Page 26 of Pretty Pink Poison
One heartbeat later he was there, a hand at the back of my head, hauling me into his arms.
“Pink,” he rasped. “What the hell?”
“Crap,” was all I said. No more and no less. He searched my face for answers, his gaze narrowed on me like he knew I knew something he didn’t.
He was right of course. I didn’t share it with anyone though. My father called anything medical “frailty.” Bane would have been worried before. So worried he would have stalked me to every hospital visit and back. But the Bane in front of me now, I didn’t know. I didn’t know if he would feel the same as my father.
I was already an inconvenience to him. And having a weakness was never what a made man wanted to hear if you were under their care.
I wouldn’t tell him that sometimes I got lightheaded, that I’d fainted one or two times before. Instead, I murmured, “I’m fine. I just need to go to the bathroom.” He was about to say no, but I cut him off with whispering, “Please.”
That plea had him frowning and maybe it was the vulnerability we both wanted from each other so badly that caused him to help me up and not dismiss my request for once. Before letting me go, though, he held me around the waist with one arm while he lifted my chin with the other hand and turned my face side to side. “You okay? You feel lightheaded?”
“No. Not anymore.” I tried to wave off his concern. “Guess I got overwhelmed.” I chuckled, looking away from him as I lied. “I just… this has all been a lot.” I knew that wasn’t the reason I fainted. But he nodded and stepped back to let me rush off. He had other guests to attend to anyway.
The bathroom at the jewel-box restaurant within the resort was exquisite—floor-to-ceiling marble lined the walls, gilt sconces casted a warm light over art deco mirrors, and a row of carved mahogany vanities were topped with crystal decanters of hand soap. Everything gleamed: polished brass taps, fresh orchids at every basin, plush towels embroidered with therestaurant’s crest. Even the private stalls were hidden behind mirrored doors, each with its own chandelier.
I didn’t walk over to one of the private doorways to use a toilet though. I stood in front of the mirror instead, staring at my reflection before closing my eyes and breathing in deep, trying to calm the sting in my chest and the tremor in my hands. “No one cares about it, Bianca,” I whispered to myself. “They all probably went back to eating. It was barely a blip on their radar, and they won’t even look your way if it happens again. So get over it.”
“Actually,” a voice cut through the air, “I’m going to notice every single time you fall, Bianca.”
I jumped and my head whipped to the doorway. He was there.
Bane leaned against the frame like sin carved out of steel—broad shoulders filling the space, one ankle crossed over the other, dark suit immaculate except for his loosened tie. His pale eyes burned under the low gold light, fixed just on me. He looked like he belonged to this place and like he could burn it down in the same breath.
Yup. I should have gone into a private bathroom stall. Damn it. “What are you doing in here?” My tone held accusation.
“Making sure you don’t faint while you’re ‘going to the bathroom,’” he said, putting the last part in quotes, one brow cocked. “Why are you in here when you don’t really have to go?”
It was a habit to hide, truly. It wasn’t something I wanted to get any sort of empathy or attention for—not after my father had declared my frailty as a weakness. It was something the syndicate couldn’t see. It was something my father punished me for if there was a hint of it anywhere. And when I was told I had a gluten intolerance on top of fainting, my father practically raged. Bane thought he knew everything about me, but he didn’t know any of that. I kept it all buried away, locked deep in my heart where no one would see it as the weakness my father toldme it was. I wouldn’t tell a soul if I didn’t need to. My father used it against me, and I wouldn’t give Bane more of an upper hand than he already had.
That was part of the reason my heart fell as I saw him in the bathroom doorway. His gaze locked on me as he asked again, softer this time, “Why did you run away to hide in here?”
What could I say without giving him the whole truth? I looked down at the marble, my reflection blurred in the polished surface. “I just didn’t want to disturb the table…”
“If they’re disturbed by you, baby girl, they’ll be destroyed by me.” His voice was low, deadly quiet, but it rolled through the room like thunder. “You don’t hide from anyone here. It’s not what we do in this family nor what you should ever do again. You understand?”
The sentiment was sweet. Yet, the truth wasn’t.
“Why would you care?”
His jaw muscle popped three times before he answered, “If you’re to be a part of our family, you need to act like it.”
I nodded at him, hoping the conversation would end there but he asked, “Anything else you need to tell me about what happened out there?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“We may never be what we once were, but I’m still me, Bianca. I can still tell when you’re hiding something, and I can still find out exactly what it is even if you won’t disclose it.”
I gulped, “There’s nothing to hide.”
He brushed a hand over his mouth where I saw a ghost of a smirk and then he murmured, “Fine then,Pink. I’ll play. Let’s see how well you hide a secret.”
CHAPTER 9
BIANCA
After that,the quiet war started.
