Page 25 of Maddest Temptation

FRANCESCA

The alcohol was doing wonders. My head was spinning and everything was hilarious. That heavy weight over my shoulders was nothing but a feather now. A small, albeit insignificant reminder of what had transpired when I arrived.

A server passed me by, and I reached for two shots of fireball. “Shots for mon chérie.” I placed it in Antoine’s hand, almost spilling the contents. He laughed and clinked the cup with me as we drank.

I was going to reach for another one when he pulled me back and sent the server away. “Maybe some water now, chérie.” He took my cup and set it on the kitchen counter.

“Last one, I promise,” I said.

“You said that the last time, you’re not convincing me now, mon amour.” He kissed my cheek and then proceeded to grab a glass from the cabinet and fill it with water. “You’re already drunk, Frankie.” He pushed the water toward me when I refused like a petulant child.

I hated water, especially since it could possibly make me less drunk and that was not what I wanted nor needed tonight. I didn’t care if people were going to judge me, all I wanted was to silence the voices in my head.

Antoine ran his hand across my cheek and removed a few strands of hair that had fallen over my face. The touch might have looked intimate but between us it was common. Antoine was a hugger and a toucher. I was used to it and had even grown dependent on his touch. Like a dog who offered his belly for pats. I leaned against his soothing touch, my skin burning and my head spinning.

Maybe I was drunk.

“What’s going on, Frankie?” When he used my name like that, I knew he was on to something.

“I’m having fun.”

With his hand still cupping my face, he shook his head. “Francesca, you’re trying to get drunk, not have fun. I have seen you like this before and we both know how it ended.”

With an IV bag and a needle in my vein. A massive black hole in my memory and bruises from Paolo’s fists. I couldn’t remember what had happened first, the fighting or the partying, but either way, Antoine was right.

“Don’t be so dramatic. A bit of fireball never killed nobody,” I teased.

His hand dropped from my face, and he stepped away, placing the half-empty cup on the sink. “So, nothing’s going on?”

“If you’re worried, don’t be.” My tone was harsher than I wished it to be. The truth was, something was going on, and Antoine had no right in sniffing it out so easily. The man was like a cat after a mouse when it came to drama.

He watched me for a second, looked at something or someone behind me, and smirked. “So, this has nothing to do with the man that has been eye fucking you for the past hour?”

“What?” I choked on my saliva.

Antoine furrowed his brow and offered me a look that said I was either blind or dumb. “The same man you have been staring daggers at all night.”

To make his point clearer, he stared at Cassio whom I shamefully knew was standing surrounded by women, one of them was almost hiking up his leg and arms.

“Stop doing that.” I slapped his arm.

“Oh, chérie, he knows,” Antoine waved his hand in dismissal. My cheeks blazed, and I turned so that my back was offered to Cassio.

“So, something is going on.” He wiggled his brows.

“He’s Vitelli’s brother,” I explained and for good measure added. “Nothing more.” Because with Antoine, nothing could happen with a man without it being “something more.”

“Yeah, I know, chérie, but that doesn’t explain the tension between you two. I’m almost going blind with how thick it is.”

I rolled my eyes. What tension? I needed something to drink, this subject was making me sober. There was no tension between us, Cassio had been avoiding me, and I had made sure I was as far away from him as humanly possible.

Unsure why I did it, I stared at Cassio in time to catch him already looking at me. From afar, it was hard to tell if he was either bored out of his mind or angry to the point, he wanted to kill someone. It was hard to tell when he did such a good job of lying. From what I recalled; he hated these kinds of events. A part of me was having fun knowing how uncomfortable he was, or rather not by the looks of the woman in his arms.

She said something and he responded causing her to laugh. I swallowed hard wishing I had some strong liquid to wash out that bitter taste in my mouth. Why did I care if she laughed, or that she was all over him for the last hour or so, and he didn’t seem to mind? I didn’t care, it was not my place.

Before Antoine could stop me, I grabbed another shot and downed it quickly, raised the empty cup in a toast, and set it on the counter, and turned around again, not daring to look long enough to catch Cassio’s reaction.

“I sense some history between you two,” Antoine pointed, stealing my attention.

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