Page 182 of Never Fall for an Angel

“Every relationship has baggage. You’ve just got to be able to step over it to get to the clear path.”

As if he knows we’re talking about him, Christian looks up, his dark eyes locking with mine across the room. I can’t read his expression, but a tingle of awareness slips through me under that thoughtful gaze. Like he’s ready to accept whatever fate I’ve given him, even if it kills him.

I should be happy that he gave me the option to leave. I mean, look at everything he’s done.

But . . . look at everything I’ve done, too.

A rush of confusing thoughts enter my head in that moment where we lock eyes. Like why I’m so concerned with the bruises that cover his body. Where he’s been and why he was so exhausted when he came home.

Talia’s gaze follows his, her eyes locking with mine in a challenge she’s too idiotic to realize I refuse to take part in.

If I have to fight with another woman for a man, is he really mine at all?

She says something, but he doesn’t respond, his stare burning through me instead.

“Mila,” Paulina says, emerging from the shadows likeBatman.

“Someone should put a bell on you,” I grumble, but she flat-out ignores me.

“Go . . .” she urges quietly when a soft song comes on. “Go dance with your husband.”

“I’d rather eat gum off the gum wall,” I retort, but she’s not listening to me. She and Bella both shove me forward, and I teeter in my heels, throwing them a glare over my shoulder.

As if this is aDisneymovie and we’re the unwilling prince and princess who just found out they’re expected to wed in a fortnight, Levi shoves Christian towards me, and he jerks away from his grasp, ignoring whatever Talia says.

Yeah . . . really looks like a man in love to me.

“Go,” Paulina urges quietly from behind me, and I grit my teeth.

Fine. One dance to appease the masses, and then I’m going home.

Wherever that is now.

Christian stops in front of me in the sea of dancing,happycouples, his gaze indifferent. It doesn’t even sweep over my dress. My chest tightens, but I let the anger cushion the blow when he reaches for me with a sigh, looking over my head, no doubt at Paulina and Bella with a glare.

He takes my fingers in his, and I stiffen when his hand comes around my waist. He moves me along to the music, but I can’t bring myself to look at him, let alone lean into him.

It feels . . . foreign. This distance between us. Even when he was gone, he never felt this far away.

“I see you’re still here,” he mutters dryly, so quiet that only the two of us can hear. My chest tightens at the bitterness in his voice, my eyes stinging, but I refuse to cry. I didn’t work this hard on my makeup to cry it all off.

“Would you like me to leave?” I keep my face neutral so even Talia Taylor couldn’t spot the tension flowing through us.

I feel everyone’s eyes on me. Like the entire room is waiting for the drop of a bomb.

It’s human nature, isn’t it? Wanting to watch other people’s lives fall apart while never partaking in the act itself.

“I would have thought you would have run the moment the opportunity presented itself,” he retorts, his tone clipped. Controlled.

He’s not speaking to me like Christian.

He’s speaking to me like a job. Like I mean nothing to him.

I don’t know if his anger or his indifference is worse. Either way, I know there’s a pit opening up in my stomach, threatening to swallow me whole.

“I’ll leave the disappearing acts to you,” I reply, equally as icy. If he wants to be a dick, so will I.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his jaw tick, his hand tightening around mine almost instinctively.

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