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Later, we have a full tea with all our guests. The weather outside is dreadful, leaking the gloomy mood through the windows and the glass roof. I try to fight the grayness with a smile.
When we move to sit at our table I force myself to eat some, but it doesn’t distract me enough from the ordeal. Gio talks to Massi on his other side as if they haven’t seen each other for ages.
The fabric of Gio’s suit brushes my arm and he shifts his weight, leaning away. This is the third time this has happened, and every time a piece of me dies inside.
“One would think I have a contagious disease. You can’t get away from me fast enough.” I turn my head, pretending to clean lint off his shoulder, whispering.
He looks down at me. “I better keep my distance,darling, if we want to keep this party civil.”
His words are a threat, and yet they melt my core while setting my heart into an unhealthy gallop. The dark brown pools of his eyes hold so much resentment, but at the same time something primal.
We stare at each other, the time stretching into a black hole of nothingness. To others it might look as if we are about to kiss, but I’m not so sure. I fear my fiancé might prefer to strangle me.
I swallow, practically choking on the violent disappointment in his eyes, and then I turn away. Fuck him. He can try to punish me for becoming a woman who only wants things from him, but he has no right pretending that’s all I’ve ever been.
My jaw hurts from my fake smile. Annie sits with Ron and the kids at a table to our right, and when our eyes connect, the desolation on her face mirrors the vast hollow planes inside me.
“Your sister seems… I don’t know. Is she okay?” Of course Gina would notice.
“It’s her arthritis.” I grab the glass I haven’t touched yet and down the champagne in one swig.
“I can’t believe you’ll probably become Mrs. Cassinetti before me.” Gina pokes me with her elbow. She and Massi haven’t remarried yet.
“Well, you were the first Mrs. Cassinetti, if we don’t count Bianca.” I refer to their first wedding when they were still kids.
“Oh, yeah, our mother-in-law.” Gina winks at me.
I glance at Bianca who is talking to Micah, but her eyes are pinned on our table. I don’t know her enough, but the woman scares me. She is very nice to me, but the way she looks at me… I feel exposed.
I gesture for another drink, but before I put the glass to my lips, Gio touches my wrist. “Pace yourself.” He takes the glass from me and puts it back on the table.
“I’ll frame those words along with all the romance of the day. A girl might swoon, dear fiancé.” Sarcasm might just get me through this show.
“Watch it, Mila. Just because you got what you wanted, don’t make the mistake that I won’t hold you to certain standards.”
Chapter23
Mila
How can you love someone and hate them at the same time? Isn’t that the fucking definition of love? I don’t know. It sounds dumb.
But I know I used to dislike Gio Cassinetti, with his stupid dimples, tailored vests and hot biceps. Tonight, I hate him. Maybe before, when it wasn’t personal, it was just a silly game I played in my head to fight my attraction.
Now I know him. I know the man he could be. I know the man he used to be around me. The man I fell in love with.
That man hasn’t shown up at our engagement party. That man is buried in his own level of hatred.
Overnight, I became the example of everything he hates about women. I’m an arrangement, a transaction. Even after I signed the NDA at Christmas, I didn’t feel this exposed. Vulnerable. Lonely.
The elevator takes us upstairs. I glare at Gio, hoping to rile him up enough so he talks to me. Yells at me. Growls at me. Anything but this tension. I’m shaking with anticipation.
He holds the elevator door for me. A perfect gentleman. We enter the suite and I turn to him.
He glances at me and walks to the bedroom. I lower my head and breathe. This is too much. He was an asshole when I first met him, and even when I started to work with him, but this is an all-new level. I’m his fiancée now, damn it.
Gio returns with his laptop. “Go ahead. I have work to do for an hour or so.”
He sheds his suit jacket and drapes it over a chair before he sits down, lifts his legs onto the coffee table and opens his computer.
