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However, I’d always wondered, If I pulled back a corner of the wallpaper . . . would it bleed red?
He smoothed an absent hand down his tie. “Do you know what assuming gets you?” “Killed?” I breathed. His eyes fell to my lips. “Smart girl.”
This was the brother I loved, even if I didn’t get to see him often. Sometimes it felt like you needed to be the worst you could be to survive in this world.
“The littlest problems seem so great to those who are young,” she lamented. “I used to worry like you, you know. Do you know what it got me? Not a thing. Do not waste your time on things you cannot change.”
She was supposed to be wallpaper, but I couldn’t stop my gaze from finding her whenever she was in the room.
I ran my thumb down the indention in her chin. “Which hand did he use?”
“I swear to God, Elena, if I find out you’ve let some man touch you, I will deliver his hands to you in a box.” I swallowed. “And I do not. Fucking. Bluff.” He slammed the door behind him.
“You sound angry, Elena.” Nicolas’s voice was tainted with something dangerous. “Maybe you should cool off.” My brows knitted. “What? No—” I never got to finish what I had to say. Because, with one hand on my side, Nicolas pushed me into the pool.
“Why not the penthouse?” “Expecting something more lavish?” My eyes narrowed. “What? No. I just expected the penthouse. That’s what you chose for Adriana.” “It’s not what I choose for you.”
“I said I’ll never hurt you, Elena, but if I find out you’ve touched another man, there is nothing in this world that could save him.”
It was eleven a.m. on a Sunday when I realized I wasn’t only attracted to my fiancé. I was, with a madness that ached, completely and utterly infatuated with him.
“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 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. With indifference, I finished my cigarette and contemplated the logistics of that.
“Maybe I wanted to,” I whispered. He watched me for so many seconds it made my pulse race. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Come on. Let’s go inside.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me along. I followed. He was comfort, security, and need, all in one. It had a name. Home.
“Nico, what if the Three Fates were real and I’d been destined for another?” He slipped his hands into his pockets, his gaze igniting with a spark. “I guess I’d have to find those Fates and burn them to the ground.” I bit my cheek to hold in a smile and gave my head a small shake. “You’re crazy.” He let out a laugh, looked at the sky, and muttered almost inaudibly, “Crazy about something.”
The truth was, I loved everything about him and there was no going back. It was full speed ahead, like a train that couldn’t stop for the girl standing with wide eyes on the tracks.
“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.” —Oscar Wilde
“Well . . . I’m not going anywhere, am I?” His gaze burned. “No. I think I’ll keep you.”
Nico didn’t treat me like glass. He shattered the reflection of an empty life staring back at me. He taught me how to soar.
Whiskey and flame. Sleepless nights. Tattooed skin, white t-shirts, and rough hands. Love and lust and happiness. He was everything.
Nico might have been a bad man, but where he lacked in morals, he more than made up for as a husband. He loved me forever.
