Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
She mattered more. He owed her a warning.
“Remember what I said?”
“About?”
“Marco,” he said softly.
Her brow furrowed. “That he’ll do the worst?”
“It’s a damn good thing you’re beautiful, Mina,” Giorgio said loudly somewhere behind Nico. As if the whole room needed to hear it.
Nico’s eyes closed, not able to turn around lest he see her and his father and probably fucking Marco with Mina. He had to be the reason for her attendance. Nico needed a few seconds to gather his wits and prepare for the shitshow. He needed to breathe and remind himself how things that happened years ago didn’t have power and control over him anymore. If he let it bother him, Marco won.
“Fucking asshole,” Nico uttered, rubbing at his temple.
Frankie tried to look around the side of him, but he quickly adjusted himself to block her view. “What’s wrong, Nico?”
“That’s her.”
“Who?”
“He brought her,” Nico tried again.
Frankie still wasn’t getting it.
“The one he fucked, Frankie.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “What?”
She tried to look around him again.
Nico held her in place. “Nope, just stop.”
“Did you see her?”
“Not yet; only heard.”
He spoke too soon.
Mina’s child-like giggle, a staple of her personality that made his skin crawl now, sounded behind him. “Nicky baby, it’s been forever!”
Fuck.
He could see the fire light in Frankie. If her face hadn’t already been blended to the Gods with full glam, he bet her cheeks would be as red as her dress, and not from embarrassment.
No, that anger burned him on the spot, and hell, he knew she wasn’t mad at him.
“I love you,” he mouthed right before he turned around. “Mina,” Nico greeted the twenty-year-old waiting at his back. He kept one hand on Frankie, as if that would somehow make her stay there. “You’re looking...the same.”
Not quite. He didn’t want to be a whole prick.
The years did to her what it had done to him. Made them taller, older, and different in a way that losing adolescence did to a person. Their bodies filled out and they appeared a lot more like adults than the kids they’d once been. She still looked like every teenage boy’s wet dream in a gold body-hugging gown with a slit that went so high it could be considered indecent. Black kohl smoked out her blue-gray eyes and her painted red lips smacked around a piece of gum.
Nico, on the other hand...well, he wasn’t fourteen anymore and his dream fumed behind him.
“Marco invited you?” he asked Mina.
She smirked and shrugged. “Yeah, for old times. You know. Just for fun.”
Uh-huh.
“Weren’t you at Northwestern?” he asked.
“Dropped out last summer.”
“So, what, you show up whenever Marco beckons?” Nico questioned.
“Jealous, are we?”
“Not even close.”
Then, Mina reached out with a black, coffin manicure like she might touch Nico. He didn’t even know what she planned to reach for because he didn’t care or want it. Leaning back so she couldn’t, he shook his head.
“Nope, no. No touching,” he said, repulsed. “You had your time for all that.”
At once, Frankie made herself known by sliding around the side of Nico to tuck under the arm he automatically lifted for her. She put that hand, diamond front and center, back on his chest so it was the second thing Mina noticed after Frankie. She was the star of his show.
Mina’s stare jumped between Frankie’s smug smile and the hand Nico lifted to kiss along the side.
“You’re not trying to touch him, are you?” Frankie asked, her tone like poisoned candy; sweet but threatening. Mina’s hand dropped back to her side fast. “Don’t touch him. That’s the only time I’ll tell you.”
“Mina, this is my—”
“Oh, I’ve heard about her. The girlfriend, right?”
“Fiancée,” Frankie spoke up, now smiling sweetly. “And it’s Francesca to you.”
“That’s...news.”
“Don’t worry,” Nico told her, “Marco wouldn’t know that yet, so he couldn’t share.”
“Mmhmm.” Frankie grinned when he kissed the top of her head. “It’s a surprise.”
“Surprise,” Nico seconded, amused.
Mina shifted from foot to foot, her sky-high heels clicking with each uncomfortable movement as she met Frankie’s gaze head on. “Well, I’m the—”
“Whore,” Frankie interrupted, her smile turning deadly. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”
Mina’s mouth dropped open and that was their cue.
Marco now headed their way, finally out of Giorgio’s clutches. Nico quickly gave Mina a passing nod as he directed Frankie through a group of guests that began exiting the dining hall at just the right time. It allowed them to bypass Marco, while they made a beeline for Salvatore who stood next to Nico’s father.
Giorgio sat comfortably in his chair with a glass of spiked eggnog. It was the only time he drank something other than cognac.
“That was fucking terrible,” Nico told Frankie, “and I loved every second of it.”
As they approached the table, Giorgio’s attention drifted from them to something Salvatore said. Frankie tugged at Nico’s lapel. He bent down so she could whisper in his ear. “If that bitch calls you baby one more time tonight,” she said, her lips grazing his ear as she spoke and the hissing words sending shivers racing through his nervous system, “I’m tearing the fucking skin from her face.”