Page 74 of Pretty Pink Poison
She teetered on the stairs, and I held her arm. She muttered a quiet thank you, then immediately resumed yelling at me, and I couldn’t help but smirk.
“I love seeing you angry, Pink,” I said, my voice holding emotions I didn’t feel often at all. They were rare and foreign inside me. Fondness, possessiveness, and adoration.
“You’re ridiculous,” she shot back and then she pouted on that platform, crossing her arms. “And you’re not going to give in, are you?”
“Not a chance.”
She sighed and slumped in her dress. “Then get me out of this and put me to bed, Bane. I’m freaking tired.”
She said it like it was my fault, but I found that Bianca somehow had intertwined her life so much in mine that sheprobably thought it was just as much my responsibility to keep her rested as it was hers.
And I couldn’t help but take the task seriously. I enjoyed putting her in her pajamas gently, enjoyed tucking her into bed, and was obsessed with wiping her makeup off so I could see the real smile underneath.
She let me do all that tonight, too, and then she pulled me close to give me a gentle peck of a kiss as I sat on the side of her bed. “You’re sweet when you’re not collecting skulls, you know?”
I grunted as I stared down at her pretty blue eyes and short pink curls, “And you’re a terror all day every day.”
“Someone has to mess up some part of your day; it’s too full of order and planning.”
I stared at her, probably a little too long. She was free of her lashes and her blush and her deep-red lipstick, completely relaxed with a lazy, drunken smile that didn’t hold anything back. She was herself without boundaries or pretenses and I think it was that moment that it hit me that Bianca had reawakened into an untethered, powerful force.
She wouldn’t hurt herself, she was confident, she was unflinching, she was fierce, and she probably didn’t need me anymore. Yet, she wanted me and, damn, did I want her.
I considered how annoying she was throughout the day, how much she defied me, how she caused chaos through the whole damn resort on purpose and then how she smiled when I found her after like she’d only done it to rile me.
It was the way we communicated. The way we connected with one another.
She was the mess to my order, and I wanted it forever.
“You okay?” She frowned at me, her pink lips pursing as she studied me.
“Fine.” I got up and tucked her blankets in around her. “Go to sleep.”
She yawned. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m perfect.”
I wasn’t at all fucking perfect. I’d always been obsessed with her, but I found that now I was falling in love with Bianca Zarelli, my brother’s fiancée.
CHAPTER 24
PINK
He treatedme better after my drunken night. I mean, the man thought he was subtle while I napped and he walked around cleaning everything I messed up.
Half the time, my penthouse smelled like bleach and peppermint when I walked in. My towels were folded, my makeup put back, my mess erased.
I created more just to piss him off some days. I even left my keycards in the freezer once to see if he’d notice. He knew where they were immediately and put them back on the dresser where they went. Something about seeing him care about me enough to tidy made my heart ache.
We would have been good in another life with other circumstances.
The nurses and therapists still came for me. They adjusted numbers and protocol for my gluten intolerance which led to Bane telling me every now and then, “Watch what you’re eating.” He’d say it with his voice low and even but there was edge to it, like he’d punish me if I didn’t listen.
“You don’t have to babysit me all the time,” I said.
“I don’t babysit,” he’d say and then he’d smile. “I stalk.”
I should have hated that. But instead my stomach twisted in a way I couldn’t control.
