Neither of them says a word, just watching each other. Her stunning caramel-colored eyes hold some pretty stunning fury, while my brother’s eyes are full of challenge and a growing energy, fueled by his desire.
Matteo breaks first out of all of us. “You’re a ghost.”
Layne doesn’t refute the fact or argue about us digging into her past or who she is.
“Nothing to say?”
“It didn’t seem like a question,” she answers curtly, curling her feet under her butt. On purpose. Layne is working hard to maintain an air of nonchalance, and it’s an act, but fuck me, it’s a turn-on too. My neck is getting sore at the ping-ponging as I keep jumping from my brother to her as every emotion dances over her face. “Plus, we were supposed to be talking about the sudden and irrational leap from fake fiancée to wife.”
“Who are you?” my twin pushes, although the words contain way too much innuendo for something that needs a lot more solemnity.
“Did you miss the memo, Dante?” She takes a measured inhale, an eerie calm settling over her. “I’m Layne Miller, the person who agreed to be yourfakefiancée because I went to the aid of a man who tricked me into believing he needed help. Then, because of my”—she takes a moment to tip her head to the side, tapping her finger on her chin before she uses her long fingers to overemphasize the next word she speaks—“‘humanity,’ I got dragged into things that really don’t have anything to do with me essentially being abducted by a piece-of-shit Beta and twin Alpha assholes who were pretending to be nice. For nearly the whole damn week. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Matteo looks devastated. Poor bastard.
She sits back, resting her hands on the island, before popping up like she’s forgotten something. “Oh, wait, then, because facing your delightful grandfather by myself wasn’t enough, I just found out that I am now Mrs. Fuck You De Luca. All because I helped some dipshit Beta. Does that answer your question?”
“Why is it that Layne Miller didn’t exist months ago?” I interrupt, pulling her attention off my brother, or he’s likely to leap over the kitchen island and kiss the flurry of words right out of her mouth.
She is well-deserving of her anger; we have completely blindsided her. But if she calms down for a fraction of a second, I will explain.
“Annul our sham marriage, give me my belongings, and you will never see Layne Miller again. Problem solved,” she suggests, smiling sweetly. Saccharinely so. And my cock stiffens at her sass, to the point of hurting.
“Layne, you know I can’t do that. Not now.” I try to placate her, and she nearly kills me with the chaos and fear in her eyes.It takes everything in me not to bark at her to listen, so I can agree that we caused this, when all she did was help Matteo.
“Right, because let me guess—you don’t believe in divorce, either?” She laughs and it is on the manic side.
Her eyes flare, her scent stinking of helplessness, when none of us answer, in effect answering her question. Her voice is tiny when she speaks. “Why?”
“Because pretending we were engaged was never going to be enough.”
She closes her eyes as the weight of my words sink in.
“We did this for you too.”
Layne scoffs, her eyes still not coming back to us as she looks off into the distance.
“Who are you, Layne?”
“Some things, Dante, should stay unanswered. Surely you understand that philosophy better than the average Joe Blow on the street.” She climbs off the high stool, then picks her underwear out of her ass as she walks straight past me and back to the kitchen.
This time, when she opens the fridge door, she nearly rips it off its hinges, making all the bottles crash together in the door. Rising onto her tiptoes, she pulls a plate of leftovers out, swinging to look at me. “Does this have seafood products in it?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” she triple-checks, her eyes narrowing at me.
“Yes. We know you have an allergy. Why would we feed you something that could potentially harm you?”
She hums back, pretending she’s not about to murder my brother and rip Matteo’s limbs off his body. “Get this—it seems I have a slight problem trusting you three for some reason. It might have happened somewhere between this morning's fairy tale and this afternoon’s blindside, but either way, I ran out of time to stop off and get another EpiPen.”
Matteo sinks farther into his chair, while Dante looks at her with unadulterated lust. Her attitude is such a turn-on for him. She goes back to watching the food heat in the microwave, and Matteo swipes his phone off the counter, probably making a bulk order of EpiPens. Hopefully more tactical vests too.
My need for answers makes me impatient. “What do you think Vitale would do if he discovered we married a woman with no past to speak of? Actually, I’m not going to waste time waiting to hear what you come up with. He’d put you front and center in a room with all his guards and tell them to get the answers he wants. It would be horrific.”
“Wow, really?” she patronizes.
Dante cracks, “Us asking questions is infinitely better.”
