Page 61 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
He moves closer. His voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “I never told you this, but the trust my father set up for me when I was born stipulates I get a lump sum of five million when I marry. You can have it all to do whatever you want with. Think of it, babe—five million dollars. Think how that could change your life.”
He’s serious. He’s actually serious. The man doesn’t know me at all.
My voice shaking with anger, I say, “I see you’ve thought this through.”
He nods, swallowing, his face registering the first signs of hope. “We’d still be best friends. We’d still live together. We’d do everything together, except . . .”
“Except the one thing married people are supposed to do together. Namely, fuck.”
He looks slightly offended at my flat, hostile tone. “I mean, you could have as many boyfriends as you wanted.”
It happens before I’m conscious of making the decision. One minute I’m listening to his outrageous proposition that I give up any possibility of an authentic life with a man who actually loves me, the next my open hand is making hard contact with the side of his face.
Crack.
He staggers back, shocked, holding his face, his eyes as round as his open mouth.
“I took it easy on you this time because it looks like that nose of yours is still healing,” I say, struggling for air. “But so help me God, one more word out of you and I’ll knock all your teeth out. And by the way, I’m not a prostitute!”
“I never said you were!”
“You already left me at the altar! You think I’m crazy enough to sign up for that twice?”
“I panicked! I swear it wouldn’t happen again! Now that you know, everything could be different!”
My laugh is bitter, just this side of hysterical. “You know, you almost had me. I felt sorry for you there for a minute. But now I just feel like ripping your intestines out through your nose.”
He stops talking. Smart of him, because my fingers are itching to do some irreparable damage to his GI tract.
I turn around and run all the way back to the house.
EIGHTEEN
MATTEO
She bursts into the kitchen like an explosion of dynamite.
“Get me a drink,” she orders, her voice rough. She sits down at the kitchen table and pounds her fist on it, once. Hard.
Her color is high. Her lips are thinned to a white line. She’s so furious she’s trembling.
Alarmed, Lorenzo looks at me. He leaves without a word.
He has no experience dealing with a woman’s anger. My mother is far too skilled at keeping everything bottled up.
I force myself not to grill Kimber about what happened in the driveway. Not to ask all the questions crowding my throat. Instead I obey her wish and pour a stiff measure of whiskey into a glass. I set it in front of her silently, sit across from her, and wait.
It’s one of the more difficult things I’ve ever done.
From the moment I set eyes on that preppy blond bastard, I wanted to commit murder.
I know what that means, unfortunately. It means I’m fucked.
But I knew that already. From the moment I saw her sitting on the sofa in the living room and realized who she was, I’ve been fucked.
No. That’s not it, either. I was fucked from the first time I saw her at the airport.
She shoots the whiskey in one gulp. When she sets the glass down on the table, her hand shakes. She stares at that shaking hand as if she’d like to cut if off. “Another.”
