More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
My heart would never be his. It was the one thing in my life that was mine, and I would never sign it over.
“You got a coffeemaker?” “Can’t have you turning into anything nonhuman.” That was thoughtful of him . . . and I hated it, because I couldn’t remember the last time
someone had thought of what I needed before I had to ask for it.
“One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.” —Georgia O’Keeffe
I realized then that I wanted him to want me.
Where a deep attraction had hummed for him since I’d met him, there was something else coming to life, pulsing like a weak beat on a heart rate monitor. I could almost hear the beep echo in my ears. Almost feel the thrum in my chest. But it wasn’t of me. It felt like man, clean sweat and whiskey.
“I didn’t take you to have a soft spot for Monet,” I said, glancing at him.
“There’s a saying amongst us women: Don’t trust a man who isn’t good to his mamma.”
“No, you’re right. You shouldn’t trust me. I’ve already lied to you since we’ve been in this room.” I swallowed. “About what?”
I had imagined that in his family, the woman would be the only reliable and steady person to lean on.
“A please never killed anyone, you know.” “I suppose not.” His gaze sparked with dark amusement. “It seems to be your favorite word under certain circumstances.”
The cheating in the Russo family was so extreme that making cards disappear was “simple.”
“We’ll start with the basics first, so I can leave you alone for a couple hours without you losing all my money.”
“I can’t decide on a centerpiece for the tables,” I told him. “Show me.” Instead of taking the phone from my hand, he pulled me onto his lap.
I hated his car. But I loved how he drove it.
How his hand fit the wheel, how he sat in the driver’s seat with an unpretentious confidence, and how he always drove the speed limit as if to maintain that gentlemanly façade.
I wasn’t usually a betting girl, but I would put all of my papà’s ill-gotten gains on the idea that this man fucked just like he drove. With complete control and confidence.
During his silence, I realized I liked his voice. I wanted to know what he would say. There were whole sentences in that head just waiting to be drawled, and I wanted every one of them. I couldn’t and wouldn’t analyze why.
High on lust and life and speed, I rolled down my window and let the warm air brush my cheeks. We pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later, and I couldn’t exactly say it felt like home yet, but something about it did feel right.
I swore blushing was the bane of my existence.
All of a sudden I decided I had a thing for men’s backs, though I was uncertain about the gun tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants.
“So, I’m like your dirty little secret.” It was supposed to be teasing, but it came out more acutely as I realized it bothered me. “Dirty?” The look he shot me was warm whiskey over ice. “Hopefully.”
“I don’t need to keep you a secret, Elena,” he said, going to tend to his pan on the stove. “I just don’t have the patience to listen to what people think I should do with what’s mine.”
“My fiancée,” he corrected with indifference, as though he’d realized his simple mistake, as though fiancée had a different meaning than mine. In this world, it did.
He was keeping me a secret because he worried about my reputation.
This man had given me an orgasm and made me breakfast. The former I had only hoped for, the latter I hadn’t imagined. I was beginning to wonder what he wanted with me. I would be a poor excuse of a wife.
“You’re dreadfully totalitarian today.” “Just shy of psychotic, then?” His eyes sparked. “Guess I’d better up my game.”
“Fashion fades, only style remains the same.” —Coco Chanel
The truth was, I was a liar. I’d always been a romantic. So deep a romantic that the thought of not finding my own love story felt like I once again stood in that vacant parking lot with nothing but snow and the whistle of cold wind.
You look nice. Mine.
And I realized one thing: I might not be the only woman in his life, but I would be the only one he called wife.
“Ah, so it’s Nico when you want something,”
Though not everything is about what we have to do, but what we want to.
“Tell me,” Sebastian said, “why did you do it?” A heavy silence took over, and my chest tightened at Nico’s cavalier tone. “He had something I wanted.”
I could make her do whatever I wanted. I could take it all. I even knew she would like
Once I opened it, I could never go back. I knew it would change everything, but what I didn’t realize at the time was . . . everything already had.
A haze had infiltrated my skin, my mind, my inhibitions, and the corners of my vision. I needed one thing, could think about only it, and it wasn’t physically possible to leave without getting it.
needed him. More than morality or honesty. I knew I shouldn’t sleep with Nico, not with my deceit so close on the air I could taste it.
I pulled away from him and crawled onto the bed. It felt like I lay on a cloud of Nico as I got settled on my back. It was too soft to be him, but it smelled like him: warm whiskey,
I once said that whatever Nico did, he did it with his all. And God, did he ever.
I needed him. In a mindless, archaic, bordering madness kind of way. And if it made me a slut, I didn’t give a damn.
My heartbeats had a fondness for the romantic. They began to skip, to multiply, to fill with a contentment as thick as honey and as warm as the sun. They did it all as my skin grew cold and while I stared at the ceiling and tried to ignore them.
Hatred fucking burned, like inhaling mace, getting punched in the throat, and being stabbed simultaneously.
wondered if she was on the pill, and in a disturbing way kind of hoped she wasn’t. I wanted an irrevocable tie to this woman. I wanted to write my name on her skin, to do all kinds of fucked-up shit so she knew she was mine. Like lock her in my room and hand-feed her.
“If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they’d immediately go out.” —William Blake
“Love . . .” she started. “I guess it feels like you’re falling . . . and he’s the only one who could catch you.” I thought about it for a second. “Sounds scary.” She laughed. “No, not scary . . . thrilling.” “For you, maybe. You’re not scared of anything.” “You’re sure you aren’t in love?” she questioned once more, her gaze steady on mine. “No, I’m really not.” “Uh-oh,” she muttered.
Nico took a step toward my papà. “You want to know how to start a war with me, Salvatore? This would be how to do it.”
His heartbeats raced for me.
