“She’s Soren’s sister,” he tells me.
“Evil bitch,” Lilith comments, drawing all our gazes to her. Her husband just smirks.
“Lilith,” Arlo says, tone disapproving.
“What? She is.” Lilith shrugs. “Is she trying to get her claws into you now that she can’t have what’s mine?”
Arlo ignores her question and turns back to me. “Cora, how did you get in?”
“I was invited.”
“Only wives are invited,” he says.
I guess that explains all the couples.
“Oops,” Cressida says.
“Hello, Cressida. I’d like to see your invite,” a dark voice says from behind us. Soren stands there, holding out his hand as he glares at Cressida.
She lifts her hand and brushes it behind her ear. “I think it got lost in the mail,” she replies with a grin.
His gaze flicks to me, then back to her. Someone wraps a hand around my arm and begins to pull me away, and I look up at Arlo.
“Are you married?” I ask him, and then I hear someone almost choke on their drink, but I don’t look back as he ushers me away from the group, his hand burning a hole through me.
“No,” he says without hesitation.
“You said only wives were invited, and you walked in with a woman,” I remind him, in case he forgot, because that was a stupid thing to do—especially if he broke into my house to sleep in my bed. Yet, here he is, walking in with another woman.
“As I said, that’s Soren’s sister. She needed a lift, and I obliged.”
“Soren couldn’t collect his own sister?” I throw back at him.
He goes to speak but stops, and a slow and steady smirk curves his lips before he asks, “Are you jealous, sweetheart?”
I pull my arm free from his grasp, annoyed that he insists on calling me that. I hate it.
Arlo leans in close, careful not to touch me, as he says, “Nothing to be jealous of. I only have eyes for you.”
“Who else are you fucking?”
“I told you, no one.”
I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him.
“I was told not to use a certain word around you or your”—I wave my hand around, indicating to the crowd—“friends.”
“I don’t have many friends.”
“The word starts with an H,” I tell him in a soft voice.
His eyes spark, and he looks back to where Cressida is still standing with Soren, the two of them going toe-to-toe with each other. I wonder what that’s all about.
“Are you referring to what you asked me in my bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t, Cora. I would hate to end this thing between us earlier than anticipated.”
