Page 23 of Never Fall for an Angel

“Mila,” Mom snaps, but her eyes land on Christian, and she falls silent. Then they land on me. Then on Christian again.

Busted.

My mother’s gaze is unreadable. I hug my arms around myself against a chill that seems to have slipped into the air. Christian’s eyes never leave mine.

“Dinner is about to begin.”

Christian raises a brow as if he’s giving me a choice. Follow my mother or stay here and make my own decision.

I want to stay. I want to feel that burn in my veins, I only feel when I’m with him. I want to spend the night looking at the stars while his lips cover every inch of my body.

But . . . life’s not that simple.

“Coming,” I reply to my mother and push off the railing. Christian chuckles under his breath when I walk by. The asshole thinks he won.

A shiver rolls through me, and I cross the backyard, following my mother to the house. I pause once I step inside, my hand on the door to look back at him.

You’d be too addicted to me to ever leave . . .

“Goodnight, Christian.”

His eyes glint with dark amusement when he brushes a tattooed thumb across his lip. “Goodnight, little devil.”

The FBI agent my mother hired to bring my stepfather down is in love with my sister. I’m not surprised. Savannah is beautiful.Otherworldlybeautiful. He’d be a fool not to fall for her.

I’m not jealous of her because he wants her. Just jealous because no one wantsmein that way.

I can see it in his eyes, the way they follow her, watching her every move. My mother doesn’t think anyone has her figured out, but I do. She hired Logan Prince because my stepfather is part of a human trafficking ring, and this is the only way we’ll ever be free. If we bring the system down from the inside out.

Can’t say it’s going to be a whole lot of fun, but neither are boring benefits, expensive dresses, and sitting through luncheons with all the other rich women in my mother’s circle. It’s just life.

My sister Bailey is the lucky one. Out of all of us, she’s the furthest removed. She lives in New Orleans and has her own life with her fiancé, Charlie. She’s no longer required to play theperfect little doll, dressing up in expensive gowns and doing her hair in pristine curls after a blowout at Santelli’s Spa.

Mason, the oldest of us all, is so far detached in his garage, that belonged to our father, it’s like he doesn’t exist most of the time, and then . . . there’s me.

Just Mila. Always just Mila.

A hand lands on my shoulder, causing me to jump and spin around.

“Fuck, Corbin, you scared the shit out of me.”

He holds up his hands in self-defense and places a much-needed step back from me.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He looks like shit. He’s got bags under his eyes, and I know he’s using that weird drug again. Black Dahlia or whatever it’s called. A mixture of ecstasy and absinthe that gets you so high you can’t remember that your toes aren’t little finger sausages.

“I came to chat.”

I shake my head. “I don’t have time.”

“Make time,” he demands, grabbing my hand when I move to pull away.

Are you kidding me?

Instant heat trickles through me, and I know it has nothing to do with the man standing in front of me. It’s the one watching me from a table near the back of the room with dark blue eyes that haven’t left me all night.

I resist the urge to look that way and force a smile to my face when I really want to pour my drink in Corbin’s face and storm out like every dramatic scene I’ve ever wanted to reenact from television.

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