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“Why didn’t you want to go back?” I had to know. My curiosity about this woman was growing like a forest fire in my chest. I wanted to know everything about her.
She stiffened, her earlier ease disappearing. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe it matters to me.”
“It’s none of your business,” she muttered, looking torn.
I hated that downbeat look on her face. She was afraid, and I didn’t like that one bit. I wanted to find out who had made her feel that way and end them in her name.
“Please don’t ask me. Just know I’ll owe you for the rest of my life,” she said after a long pause, her eyes finally meeting mine. The pale green was already so familiar to me.
Good, stay forever.
A sharp rap on the window prevented me from answering. The service was starting, and people were streaming into the church—the best and most deadly of New York’s families. I had to be on my guard. Security lined the car park, and guns were invisible but very much present.
“Come on, let’s put on a big show, then the news of our engagement will spread itself,”
“You’ll do anything to get out of a blind date,” Kat murmured as I got out of the car, rounded it, and opened her door.
“You have no idea.”
I reached for her hand, and she jolted. Today, there would be touching. The pretense required it to sell the act.
Right, of course, it was. Even in my head, it sounded like a lie. Her hand in mine felt like it belonged there.
CHAPTER9
Kat
Icouldn’t get used to Jae touching me. It was like flipping a switch, and his casual touches were melting me into a puddle—in a church of all places.
Dami glared at us as we went to congratulate Vincenzo, and his wife, Suna, Jae’s sister, looked just like him. Gorgeous inky-black hair and golden skin. Her dark eyes were shrewd and assessing as they passed across us, lingering on her brother’s hand clasped in mine.
“Congratulations,” Jae said, kissing his sister.
Suna tilted her face up to stare unflinchingly at him. I knew that look. It was the kind siblings give each other, where they figure out what’s in your head before you know yourself. “I might say the same to you. Mother says you’ve shacked up with some whore,” she said casually, making me swallow the wrong way and start to cough.
Jae put a hand on my back and rubbed warm circles there. Suna watched us both with a look that missed nothing. Vincenzo, her dark, brooding capo husband, moved behind her and looked us over.
Suna tilted her head to rest against her husband’s chest in a move so natural she had to have done it a hundred times. “I told her that if Jae was living with a woman, it had to be the real deal. She’s quite distraught, you know.”
Jae smiled and inclined his head to his sister. “Consider it a push present.”
Suna laughed. “Stop. Vincenzo already gave me some far-flung Italian island he plans to fortify like Fort Knox and retire the entire family. Don’t wait for an occasion to upset Dami. Feel free to do it anytime.” She turned her eyes to me. “So, you’re the woman my mother has spoken non-stop about for days.”
I didn’t know quite what to say. “Right. I’m Kat, the whore, apparently.” I held my hand out to Suna.
She stared at me a moment and then laughed. It was a beautiful sound. She had none of the stiff reserve of her brother. “Women who are going to be my sister don’t shake hands. They hug.” Before I could respond, she pulled me into her arms. She even smelled good, like baby powder and jasmine.
“I’m happy to meet you, Kat. Don’t give up on Jae too quickly. He’s a miserable bastard half the time, but he’s one of the good ones. A rare find in the world we live in,” she whispered in my ear and then pulled back. “Let’s talk later. You can come over for lunch one day.”
Jae put his hand to the small of my back again and ushered me forward. He’d been speaking to Vincenzo, and now, the tall, intimidating man turned his eyes to me.He simply nodded as we walked past, and I felt like I’d passed a test of some sort.
As a small body barreled toward us, we walked up the aisle to the open doors.
Jae tensed. “My parents are coming,” he muttered, sounding irritated as hell already.
I hadn’t heard much about his father, only that he was old and had retired, handing the responsibility of the business over to Jae.
