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I flush, wanting to walk away a little to let them have the private moment.
“I’ll be fine if you get me that wood, viscount.”
“Oh, I’ll get you wood, next time I see you. But,miaBella, you burn what you need to burn if they can’t get to you fast, yes? The house is only four or five kilometers away, but in this…I don’t know. Keep the fire going. Books, painting, any fuel. Throw your sister in if you must.”
“Very funny. She can hear you, by the way.”
“I was hoping she could. She’s still in my shit book.”
“What have I ever done to be in your shit book?” I reply with a snort.
“You dumped my brother and he got moodier.”
Yeah, right. Like that man wasn’t born a heartless bastard.
But he’s right. As far as he knows, I did dump his brother. I’m not sure I would have answered a call from him if he’d ever done anything like that to Bella. It’s not like he knows our history.
No one does.
As far as the world is concerned, I walked away because I thought we were incompatible.
And it’s not entirely wrong.
“Thanks for answering me,” I tell him anyway.
“I knew you were with Bella, and I can’t get a hold of her.”
“My phone died,” Bella says.
“You and Iwilltalk about not taking your portable charger,preziosa.Now save your battery. The house will update when they can, yes?”
He hangs up before we answer.
I bring an arm around my sister and kiss the top of her head.
“I’ve never been more jealous of anyone else in my entire life.”
“Why?” she asks, blinking incomprehensibly.
According to her, I could have had my Valmont, my fairy tale. No one knows that my story was written to feature the villain.
“Because he cares.”
TWELVE
Less
“You cannot do this, sir,” my guard repeats, sweat running down his brow. “We cannot allow it. We would be fired, and likely called traitors and thrown in a dungeon for allowing it, if the duke hears.”
“Good thing my father isn’t here,” I reply with a shrug as I tie my cross-country skiing boots.
“He’s not wrong,” my best friend tells me, chuckling, as he hands me his flask of whiskey. “You could literally die out there. It’s far worse than yesterday night and you had to practically hold the pilot at gunpoint to fly us.”
I take a sip.
“This storm can kill you in a heartbeat,” poor Francesco growls.
He just received his knighthood last year; he suspects, rightly, that he’ll lose it if anything happens to me.
