Page 34 of Say I Do

Giancarlo stared back at me until he gave up and exhaled in a huff. “Whatever.” He waved a hand. “No big deal. You really don’t know anything about us, do you?” he asked Harlow.

“Nope. My sister was supposed to be here, not me.” He looked around the table. “Although I have to wonder how I’m the only one who ended up with the straight brother considering you two have men on your arms.”

Gin choked on a laugh as Ash elbowed him hard. “Straight? Benito isn’t straight. He had a boyfriend. Why do you think that?”

Harlow turned to stare at me. “You had a boyfriend?”

Tex and Enzo exchanged a look. Gin knew about the situation with my ex, Brycen, but Enzo had gone through it with me. And Tex knew how big of a problem it was. Brycen had dated both myself and Enzo at one point. To really drive in the knife, he’d also been working with the police as an informant after they busted him for possession. It was Brycen’s fault that Gin had gone to prison and lost his mind. In the end, I gave the order to Enzo to kill him because I couldn’t pull the goddamn trigger.

“Hey,” Harlow called. “Boyfriend?” he asked again.

“No,” I growled. “Leave it alone. And I am straight,” I snapped at Gin as I changed the subject. “That was a one-time thing.”

“A one-time thing is when you stick your dick in someone once and go, ‘Yeah, not for me.’ It’s not when you have a whole relationship with them.”

“Leave it alone, Gin,” Enzo said as he pushed his glasses up his nose. “You’re aggravating him.”

“It’s just the truth,” Gin muttered.

I stared at my brother, and he glanced away. Gin knew not to bring up Brycen. That man was an anomaly who I’d allowed to get under my skin and make a fool out of me. It wasn’t who I was normally attracted to, nor was he someone I’d want to be around again.

My stomach turned as I thought abouthim.Brycen was and needed to remain a distant memory. Every time I conjured up an image of those confused, pain-filled eyes and his voice as he begged me to save him, it made bile rise in the back of my throat. He deserved to die for what he’d done, but I still couldn’t get the taste of him out of my mouth.

No matter how much I wanted to.

“Benito?” Enzo called. “You okay?”

I blinked, putting away memories that plagued me. “Yeah.” I slapped on that award winning smile that was expected of me. “I’m fine. What are we having? I could go for bolognese,” I said as I quickly picked up my menu.

“So, you had a man, but now you don’t want to talk about it,” Harlow said. “What, did you two break up? Do you still want to be with him, is that it? Or did he cheat on you and break your heart?”

The table dissolved into silence as I stared at Harlow. I had slowly become used to his venomous tongue, but pain blossomed in my chest over his words. He didn’t even know how true his words were or how badly they stung.

I cleared my throat as tears stung at the back of my eyes. My father taught me a long time ago to swallow down emotions like that, to bury them so that they could never interfere with what I had to do.

“Benito?” Gin called. “You good?”

The waiter came over, and I smiled again, shoving down the pain that threatened to rip me to shreds.

“Eat, eat,” I said as I chuckled. “What specials do you have tonight?”

* * *

We stepped outsideas the hot night air whipped past my face. Harlow stared at me like he had all evening, but I still didn’t want to look at him. My fingers itched for a cigarette, but I tried not to smoke in public. Not when the media watched me so closely for any signs of hypocrisy.

“Are you going to say anything?” Harlow asked.

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. There was a lot left unsaid in there. The rest of the dinner was pretty much bullshit after you shut down. Even your brothers wouldn’t look at me.”

I glanced at him, and our eyes finally met. Whatever was behind his gaze was indecipherable. My fingers twitched.I really need that cigarette.

Relief flooded me as the car was pulled around. I slipped into the driver’s seat and finally, blissfully retrieved my pack of smokes. The first inhale was better than any orgasm I’d ever had. Smoke curled in the small area of the car as Harlow reached over and took one of mine from the box.

“Listen,” he said slowly. “If I said something that bothered you—”

“It didn’t bother me,” I said quickly.

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