Page 84 of Wicked Sinner
"Isabella." His voice is deadly quiet. "What the fuck are you doing in my home?”
"Caesar!" Isabella's entire demeanor changes, the cold calculation replaced by breathless femininity. "I was just?—"
"Getting out." He steps aside, holding the door open. "Now."
"I came to talk to you," Isabella protests, moving closer to him. "About my family's concerns regarding your recent… choices."
"My choices are none of your family's business." Caesar's voice could cut glass, his expression deadly as he looks atIsabella. I’m actually afraid—not for myself, but for her. "And they're certainly none of yours."
"But they are my business," Isabella insists, reaching out to touch his arm. "We had an understanding, Caesar. An agreement between our families?—"
"We had nothing." He jerks away from her touch, his gaze flicking toward me. "And we never will. You need to leave. Now."
"This is a mistake," Isabella says, her composed mask finally cracking. "She can't give you what you need. She doesn't understand our world, our rules. She's going to get you killed."
"The only person who's going to get hurt is you if you don't get out of my home in the next ten seconds." Caesar takes a step toward Isabella, and even I can feel the menace radiating from him. "Nine. Eight. Seven."
Isabella looks back and forth between Caesar and me, and I can see the exact moment she realizes she lost. Her perfect composure crumbles, revealing something desperate and ugly underneath.
"Fine," she snaps. "But don't come crying to me when this all falls apart. Don't expect my father to help you when the other families decide you're more trouble than you're worth.”
"I wouldn't dream of it," Caesar snaps coldly. “Trust me, I consider myself lucky that I don’t have to suffer you in my bed.”
Isabella’s cheeks pinken as if he hit her. Her head snaps toward me, her eyes narrowed. "Good luck," she purrs, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "You're going to need it."
The door slams behind her with enough force to rattle the glassware in the cabinets.
For a moment, Caesar and I just stare at each other in the sudden silence. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and there's still murder in his dark eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asks finally. "Did she hurt you?"
I don’t think he means physically. Honestly, I think I could have taken her in a fight, and I’m pretty sure he does, too. And, strangely, I’m touched that he’s worried. That he’s concerned about what Isabella’s visit might have done to my emotional well-being. But I’m something else, too.
I’mjealous. For all that Caesar showed me that he has no interest in Isabella, I know she was right about a few things.
She knows my husband better than I do. She knows his world better than I ever will. And from a purely pragmatic standpoint…
Caesar should have married her.
She’s even prettier than I am.
“I’m fine,” I manage. “She just wanted to talk. It’s not like she was going to try anything more than that.”
"About what?"
I hesitate. I don’t know if I want to confront Caesar about his past right now, about the things Isabella told me that I didn’t know—and probably would never have found out. A part of me, one that I don’t want to examine too closely, wants to know if Caesar would ever have told me himself.
If he’d ever open up to me enough to let me see the man I really married—because it’s clear that he’s been showing me one person, when there’s so much more that I don’t know.
“She said you shouldn’t have married me. That it’s going to get you killed. She wanted me to leave you so you could pick the better option. Her, of course.” The words come out rote, almost robotic, but I can see Caesar’s expression darkening by the second.
His jaw tightens. "And what did you tell her?"
"To get out of my home."
Something shifts in his expression at my choice of words. "Your home?"
Heat floods my cheeks as I realize what I said. "I meant… this place. The penthouse. Your penthouse."
