These days I was not sleeping too well. With Carla being so close, I felt on edge. Not just because there was something about Carla that I could not shake, but because I couldn’t ignore that she brought danger into our house.
Despite what I told Matteo, I worried about what she might have brought into our home.
Though my father told me there was nothing to be concerned about, I couldn’t help it. A stream of curses broke me out of my thoughts, and when I heard a small thump, I jumped out of bed quickly.
Matteo was out, and my parents had gone on a weekend trip, which meant that the noise was coming from Carla’s room. Walking towards Carla’s room, I felt my muscles tense.
Was she alone?
I didn’t know. The people who’d killed her mother and brother hadn’t been apprehended. They were likely cartel though, and they would know how to get into the house.
There was another bang, and I tensed further, preparing myself for whatever I was going to find on the other end of things.
Reaching out, I grabbed the doorknob, swinging the door open hard enough for it to crash against the wall.
Carla screamed and dropped what she’d been holding as I stormed into the room. Her eyes were wide.
