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I take her small hand in mine, almost enveloping it.
…Irefuseto acknowledge the burst of heat that lances through my chest when our hands connect. I also refuse to dwell on the tingling sensation where her skin touches mine, or the way her eyes flicker with something forbidden when our gazes lock.
Then the moment’s over.
Tempest pulls away, nods at me with her lip still caught in her teeth, and turns. I watch from the kitchen doorway as she walks down the hall. Once, she stumbles, her hand shooting out to steady herself against the wall.
“Just the fucking heels,” she mutters over her shoulder. “I’m fine.”
Maybe it was the heels just now. But that doesn’t explain what happened before. That was certainlynother goddamn shoes.
It wasn’t blood loss, either: she’s right, her hand isn’t that badly cut at all. It could be shock, I suppose.
My mind replays the way her eyes rolled back. The way her body just went limp in my arms, like a rag doll.
…who weighs, frankly, not enough.
Couldthatbe it? An eating disorder? Tempest istiny, and not just thin, either. She’s gaunt, as if she purposefully doesn’t eat. Fuck, like some of Bianca’s dancer friends.
Whatever it is, I’ll find out. Whatever she’s hiding, I’ll uncover. Whatever she’s trying to keep buried, I’ll dig up.
I’ll discover every fucking secret you have, little hurricane…
10
TEMPEST
Just as I thought,Gabriel and Alistair requirezeroconvincing to believe that I dipped out of my own engagement party. I think they’re even a little amused.
The amusement fades a little when Gabriel realizes I put twelve hundred dollars for a two-and-a-half-hour Uber back to Manhattan from Dante’s Hamptons estate on my “strictly emergency use only” Crown and Black credit card.
Damn surge pricing.
My hand reallyisfine. And after hiding from them for a few days, I’m able to ditch the bandage and explain the cuts with a bullshit story of tripping down some subway steps. Gabriel and Alistair buy it. But every time I look at the little cuts on my hand, I’m reminded of that engagement party.
I mean, yes, throwing myself between Bianca and that asshole ex-boyfriend of hers was dumb. Smashing the glass against his head was insane.
But the part that I keep returning to is the moment I came to after that dizzy spell where it felt like I was going to pass out for a hot second.
…in Dante’s arms.
I’m choosing to forget how awkwardly I explained, or ratherdidn’texplain, my little attack. How I brushed it aside instead of casually explaining that my kidneys are slowly shutting down and that frequently even theideaof food makes me retch.
Dante probably thinks I’m anorexic or bulimic or something. Whatever. He can think what he wants.
Doesn’t stop me from replaying that moment when I opened my eyes and looked up into his, over and over again.
I have no idea why.
A week after the engagement party, I have to get back into character as Dante’s fiancée for two events. The first, almost tongue-in-cheek thing, is that Taylor is insisting on taking me out for a “bachelorette party” along with Elsa and Fumi, two of the top lawyers at Crown and Black who I’m pretty chummy with.
The idea of going out to “celebrate” my arranged marriage to the devil himself is actually nauseating to me. So even though Taylor won’t take no for an answer to her idea, she’s agreed to my stipulation that we all wear black.
Like a funeral. Cute, right?
The second event is a “ladies’ bridal luncheon”, which sounds fucking awful. I’d skip it, except, well,I’mthe bride, so…yeah.
On the plus side, though, Bianca is coming too. She ends up picking me up at Gabriel’s and my place in her car, driven by Dante’s head of security, Lorenzo. Then we drive out into the Bronx to Arthur Avenue, home to dozens of super old-school Italian restaurants and bakeries.
