I turn my back to her. “Then go.”
“Okay, but I’ll be back. I’ll get them to admit they’re wrong.”
She walks toward the woods, then glances back at me over her shoulder. “Adriano, I know you hate everyone, and you’re mean, but I would like to spend more time with you.”
That damned twisting in my chest. The lightness and heaviness that’s more unbearable than pain. “You’re supposed to choose one of them, Pryntsesa. Not me.”
She flashes me a smile. “Maybe I’ll choose all of you. That’s what you wanted anyway.”
And before I can say anything, she slips through the trees and runs toward Velvet House.
Chapter Fourteen
January Whitehall
With every stepI take back to Velvet House, the heat burning inside me rises another degree. Doc, Eli, and Bobby are holding Adriano’s actions over his head, not because they’re mad that he kidnapped me, but because they want him to admit he’s weaker than them?
Idiots, Zia shouts in my mind.Youshow them who’s weak!
“I will, Zia. I won’t stop until every one of them says they’d have taken me to the hospital to see you.”
I find the three of them in the dining room with their laptops and glasses of wine having another stupid meeting. The sun is setting in the huge windows behind them, flooding the room with the last of its reddish light. I take a moment to appreciate the beauty before I put my hands on my hips. “All of you need to apologize to Adriano. Tonight.”
Eli doesn’t even look up from his computer. “Go away,bella.”
“No! You need to pay attention to me!”
Bobby smiles distractedly and Doc leans back in his chair and flashes me a grin. “Hey, Princess Mononoke.”
I have no idea what that means, but I don’t care. “Stop being mean to Adriano!”
“What’s she talking about?” Eli asks Doc, his eyes still on his screen.
“She’s been in the woods killing a sacred deer with the He-Man and now she’s all pissy,” Doc says in a stage whisper.
“I amnotall pissy. You guys are such—”
Doc lowers his chair to the floor with a thud. “I’m not saying I don’t want to know why we’re such jerks or whatever PG-13 insults you’ve come up with, Tits, but we’ve got a shitload of work to do. Go to your room. I’ll come finger you later.”
My head feels like it’s going to come right off. They’re ignoring me. No, evenworse. Eli and Bobby are ignoring me, andDocis banishing me to my room. Would it kill any of them to treat me even a little bit the way they treat each other?
“No!” I practically scream. “We’re going to talk now!”
“What the fuck?” Doc chokes.
Bobby looks up from his laptop, disturbed, but Eli’s face furrows in anger. “Miss Whitehall, not to reduce whatever very normal thing is making you act like this, but the three of us are working on the contract that will save your life.”
“I don’t care about that!”
“You don’t care about your life?”
“I do, I just… you shouldn’t have told Adriano you wouldn’t have done what he did.”
Eli’s brows draw together. “What are you talking about?”
“You all said you wouldn’t have taken me to the hospital if I offered you my virginity.”
The guys exchange looks.
