Page 88 of Married With Malice

By now my worry has blossomed. When she doesn’t answer right away I hastily pay for the meal, making good on my promise to tip generously, and hustle back to our suite.

When I open the door, the sitting room is empty. A tingle of uneasiness trails up my spine. Instinctively, my hand reaches for my holstered gun.

“Anni?” I call, looking around wildly.

“In here,” she answers from the bedroom.

Exhaling with relief, I unload my keys, gun and phone on a nearby table before heading into the bedroom.

Anni stands awkwardly by the foot of the bed. She’s changed out of her dress and wears a pair of flannel pajamas. Her face has been scrubbed so clean that her cheeks are red.

A sense that something bad has happened intensifies when she won’t look me in the eye. She crosses her arms, practically hugging herself.

“What’s going on?” I take a step in her direction but she backs up. “Are you sick?”

“No,” she says but turns her head so that a curtain of hair obscures her face. “I just couldn’t stay there alone.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t gone for long. And then I thought you were in the restroom so I waited for a while.”

She shakes her head. “I left right after you did. Now I just want to go to sleep.”

This isn’t turning out how I’d hoped. We shouldn’t end our first night here on a sour note.

“I guess it’s been a long day,” I say.

She nods and tucks her hair behind her ears before turning and fixing me with an unreadable look. “Just so you know, I wouldn’t have objected if you had wanted to stay.”

“Stay where? At the restaurant?”

She rolls her eyes. “At the ranch. Theyreallywanted us to stay.”

“You’re right. They wanted us to stay.”

Anni considers this and nods. “But it’s better we didn’t, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“It would be very difficult to be around them.”

“Now I’m confused. You just said you wouldn’t have minded staying. And you seemed to like Sadie and Cale.”

“Of course I like Sadie and Cale. They’re wonderful. But seeing them together today just reminds me that-” She abruptly cuts herself off and winces, leaving me with no clue what she’s trying to say.

“Reminds you of what?”

She blinks rapidly. She chews her lip.

“We’re not like them, Luca. We don’t have what they have. You willNEVER EVERlook at me the way Cale looks at Sadie. The same way Big Man Bowie looks at Daisy. The way those three brothers we met today look at their wives. Like they cannot imagine life without their other half. That will never be us, no matter what I wish for.”

The words are such a shattering shock that the air punches right out of my lungs. The room starts to look surreal and I’m not sure the floor can hold me up.

Annie grimaces and turns away again, her arms crossed even more tightly, her head down.

She’s in pain.

I’m the one who has caused her this pain.

“Anni,” I rasp out. “Let’s talk about this.”

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