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That’s what people do. They lie, cheat, and steal to take what’s yours. You can’t trust them.
That afternoon, hidden from the world, I felt a connection to the girl sitting across from me, even though our worlds couldn’t have been further apart. We sat in comfortable silence. I sketched her, and she watched. It was the first Parents’ Day I hadn’t hated.
I’d been wrong. We were completely different. Winter’s world and mine weren’t even in the same universe. Believing anything else was a waste of time, and not something I’d repeat.
“You wish, Martino. I don’t slum it. I have vibrators worth more than you.”
Winter DeLaurie. Ice Queen. Cheerleader. Stuck-up brat. The girl I couldn’t stand. The one who wouldn’t leave my fucking head. For a year she’d haunted my mind, where she didn’t belong or fit. Where I didn’t want her. She wasn’t my type, not by a long shot, and yet, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about her while I was in Colorado. She was hard to forget.
“Got a deadly allergy I should know about?” “Why? Are you going to try and kill me? Death by cinnamon. At least it’d be a sweet way to go,” she sighed. Cinnamon. Something clicked. I’d helped my mom make her sweet empanadas enough times to know what went in the apple filling. Was there even the slightest chance that the picky princess wasn’t as terrible as I’d imagined for the last year?
he was probably cursing my name somewhere. Somehow, I’d managed to make him hate me more than he already did. I was uniquely talented at being unlikable. My one gift.
I stared at her. Where the hell had this girl been hiding all my life? Be still my wicked heart, because in a year that had been fucked up and shitty all around, there was finally something to look forward to.
thought of Winter turning to Marcus. What the hell? “Don’t even think about it, Bailey. This is between me and her,” I warned him cooly. He nodded, a smirk playing around his lips. “Got it. You like her.” I flashed him a dark glare. “What are you, ten? I don’t like her.” He moved the ice pack carefully over his lip and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever you need to believe. Let’s just say… she’s yours to fuck with and only yours?” I nodded. Yes. Exactly that, and no one had better get in my way.
“I suppose, since I’m alone, and there’s no one in my closet, I can do whatever I want,” he called toward me. “Either that, or someone who professes to hate me likes to watch.” “I do not,” I heard myself say before I could help it. Well, what else was I supposed to do? Pretend I wasn’t there, when we both knew I was, and watch him?
Tonight had revealed a sobering truth. I had told Cole Bailey that Winter was my girlfriend, because the idea of him hitting on her had made me want to attack him, and that wasn’t a ticket to living a long and healthy life. Still, if he’d made a damn move in her direction, I wasn’t confident I could have stopped myself.
Winter DeLaurie was no longer just the untouchable Ice Queen of Hade Harbor. She was devious and smart, stubborn as fuck, and funny when you least expected it, and the thought of any other guy moving in on her bothered me. It really fucking bothered me, which was totally unacceptable. Clearly, I was going to have to do something about it.
He shook his head slowly. “Yes, I’m jealous,” he clarified.
“I said I’m jealous. I don’t like seeing some other fucker’s number on you. I really don’t fucking like it, and it’s not happening again. You want to wear someone’s jersey, you wear mine.”
“You could be not okay with me. I don’t give a fuck,” he continued, and leaned in. His hot breath hit the top of my spine and moved along it. His lips traced silent words on my shoulder. “I don’t care if you’re crazy. I don’t care if you’re sane. It doesn’t matter to me. I’d play with you anyway.”
“Come on, Martino, take the shot,” I goaded him. “Let me live rent-free in your mind.” Like you do in mine.
The other thing he’d left had been on my pillow. I’d shoved it into my top drawer. A pencil sketch of my profile. It made my heart beat like a drum and my palms damp. He was driving me crazy. I wasn’t going to be the same after this, I had a horrible feeling. This game we were playing was going to leave a mark.
Knowing Asher had changed something inside me, and I didn’t think that when our game was over, I’d be able to go back. That was the scariest part of all.
“Call our relationship a game one more goddamn time, and I’m going to write something on you again — but this time it’ll be my initials on your ass in tattoo ink.” “What?” My head was pounding, my breath short. The way he was looking at me was making me sweat. It was too much. He was too much.
“Do you really still think this is a game?” He brushed his lips over mine, spiking my pulse even higher. “Did you think that after everything…I was going to let you go and be someone else’s?”
He sighed and buried his face in my hair. “Now you’re mine, Winter. My spoiled little brat, my smart and funny Ice Queen. Mine. And we’re at the beginning of everything. Got it?” “Got it.”
“It was the start of everything, and we both know it. You’re in love with me, DeLaurie, just like I’m in love with you — nothing you say can change that.”
“There is nothing you could ever tell me to justify shutting me out. Nothing. Tell me you fucked someone — you sign his death warrant, but you don’t lie to me about it. Tell me you killed someone — I will make the fucking body disappear. Never try to tell me again that you don’t love me — because I will never fucking believe you. Our souls are two ropes that will never be unknotted. It’s too late, Winter.”
tell me, what did Martino do to inspire such unwavering loyalty from you?” He loved me when no one else would. He wanted to take care of me, like no one else ever has before.
