Page 20 of Where Dark Hearts Devour
“What is it?” I ask.
“Sorry, Tril, I just need the restroom real quick.”
I swing my head toward the buffet and then back to the chasm now lying between us and the rest of our family. “Now? You can’t hold on a couple minutes?”
She stares at me pleadingly.
“Fine. Go. I’ll meet you back here.”
“I’m sorry,” she squeaks. “I’ll be as fast as I can.”
I grit my teeth and walk up to the table of food. Stretching across the back of the room, it would be piled high with Italian antipasti and other delicacies had the rest of the guests not already devoured half of it. I slide a thin porcelain plate from the top of a pile and eye what’s left of the cold meats and marinated vegetables. It’s as I’m spooning some limp salad onto my plate that I feel a hot breath across my neck. It’s so hot, in fact, it feels angry.
My cheeks warm as I stare at my plate. I can almost taste his presence behind me. My heart races, and I have to force my hands to move mechanically from one dish to another.
The hot breath continues to graze my ear and warm my left side. I step to the right, training my eyes on a dish of pasta salad. As I lift the serving spoon, his voice chafes against my ear.
“You’re marrying my brother?”
My heart clatters against my rib cage. I dare not look up. Instead I focus on scooping another spoon of salad and lowering it onto my plate.
The hot breath continues to burn, searing the side of my face.
“Answer me, Castellano.”
Hearing my family name sound so bitter against his lips makes me startle. When I look up, I’m swallowed whole by his eyes. They’re larger than Savero’s and a richer brown, almost burgundy.
I take a breath. “It seems so, yes.”
Shame leaches into my veins as images of the night at Joe’s Bar flash blurrily across my lids.
I wasintoxicated.
So intoxicated I don’t remember much about our encounter at all.
I wouldn’t have kissed him—I know that much. I’ve kissed boys before from my school and was so underwhelmed by the experience I simply don’t see the point in it. But something about the way he held my hand in the church earlier today ... it felt familiar.
God, please say I didn’t touch him.
Blood rushes into my cheeks as I gaze up at the man who is to become my brother-in-law. “I’m sorry if I was ... inappropriate. I’d had a difficult day ...”
“And a bucketload to drink.” His voice is sharp, and no smile accompanies his words, only judgment. He also isn’t denying I was inappropriate, which means ...
Oh God.
My face burns. “Did we ...? Um, did I ...?” I don’t even know what I’m asking. I wouldn’t know how to be forward with a man.
I crane my neck to look up at him. His shoulders are as broad as his height is foreboding. It would take nothing for him to snap me in two—and from the way he’s glaring at me, I think he might want to.
“We talked,” he says. “That’s it.”
Relief floods through me, softening my bones to the point I have to steady myself by gripping the table. But something in his expression seems ... resentful.
“Okay.” I force a smile, but it falls quickly when he takes a step toward me.
He bends his neck until his lips skim the comb at the side of my head. A cool shiver coasts down my spine. His whisper is soft, in stark contrast to the sharpness of his words.
“If you hate violence so much, why are you marrying the most violent man in New York?”
