Page 62 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

I hold his gaze for a long moment. He doesn’t blink or look away. He just keeps staring straight at me, straight into my soul, with that uniquely Tomas mixture of arrogance and softness, dominance and caring.

He looks like the boy I fell in love with ten years ago.

He looks like the man who saved me on my wedding night.

He looks like the one who believes in me.

I’m so choked up I don’t know what to say. Until the moment ends with a vicious, unexpected twist.

Tomas’s eyes go over my shoulder. “Fuck,” he says. The color drains from his face.

“What?” He doesn’t have time to answer before a woman is standing at the edge of our table, a haughty woman with fingernails like daggers, lipstick that reminds me of ripe garden tomatoes, and eyes like green lasers aimed at Tomas. He doesn’t speak. She doesn’t speak, but he draws his hand away from mine.

Well, hell. If that isn’t a signal, I’m not getting another. No one is speaking but, he won’t look at me. Or her, for that matter. But clearly, she knows him. Or she suffers from a social disorder that doesn’t allow the signals from her brain to inform her that staring at strangers while interrupting their dinner is rude.

If Tomas isn’t going to introduce us, I’ll just do it myself. “Hi. I’m Corinne O’Shea.”

She turns a bright white smile my way and ignores my outstretched hand. “I’m Katerina Kuznetsov,” she says in a very romantic-sounding Russian accent. “Tomas’s fiancée.”

“Oh.” Then the words sink in. “Oh.” My roast duck begins a very concentrated effort to flap its way out of my stomach. “Oh. Right. Fiancée.” I widen my eyes at him in a silent fuck-you message I hope he hears screaming through his mind. I blow out a breath.

There are one too many people at our table, so I stand, sending my chair crashing backward. I feel ice-cold from head to toe all of the sudden.

“This looks like a private moment, so I’m going to go.” I look at Tomas one last time. I walk two steps and turn. “I forgot to ask. When’s the wedding? I’d love to send a gift.”

Katerina’s smile widens. “Friday.”

“Oh.” Friday? As in,this fucking week?!“Good. That’s great. I’m just going to run to …” I pretend to check my watch. A watch I don’t wear since I have a phone. “Oh, look at that. Just a freckle. Doesn’t tell time.” Oh, God. I want it to stop now. Mostly, I want to crawl into a hole and bury myself until the apocalypse.

“Corrie.”

His soft tone, the regret in his eyes, and the lie on his lips snap me out of this bullshit babbling and confusion. There’s nothing to be confused about. He’s a murderer and a liar.

I was dead wrong. There’s no trace of my Tommy left.

“I hope you guys are really happy together.” And with that, I walk away, head high, tears at bay. He’s hurt me before, and I lock down any feeling associated with it happening now. No point in crying. I damn sure am not doing it here, in a restaurant full of people and his fiancée. How the fuck could I ever compete with that?

I walk outside and take the first cab that pulls up. I just need to get out of there. My parents are still out west enjoying Beverly Hills and the quiet of their house is the perfect place for me to get my head together.

A fiancée. Really. Of course, she looks like a supermodel. And the ring … holy shit. More carats than a rabbit farm.

I sink into the taxi and let loose tears I can’t hold back anymore.

* * *

By the time I’m done berating myself in the shadow of the fiancée’s gloriousness—even her freaking name is amazing—the cab has pulled up to the curb in front of Mom and Dad’s. I pay the driver and walk inside, straight up the stairs to my room.

Since I’m alone in the only place I’ve ever felt safe, I let the sense of betrayal keep rolling down my cheeks. It doesn’t always take the form of tears, but today is special on various levels. It’s the day I’m free of my husband, thanks to the annulment papers that arrived in the mail that morning.

Plus, during the first really romantic dinner I’ve been to since I met said husband, I discovered the only man I’ve ever let myself fall for, who I thought felt the same, is engaged to someone else. Someone so perfect and lovely she probably wakes up with a full face of makeup and hair that looks professionally styled.

Ugh.

It’s my own fault. I should’ve known. Should’ve never trusted him again. Damn sure shouldn’t have slept with him. And speaking of which, a big fat thank God to birth control pills because I would hate being connected to him for the rest of my life.

I can’t believe I was wrong. All the things I imagined about the boy I knew still being in there … so wrong. Or maybe too right. He’s the same. The same guy who left me without a look back before. Only this time, he swapped in lying instead of a simple disappearance. Bastard.

Like I need a karmic reminder of my own stupidity, my eyes focus on my old photo album. Dusty. Sitting on the bookshelf next to my copy of theTwilightanthology on one side and a framed picture of me with Mom and Dad at my graduation on the other.

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