Page 50 of Hostile Cravings
“My best friend doesn’t do love,” he said with a shrug. “I knew you’d go after her once you pulverized your fists.” He pointed to the split skin on my knuckles.
“When do we leave?” I asked, trying not to let my excitement show. I couldn’t because as much as I was looking forward to claiming Angie for myself, there were too many unknowns in the way. The risks were high that one of us wouldn’t make it out alive or that I would lose her forever. And they were risks I normally would have avoided, but for Angie, I’d face them all.
Chapter Fourteen
ANGIE
The dress lay spread on my bed and as my stylist, Randi, tugged and twisted my hair into form, I couldn’t pull my eyes from it. A wedding dress. The idea was appalling. The dress was insulting. The thought of marrying Joey Torenti was terrifying.
I tried not to let the shake in my hands show, instead focusing on finding anything I liked about the dress the asshole had sent over for me. There was no way he hadn’t already had it, expecting that I’d marry him the first time his gross hands had tried touching me. That first time, I’d been sixteen, and he’d cornered me. Unlike Tyson, he hadn’t cared that I was too young, that he was older than me. His hands had slithered over my skin until my father caught him. The intent had been there, the darkness in his eyes that wasn’t the sexy kind Tyson’s eyes held. This was evil. From that day forward, my father and Tony had kept me away from him anytime there was a meeting. My father had warned Joey’s father, and Joey had turned his interest elsewhere, my father not letting him in our home again until recently when his old friend Rocco Tirenti had decided he had power over my father now that the Bad Omen had infiltrated us and weakened him.
Randi finished my hair and turned to the makeup kit she’d brought. She prepped my face, applying a base layer of concealer. With each pat of her fingers over my freckles, I thought of Tyson and how his eyes softened when he saw them. The way he’d called me beautiful. As much as I wanted to hate him for hurting me, I couldn’t close my heart off or stop the leap of it every time I thought of him. He’d fractured my hold on it and now I couldn’t seem to piece myself back together.
Stopping Randi, I shook my head. “No makeup, just a light powder. Take the rest off.” Confusion reflected in her expression, her mouth pursing. “Just do it.”
As she cleaned my face, I tried desperately to think of a way to stop this, but none came. If I ran away, the Tirenti’s would turn on my father. But if I stayed… The trembling in my hands grew and I squeezed them together. I needed to be strong for my family, but it was something I’d never been. Tony was the strong one, not me. I was the one who partied and drank and slept with random men. The one who spent money and lived a lavish life supported by my father’s crimes. I didn’t get involved in any of it. In fact, I pretended I didn’t know why we were so rich, why I only left with a security detail, or why people hopped to attention when I entered a store.
Strong wasn’t something I was. Everything about me was a façade, one I’d built to make me look strong, to have others fear me the way they did my father, a wall of pride and self-serving confidence that had done nothing but push people away. Everyone but Tyson who had gravitated toward it, matching me in every way. I looked down at my newly manicured nails, tempted to rip them off but deciding I could use them to rip Joey’s eyes out when he was forcing himself on me later.
“How’s that?” Randi asked, picking up her mirror and showing me. My reflection stared back at me and in it, I saw my mother. Her large brown eyes, her round face, the petite nose with the trace of freckles scattered over it and onto her cheeks.The beautiful woman I’d loved so desperately that when she’d died, I’d hidden the parts of her that were reflected in me. Rebelling against her because I was angry that she’d died and looking at myself hurt just as it hurt my father and brother.
My fingers brushed over my birthmark lightly, like my mother’s had always done.
“Perfect,” I said.
Randi relaxed and packed up her things as I moved to my bed, fingering the wedding dress.
“Can you help me put this on?” I asked. There was no one else here to ask. No mother, no sister, no friends. I didn’t have friends. No one liked the woman I’d become. Bitter, expectant, rude. The only one who tolerated me was Casey and even she wasn’t here.
As Randi helped me pull the gaudy dress on, I could see her thoughts on the changing expression on her face. She wouldn’t have made a good poker player.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I asked as she zipped me up.
“It’s…different.”
I laughed at her attempt not to insult the thing. “It wasn’t my choice, so don’t hold back on my account.”
A full-length mirror sat in the corner of my bedroom, its silver feet always reminding me of alligator feet. I walked to it, trying to contain my gasp. The dress reflected who I’d become over the years, a woman who flaunted her body to tempt men, not caring how much skin I was showing or how little material covered my body. It was not the dress of a little girl’s dreams. A man who wanted to flaunt his new trophy had picked this dress. A blatant statement of ownership, one meant to invoke envy in other men, was what this dress stood for. And I didn’t want to be owned by Joey Tirenti because another man still owned me, even if he hadn’t intended to. Even if none of it had been real.
I turned, looking at the back. It scooped so low, the top of myass showed, the pink lace of my panties peeking above the edge. I tugged at them, looking at Randi.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to wear underwear with that kind of dress,” she said, her eyes holding the judgement any woman would give the owner of this dress. It was the judgement that typically sat in the eyes of women who gave me side glances filled with jealousy.
“You don’t say,” I remarked, turning back to see how far down the neckline plunged. Two thin strips of material held my breasts up, leaving the sides of them showing. “This is horrible. I look like I’m going clubbing and not walking down the aisle. Who wears this?”
She stayed silent and with as long as she’d been doing my hair, she was trying not to answer that I would. Because it was the truth. But even I wouldn’t have worn this to get married.
With a huff, I sent her away, knowing I had no choice but to suck it up and make it work. The old me would have flaunted it and strutted down the aisle. But I wasn’t the old me anymore. Tyson had changed me, and I hadn’t even noticed until now.
A knock at the door caught my attention and Tony peeked in. “Hey, Anj—” He stepped into the room, a disapproving look in his eyes. He’d always hated the way I dressed, that big brother in him always coming out. “What the hell are you wearing?”
I picked up the long bottom of the dress, the silk soft in my hands, the slit that sat on my upper thigh moving to reveal my leg and the tiny stilettos below.
“Anj, I can see through that. You are not wearing that out there with all those men.”
“It wasn’t my pick, Tony. This is what Joey sent for me.”
His jaw clenched, the brown of his eyes growing more intense. “I hate that prick. If I could kill him, I would. I hate that dad’s selling you off to him to keep the peace, that Torenti is basically blackmailing him, turning on him after all these years. They’vebeen friends since they were young and suddenly he’s pressuring pops. I don’t like it.”
