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I’d been staring at the clothes strewn across my bed. And while I’d love to claim I was thinking of ways to skip the event tonight, or to make it blow up in Dante’s face, that wouldn’t be the truth.
The truth is, I wasn’t thinking about the event at all.
I was thinking abouthim.
It’s been made abundantly clear to me in my twenty-four years on this planet that life is simply not fair. Good guys frequently lose, and bad guys have a depressingly horrible tendency to win most of the time. Life doesnotplay nice, itisout to screw you, and it cheats whenever it can.
Case in point: my current situation with Dante.
I mean the man is a mafia thug, runs an actual,literalsex club, was totally fine with marrying and probably screwing myeighteen-year-old relative, and almost definitely hates me at this point for throwing a monkey wrench into his life plans.
But hey, at least he’sgota life to live ahead of him. Like, cry me a fucking river.
The manshouldrepulse me to my core. Heshouldbe one of those intrusive thoughts that you shove to the back of your mind the second it crawls its way into your consciousness, like remembering that parking ticket you never paid, or the memory of saying something horrendously stupid in front of your crush in the seventh grade.
If only.
Because instead of being a bleak thought I can shove to the corners of my head or bury underneath distractions, he’s the opposite. Vile, arrogant, corrupt, and brutish as he may be, Dante Sartorre has managed to slither his way into the very front of my cerebral cortex and establish a permanent settlement there. And try as I might, Icannotevict him.
If the world were remotely fair, all of his utterly toxic character traits would translate into Dante being a hunchbacked, scowling, filthy, knuckle-dragging troll of a man. Instead, he looks like a fucking Armani model, with a ludicrously perfect jawline, eyes that make your pulse skip, and the build of a Marvel superhero.
Not to mention his smell. I mean it’s honestly insane how good he smells, like this clean, slightly spicygoodscent. Which makes no sense, considering he’s a purveyor of sin and the Devil himself. The man should smell like sulfur, brimstone, and the burned-out souls of his enemies, not fresh soap, morning dew, and clean linen.
And it’s all ofthosereasons why I’ve been standing here staring at the bed and imagining Dante Sartorre lying on it, naked, beckoning me with two fingers, like some Fabio lookalike on the cover of a cheesy romance novel, instead of picturing creative ways I might murder him if he even tries totouchme once we’re married.
“Pam let me in,” Taylor says, by way of explaining how she got into the house that I share with Gabriel. She doesn’t really have any family of her own, so Taylor’s spent just about every holiday here with us since she and my brothers met.
Gabriel still lives here in the West Village townhouse where we all grew up because one, it’s gorgeous. But two, he detests change, not to mention likes every aspect of his life neat, ordered, and routine.Istill live here because, well, I don’t have a job, money, or anywhere else to live.
That all said, Idolove living here. It reminds me of our parents, it really is a stunning home, and I actually kind of enjoy living with Gabriel, even though he is a total neat freak at a slightly psycho serial-killer level.
Which isexactlywhy our other brother does not still live with us, by the way.
Alistair also likes things neat, organized, and precise. But neat, organized, and precise on his own terms, not Gabriel’s. Not to mention, they do also work together probably eighty hours or more a week. Living together on top of that would result in one of them killing the other, I’m sure.
For a while, it was just Gabriel and I here. But then about six months ago, he hired Pam as a full-time housekeeper and cook. At first, I was skeptical. Or maybe I was worried that someoutside person was going to throw off the vibe my brother and I had established living here just the two of us. But I gotta say, she’s really grown on me.
Pam’s one of those woman who’s embracing her later years with class. She clearly takes care of herself, but she’s also not super obsessed with hiding the fact that she’s in her late sixties. She doesn’t overdo it with the makeup, doesn’t dye her silver hair, and somehow looks classy all the time, even when she’s working around the house.
Maybe that’s why I like her. There’s something comforting seeing someone embracing the inevitability of life and its end when you’re staring down the barrel of your own mortality.
Right on cue, there’s a knock on the open bedroom door. I grin when Pam waltzes through with a big milkshake glass filled with a creamy, green smoothie.
“Here you go, hon.”
Pammajorlywon me over when she first started working for us with her on point smoothie game. She’s even tailored some of my previous favorite combinations of hers to suit the diet Dr. Han has me on. Of course, she doesn’t know it’s a doctor-mandated thing. She just thinks I’m being healthy.
“Avocado, blueberries, vanilla yogurt, chia seeds, hemp seeds, spinach, and almond milk.”
I still get a tiny wave of nausea when I take the glass from her. But for some reason, smoothies I can tolerate a little easier, and they don’t seem to trigger my gag reflex.
“You seriously pamper me, Pam.”
She nods in the curt way she has before turning to Maeve. “Would you like one too, Ms. Crown?”
Taylor glances at the gloppy green drink. “I’m…good, thank you.”
When Pam leaves, Taylor eyes my smoothie again suspiciously. I grin.
