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I do respect her. She’s disciplined, hardworking, intelligent. But she’s always nipping at my heels, waiting for me to fail so she can take my place.
I’ll kill every last one of you before I let you drag us down.”
The idea of waddling around pregnant with his baby makes me want to rip off this skirt and sprint out of the store.
telling you how it’s going to be with a light tone and polite smile on her face. Acting like any resistance would be the height of uncouthness, so you’re shamed into going along.
When the wedding was two weeks away, it seemed like a lifetime. Like anything could happen in between to call it off. But now it’s only three days away. Then two. Then, it’s actually happening tomorrow,
The great Callum Griffin. He’s their JFK, and I’m supposed to be their Jackie Kennedy. I’d rather be Lee Harvey Oswald.
when I break up with a woman, I feel the same as when I throw away an old pair of shoes. I know I’ll find a new one soon enough.
She will learn to obey me, one way or another. Even if I have to grind her down to powder under my feet.
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor,” he informs me. “I thought that was puns.”
I feel sacrilegious walking into the church—like god might strike us down for this unholy union. If Aida pisses me off enough, I’m going to dunk her in the holy water and see if it sets her aflame.
The rest of our lives is a very fucking long time. I don’t want to picture it right now.
I have to march right into the lion’s den. I have to live in the middle of my enemies for the rest of my life. Surrounded by people who hate and distrust me. Never truly comfortable. Never really safe.
I hate the perfectly manicured lawn and the sparkling windows. I hate how everything in their lives has to be so perfect, so soulless. Where are the overgrown trees, or the bushes you plant because you love the way the flowers smell?
If you told me their garden was full of plastic plants, I wouldn’t be surprised. Everything they do is for appearance, nothing more.
“As long as you’re part of this family, I will help you and protect you. But everyone here pulls their weight. We work together, for the betterment of our empire. If you threaten what we’re building, or if you endanger any of the family, when you lay your head down that night, you’ll never lift it up again. Do you understand me?”
“Oh my god,” I whisper, as I touch the sleeve of one of three identical gray cashmere sweaters. “I’ve married a psychopath.”
To think I was going to apologize to him. Well, I learned my lesson.
Callum doesn’t know who he’s playing with. He thought I messed up his house before? Well, I live here now. I’ll see everything he does, hear everything. And I’ll use what I learn to destroy him.
I hate that it’s so irrational. I hate that I can’t control it. I hate that I have such a ridiculous vulnerability.
I’ve never been one for grand romantic gestures, but even under the most liberal interpretations, I don’t think waterboarding counts as foreplay.
“Taking lessons in humor from you would be like asking a dog how to perform an appendectomy,”
a genuinely kind person, something you don’t see a lot of in the world. Plenty of people act nice, but it’s just manners.
the Griffins look at her kindness as a failing, like some mild disability. They joke about how soft she is, how innocent.
I don’t know why she’s always knocking herself out trying to impress these people—it’s
Yet the more they push her to the side, the harder she fights for them to notice her.
“I’m about to watch Lord of the Rings. Ever seen it? There’re some characters I think you might really identify with.” Specifically, the ones that eat human flesh and are born out of muddy egg sacs.
That’s what you always find in the end—no matter how pure people pretend to be, when the screw gets tight, there’s always some place they crack. That’s going to shoot an arrow right through her pretensions of moral superiority.
I’m hit with jealousy like a sack of wet mud. It knocks the air out of me.
I don’t like this new quiet Aida. It makes me nervous, wondering what she’s up to. I like it better when she blurts out whatever she’s thinking as soon as it comes into her head. Even if it really pisses me off in the moment.
“You know as well as I do that wealthy men never give their money away for nothing,”
“Americans love to make rules for other people that they never keep themselves.
“The young make threats. The old make promises,”
They put up signs, telling us not to apply for jobs. They tried to stop us from immigrating. Now that you think you’re secure at the head of the table, you don’t want to let anyone else join you. You don’t want to share even the crumbs of your feast.”
I’m looking at her with actual respect. She sees it and rolls her eyes at me, annoyed rather than gratified.
“The only mistake would be underestimating him,” she replies coldly. Now I really am shocked. Aida defending me? Wonders never cease.
When she laughs, she throws back her head and her eyes close and her shoulders shake, and there’s nothing polite about it. She’s just happy. I want to hear what’s making her laugh so hard.
I’m pissed that he thinks he has a right to my thoughts and feelings when he hasn’t earned the slightest shred of trust.
I hate Callum the most when he’s cold, stiff, robotic. When he walks past me in the hallway like I’m not even there. When he sleeps next to me in bed without holding me, without even touching me. When I drive him into a rage like this, when he finally cracks and loses control . . . that’s when I don’t hate him. In fact, I almost like him a little. Because that’s when I see a little more of myself. When he has a temper. When he’s angry. When he wants to kill somebody. That’s when I understand him. That’s when we finally have common ground.
“Do you want me, Cal?” “I don’t want you,” he moans, his voice husky and raw. “I need you.”
Usually when I look him in the eye, it’s because I’m furious, trying to stare him down. We’ve never looked at each other quite like this before: open, curious, questioning.
Why do our bodies fit together so perfectly when everything else about us is completely opposite?
“You’re mine, Aida,” Callum growls in my ear. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to touch you.”
“She’s supposed to be an asset, not a liability.”
That’s what I admire about her. She’s wild and she’s fierce.
standing because he wants to loom over me. Unfortunately for him, that doesn’t work when you’re not the tallest man in the room.
Frankly, it’s the best sex I’ve ever had, with the person I like the least. What a conundrum.
It’s funny, because the Gallos aren’t exactly poor, either. But there are levels to rich, just like everything else.
“There’s nothing healthier than olive oil and red wine. You eat like an Italian and you’ll live forever. It’s not good to be too skinny.”
frankly I’ve never been a stick either. So we’re not exactly speaking from experience. But it looks miserable.
you don’t expect the silent thief, some disease striking a woman so young and otherwise healthy.
