“Not a secret, but it’s more fun when the victim doesn’t know why they’re being used like a dumpster.”
Isla’s nose wrinkles. “I didn’t think I needed a reason.”
I have to take a breath and even then, it comes out in a low growl deep in my chest. “Little brat.”
No remorse.
Isla smirks and turns back to the phone showcasing a montage of funny cat videos. Her ass bumps the hard bulge at my crotch…
Deliberately.
I know because she adds a little wiggle I definitely don’t miss.
“You take her or I will,” I tell the man watching the entire interaction with amusement.
We don’t get to rock, paper, scissors for Isla’s cunt when Aunt Joanne catches sight of the hand I’m rubbing a bit too close over the arch of Isla’s ass.
Frankly, I don’t feel like we’ve been stealthy about our feelings. Maybe everyone kept turning away all the times we’ve kissed and touched. But Aunt Joanne, an aunt by mere technicality, glances over and decides to open her fat mouth.
“Get your hands off your sister, Nicolas. What will people think?”
My ears burn hot with the implication.
But it’s not embarrassment that has me rounding my full attention to her pasty complexion and hideous Christmas sweater.
I’m pissed.
I’m annoyed.
No one asked her and the fact that she thinks she has a leg to stand on when she’s been married four times and each time her husband has come to his senses and run off. Well brushing fifty and still incapable of finding lipstick that won’t smear across her teeth. She — in my opinion — is the precise reason extended families shouldn’t be invited to things because what right do they have in family matters when their only connection to said family is dead?
“People will think to mind their own business,” I counter, thinking faintly at the back of my brain that this is exactly the thing I’d feared would happen.
Dom must sense it, too, because his fingers tighten around mine. Or maybe he’s keeping me from really telling her off.
“It is a bit... odd, Nicky.” Like some disease rising from the core of the earth, Macie slinks to the forefront of the room and fixes big, innocent eyes absolutely void of a soul on my face. “You watched her grow up.”
Bitch.
My molars grind as I weigh my choices.
I could lash out.
I could tell her to go fuck herself.
But pressure is where I strive. I didn’t become a lawyer because I enjoyed the grueling hours of studying. I climbed my way up to becoming a junior associate at one of New York’s most prestigious law firms because I am calm and levelheaded, and I have yet to meet an opponent who can ruffle my feathers.
“That’s a bold statement to make in a room full of people who are fully aware that you’re lying,” I counter slowly, very aware of the hush that has fallen over the cabin “But let’s unpack it, shall we?”
“Nick,” Dad starts, but I ignore, full focus fixed on the herpes he’s married.
“I was living in New York when you sank your claws into my dad—” I ignore the gasps and sly snickers from the crowd. “—I met Isla once over dinner then again at the wedding. I didn’t see her again for over two years when we came for two days over Christmas and Isla spent the entire weekend in her room because — according to you — she had tried to run away from home. She was sixteen, seventeen at the time. We went another two years before we saw her again. She was nineteenand no longer living under your thumb. Now, if we are to discuss anything, maybe it’s—”
Isla’s trembling fingers close around my wrist. Cold and pleading. It distracts me from tearing into the other woman, and I drop my gaze to her face.
“Please,” she whispers.
She’s right.
