Breaking Her (Love is War #2)(70)
And just like that, I felt my anger deflating. I bit my lip. "Were you surprised to see me?"
And just like that, he let go of his own anger and smiled. "Yes. How long do I get you for this time?"
"Three weeks."
His smile grew. "Best news I've had in a year. Holy hell, let's go home and celebrate."
And we did. Oh yes, we did.
I woke up the next day with a nasty cold. Fucking airplanes.
If I'd been back in L.A. I'd have just ignored it until it went away. No such luck with Dante. He nagged me until I went to the doctor, who did nothing but give me a ten day round of antibiotics. I bitched and moaned about it, but three days in, I was feeling human again.
It was a minor thing, quickly forgotten, though I'd have reason to dwell on it later.
The three weeks went by in a flash, and it was harder than ever to leave him again, even knowing he'd be joining me in mere months.
Before I left, we went to a local jeweler and found a ring for him. We had it sized to fit his finger, but he wore it around his neck, right next to the key to the cabin we'd shared on our very first time.
I fingered the key as we said our goodbyes in the airport. "I wonder how that old cabin is doing," I mused.
"Gram tells me it's the same as we left it. The locks have never been changed and only we have keys. But it's not about the cabin. It's the memory this holds for me."
I smiled up into his eyes. I loved his sentimentality. It never failed to touch a nerve. A good one. "Oh yes, I know. And you're never going to take it off, are you?"
"Never." It was heartfelt, that one word, and I felt it deep in my chest.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."
~George Carlin
PRESENT
SCARLETT
Dante and I were weeks into our addictive, tentative truce when the shit hit the fan.
He'd found out about my visit from Bastian. I wasn't sure if he knew the reason for the visit or if he was suspecting something worse, but his reaction was bad.
I didn't even have to ask him how he'd found out. I knew. His mother had told him. She'd learned a thing from her spy that would hurt him so of course she'd had to share.
"So Bastian, huh?" he said unexpectedly one night over dinner.
I froze, fork halfway to my mouth. Well, shit. Bringing up Bastian was bad, the look on his face was worse, and I had no idea what to say, because I didn't know what he knew, and I wasn't going to accidentally tell him more.
"I know he came to your house," he added, tone gone black, his hellish temper out to play.
"Fuck," I said softly, with feeling.
"He came to your house, and you left with him." His rage washed over me, hot enough to scald.
But it's a fact that sometimes I like to burn.
I squirmed in my seat. "We only left to talk. Calm down."
"It was Bastian who told you about the blackmail," he guessed. The words were low, almost soft. He was trying very hard not to raise his voice. "Of course it was."
I didn't answer, kept my face perfectly blank, but he didn't need my confirmation.
"It was him," he said, sounding certain. Dammit. "If it were anyone else, the shit would've hit the fan by now. Sneaky son of a bitch."
I just stared at him, trying to gauge just how angry he was. He'd betrayed his rage with the first few things out of his mouth, but he was doing a very good job now of hiding it.
"It was when he came to see you in Seattle, wasn't it?" he asked. The question was filled with the fire of his temper, warm and awful.
I froze.
"I don't know what you're—" I tried, because when you're just not sure if you're about to set a crazy, jealous ex off into a jealous rage it's always best to lie.
"Save it. I know he came to see you, and that must have been when you found out about the blackmail."
I processed that. "Who told you all of this?" I asked, but I knew. Oh, I knew.
"My mother called me earlier. She's been saving this little bombshell for a while. As you know, Farrah keeps her well informed. Adelaide thinks you and Bastian are sleeping together, and she couldn't be more pleased about it. And of course she wanted to make sure I knew every little detail."
"We are not sleeping together. We never have."
"Not even in Seattle? When you went up to his hotel room. For hours."
His eyes were scary, his hands clenched and shaking on the table between us. If I were anyone but myself, I'd have been worried for my safety.
Dammit. This was all going to end up in Bastian's lap, when all the guy wanted to do was help us.
"Nothing happened," I said, tone as unflappable as I could manage, eyes steady on his. "We did go off together, but all we did was talk. About you. About what your mother's been up to."
"You kissed him at the bar." There was the finest tremor in his voice, but it was a crucial one, like the very first crack in an unsteady foundation. "You were all over him. You rubbed your tits against his chest. She told me everything."
Fucking Farrah hadn't gone easy on the details. FUCK.