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I lunge forward again, but this time, instead of reaching for the bottle, I grab Bee by the upper arm and reel her in toward me. My fingers furrow harshly into her skin.
Nose-to-nose, I snarl in her face, “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
Then I snatch the bottle from her grasp and let her go.
She stumbles away from me, her face twisting with emotions I’ve never seen her show before. Not fear—that would be understandable. So would anger, but that’s not what I’m seeing, either.
It’s pity shining in Bee’s eyes as she looks at me. Sympathy. Melancholy.
She looks infinitely disappointed in me.
“I’m pushing the wedding back by a couple of weeks,” she says abruptly.
I can’t muster up the energy for anything more than an obvious observation. “Your father won’t be happy.”
“I don’t give a shit,” she barks. “We need to make sure Wren is okay before we go through with this stupid shit. You can pretend not to care about her—but what about your son?”
I ignore my empty glass and just drink straight from the bottle. The bitter alcohol is starting to take the edge off, but it’s too little, too late. Still, I need all the help I can get to drown Bee out.
She walks to the door but stops at the threshold to look back at me over her shoulder. “You lost Elena, Dmitri,” she says softly. “There’s no reason you should lose Wren, too.”
63
WREN
As it turns out, that second apartment comes in handy.
When I asked Dmitri for space, I didn’t anticipate how much space I would actually need. This revelation doubled that need, tripled it, raised it to the power of a billion.
Not that any amount of space can make me forget that he’s the reason my sister’s gone.
Walking into my newly furnished living room, I find Aleksandr lounging on the sofa. He’s got his feet kicked up on the coffee table and he’s nursing a cold beer in one hand.
“‘Sup?”
“You don’t have to be here every damn day, Aleks. I’m too pregnant to make a run for it.”
He gives me a guilty smile. “No one thinks you’re gonna run. I’m just checkin’ up on ya. Yo, wanna get lunch?”
I frown. “With who?”
“Uh… me?” he answers, looking around confused as if someone else might pop out of the woodwork.
“You’re really offering to let me leave the apartment?” I snort derisively. “There’s definitely a catch there somewhere.”
“There’s no catch!” he insists. But the color in his cheeks begs to differ.
I plant my fists on my hips. “So you’re not gonna surprise me with a surprise lunch guest? Your murderous brother, for example? Or his backstabbing fake fiancée?”
“‘Backstabbing’ is a little harsh, don’t you think?” I swivel around to see Bee standing at the entrance of the living room. She looks flawless in a white vest and matching slacks over black Louis Vuitton heels.
Instantly, my eyes narrow into violent slits. “You.”
I haven’t seen her in a week. Not since I told her to fuck right off when she came over to make amends with a massive sheet cake with the words “I’m so sorry” scrawled on the top with pink frosting. She was lucky I didn’t throw the cake at her.
“Me,” she agrees with a weary sigh. “Can we talk?”
“No.”
