“So, what are you saying?” Rome takes a small, measured step closer to Julianna. “Youwereaware of it?”
A long, torturous pause.
Selene sniffs and pulls herself to stand upright. I reach inside my front pocket and grip the bottom of her chin, using my pocket square to clean up her face. I stare into her eyes, worried she hasn’t been feeling well lately. First, the day of the interview with Cory, then earlier, after dinner. Now, the champagne.
“Yes,” Julianna states loudly.
Selene’s and my attention to each other breaks, shifting to Rome and Julianna.
“And how would you know that if your brother didn’t?” Rome asks.
“Because it wasme!” Julianna’s cries are clear. “I wrote the article.”
Rome’s amused expression falls, completely disappearing under the moonlight.
“Of course you did.” He lifts his chin in defiance, curling his lip. His eyes darken beneath his mask.
I’m several dozen feet from Julianna and Rome, but distance doesn’t matter when it comes to recognizing my sister’s expression. Her chin wobbles, and her entire upper body stiffens.
“Drop the lawsuit against Holt,” she grinds out. “This war ends now.”
Rome’s silence is deafening. He simply stands a few feet away from her, unmoving. Julianna doesn’t waste another second before she’s spinning on her heel. She gathers the length of her dress in her hands and marches back toward the party with her head hanging low.
By the time I look back to see Rome, he’s gone, disappearing like a ghost.
“What the hell was that?” Selene asks.
I shake my head, too stunned with what just unfolded.
Then I look at my girl.
“Are you okay?” I cradle Selene’s face in my hands, massaging my fingers into her hair. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No,” she answers weakly with a small smile, her masked eyes searching my face. “Must have been the champagne. I just want to go home. Please take me home.”
“I’ll take you wherever you want to go, Wallflower.” I bend to scoop her into my arms. “Where you go, I go.”
She drapes her arms around my neck, and I’m pulled back to the night I took her home when she was drunk. But this time, she isn’t looking at me with alcohol-soaked eyes.
Instead, she’s looking at me with love.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ROME
Being with her is like drinking from a vial of poison. Deceptively sweet, quickly turning bitterly sour before you realize it’s too late. The poison swims in your veins, consuming everything good left inside you until all that’s left is darkness.
“Should be any minute, Mr. Montgomery.” Marcus, my bodyguard, eyes me in the rearview before I tear mine away.
“Good.”
I don’t need him to talk me out of this. Again. I saw the hesitation in his eyes. A longtime friend and ally, Marcus has talked me out of some insane shit over the years that, to a person who didn’t have the money and social standing I do, would have had them locked up for life.
But I do have money, and I do have social standing. Therefore, I can do batshit crazy things like this without worrying about charges being filed against me. Especially her.
However, I don’t miss the resolve in Marcus’s eyes before I look away. He knows there’s no use in talking me out of this.
I’m staring at the back of Marcus’s head from the back seat when he rolls it slightly to the left, eyeing the side mirror.
