Page 13 of Twisted (Never After)
“Cute.” I smile. “A smart woman would see me as an opportunity.”
“I…what do you mean? Are you saying you want to…help me?”
“I’m saying it seems advantageous to have me in your corner. Me, the one who holds sway with the most important man in your life.” I quirk a brow. “Assuming heisthe most important man in your life?”
Her body folds in slightly. Clearly, she gets the insinuation of me bringing up her secret lover, and she doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Of course he is,” she murmurs.
Humming deep in my throat, I nod and reach in, pressing my thumb and forefinger against the bottom of her chin, pinching slightly. “Then I suggest you put away those claws, gattina. Why make me an enemy when I can be an ally?”
Fire rages behind her eyes and I spin around, a sick satisfaction at leaving her without the chance to respond spreading through every vein in my body.
Chapter5
Yasmin
I’ve kept Aidan a secret from everyone in my life for years. To the outside world, he’s nothing but a childhood friend. And at first, they were right. I was lonely when I was home, and he was justthere. But then before I knew it, he had stolen my heart like a thief, and when I wasn’t sure what the feeling was, he told me it was love.
As I sit across from my best friend, Riya, watching her sip on raspberry Bellinis and moan around twenty- dollar chocolate croissants, I can’t help but wish that she knew. That I hadn’t kept this secret from everyone and had allowed her to be my rock.
Maybe, if I had someone to talk to about everything, I wouldn’t feel so alone— wouldn’t feel like I’m suffocating on air.
“These croissants are nothing but sugar and carbs,” she says as she leans back in the metal patio chair, her black- painted fingernails scratching her stomach. “Worth it though.”
I hum, grabbing my Canon EOS R3 camera, snapping a quick photo of her.
She grins and flips me the bird.
I snap another one, already imagining how good it will look in black and white. Riya’s sass doesn’t need color to bleed through the lens.
Photographing people in their element is my favorite part of taking pictures. There’s something so cathartic about candid photos, capturing a single solitary moment and keeping the emotion alive forever.
“God, I hoped you’d grow out of that after college.” Riya nods to my camera as I set it down beside me.
I grin, picking up my Bellini and taking a sip, letting the bubbles sit on my tongue and mix with the sweetness of the raspberry. “Well, I’d hoped you’d grow out of being a bitch, but we can’t all get what we want.”
She guffaws, tossing a napkin across the table at me. I grin, placing my drink back down.
Riya and I have been meeting for Sunday brunch since our college days out in Oregon. We were roommates there just like we had been for years, having had plans to go to college together since we were little kids running around in the boarding school our parents threw us in.
We connected instantly when we met, both of us coming from wealthy upbringings with strict parents and invisible walls to keep us from straying too far out of line. But where my father gives me everything I could ask for and all the spare attention he has, hers treats her like a ghost, something that can be stowed away and kept quiet with cash. But Riya learned that even bad attention isattention, and she became a troublemaker quickly, craving the acknowledgment it provided.
So when we got to university, she acted out. She was known as a party girl who was hanging on to her diploma by the skin of her teeth and the numerous donations in her parents’ name.
As a result of our differing lifestyles, when we had our first taste of freedom, Sunday brunches became our fail-safe,our weekly check-in. Mainly so I could make sure she made itthrough the week alive after not coming home to our dorm more than once or twice in a seven- day span.
In Oregon, we were able to find little hole- in- the- wall pubs— hidden gems with bad sanitary habits and killer Bloody Marys. Now that we’re back home in New York, we’ve had to adapt. I had more freedom when I was far away, but my father likes to know I’m safe.
He’s an important man, and important men have lots of enemies.
So we meet here at Bazaar Treats. It’s an upscale place known for their delicacies and overpriced menu, hidden away in the ritzy hills of Badour, New York, where we live.
I’ve never begrudged my father the things he needs to do to take care of me, but just once, I’d love to break through the cocoon and get lost in the streets of New York City. It’s difficult to do when I have to depend on the drivers provided by my dad. I’ve never learned how to drive; there wasn’t really a need, and my father preferred for me to be driven rather than do the driving.
Maybe in another life. Or maybe after he’s gone.
Shame coats my insides when the thought crosses my mind, nausea tossing my stomach like a ship in a storm until buttery flakes of croissant surge up my throat.
