Page 121 of Vicious Little Princess

“Everything all right?” Nico asked, obviously noticing some uncomfortableness coming off me.

I cleared my throat and told them, “Julian wants us out by the pool. He said we need some levity andfun.”

“Fun,” Nico mused.

“A foreign concept right now, yes?” I tried to joke, partially succeeding—I hoped.

“Maybe it shouldn’t be,” Nico said.

But Milo was frowning and then he asked, “Julian said that?”

“Texted it, but yes.”

“Things like this were how he’s always blown off steam in the past,” Nico told him. “He’s clearly trying to get back to that, especially after what happened tonight.”

“Trying to, yeah. But whether he’s actually ready is a whole other thing.”

“There’s only one way to know,” I pointed out.

Milo nodded and rose to his feet. “Then we go slowandcarefully.”

“Of course,” Nico agreed.

I nodded. “Definitely.” And I wasn’t going to bring out that dangerous side of me, either. For Julian and for them as well.

“We’ll get changed and meet you out there,” Nico told me. He smiled and added, “Amore mio.”

I winked at him. “Right back at you.”

As I turned and headed out, I heard their voices carrying.

“So it’s like that, is it? With everything that’s been happening, I guess I didn’t pick up on it. But you’ve obviously declared your undying love for her and vice versa.”

“Correct.”

“Well, that certainly explains why you weren’t so upset about the marriage falsity.”

“It might have something to do with it. There’s also the fact that once it sinks in, it’ll make her feel better.”

“Freer?”

“And more in control again, knowing she’s not bound by it. And for me, it gets Marco and Santino’s taint off of it, of our relationship, of all of us. It’s better for our foursome.”

“I agree.”

I smiled to myself.

Yeah, it hadn’t sunk in yet.

It had been complicated by what Joe had done, how he’d gone about the entire thing.

It wasn’t like him to do something like that either, the manipulation, the extremely underhanded covert approach and basically moving us around like chess pieces on his fucking board.

At least, he’d never done it withmebefore.

Something had changed, and it concerned me as to what that was.

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