Page 103 of Maddest Temptation

I smiled. “Shut up.”

“Seriously, Frankie, he’s fucking you with his eyes.” I looked at Cassio again and felt naked. “You minx,” he laughed. “You’re liking it.”

I snorted but smiled. I shamefully was.

“Just tell me one thing, is it any good, with him?” Antoine knew about Cassio and me, we had dissected this hundreds of times. For once, Antoine’s question didn’t have a sexual connotation.

“Yes,” I confessed as he led me towards our table. “It’s paradise.”

Antoine chuckled. “You deserve it, Frankie.” When he let go, he gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and looked at Cassio offering him an apologetic look.

Cassio’s nod was almost imperceptible, but then he met my eyes, and I forgot about the rest of the world.

We sat at the same table but barely spoke, we exchanged in total two words, but we couldn’t risk it. At least I couldn’t, one slip, and everyone out here would know I was having sex with Cassio Moretti.

We needed to keep it a secret until Cassio found a way to dissolve my arranged marriage. So, I sat there talking to Marie, Vitelli, and Antoine for the rest of the night. Yet my eyes kept turning toward Cassio. That man had no right looking like that. It should be a crime. It could lead to accidents.

After dinner was served and the dancing began, I watched as he stood and headed toward the gardens. “You should go after him,” Vitelli said as he sat beside me. “Being here has been hard on him. On all of us.”

“So why have the wedding here?”

“Because it was Bella’s favorite place in the world, and I don’t want to taint it with bad memories. So, I decided to make new ones.”

“Bella would be so proud of you.” I swallowed a lump in my throat.

“Sometimes I wonder if they would have approved of Marie…”

“She would. One hundred percent. Bella would have loved her, and so would your father.”

He pulled on my hair teasingly. “Thanks, Frankie.” I stood up and pushed my chair in. “Be careful with him,” Vitelli pleaded. “Cassio thinks he must carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

“If he lets me, I’ll help him carry it,” I stated truthfully. For him I’d do anything.

Vitelli smiled. “I always knew you were the right one for him.” Those words followed me as I searched for Cassio.

I found him in Arabella’s room, he sat at the edge of her perfectly made bed. Everything was in order as they were waiting for her to come back. It was just like I remembered, not a single item was out of place.

Cassio froze when the floor creaked, but when he saw it was me, he relaxed again. Tentatively, I sat beside him and stared at the pictures attached to the vanity mirror before us.

I placed a hand over his thigh, and he put his over mine, interlacing our fingers, and rested my head on his shoulder, inhaling his scent. Citrus and Sandalwood and home.

Bella’s murder had happened four years ago, and the thought that the Russians had tried to kill Cassio as well… haunted me.

“She would’ve been twenty-four by now,” he blurted.

“I forgot how she looked when she smiled.” I looked at the pictures on her vanity.

“I still blame myself,” he whispered.

“Cassio, don’t.” I cupped his cheek, but he stood up and moved away.

“Bella was my little sister, mine to protect, and look what happened.”

“You couldn’t have stopped it,” I tried to argue. “How could you have known they would attack your home?”

“Grigori is a maniac, he’d tried to have us killed before, I should have known he would try again.”

“Cassio,” I said softly. “There was nothing you could have done.” Couldn’t he see that?

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