“Shane,” she says, a wicked glint in her eye. “The way he looked at you when he defended your honor against the She-Devil. I thought he was going to flip the table.”
Heat climbs up my neck. “He was just being protective.”
“Bullshit,” Cordia says, slicing a strawberry. “He’s my brother. I do not look at him like I want to eat him alive. Shane looks at you like he’s starving.”
My heart gives a traitorous little jump. “He’s with Emily.”
“He’s with a headache in heels. And he’s miserable. Just wait. The cracks are showing.”
She turns to check the lamb, humming a tune, leaving me with my pulse fluttering in my throat.Starving.The word replays in my head, dangerous and intoxicating.
As I pour croutons into the salad, the wine and water I drank runs through me. I need to pee. The nervous energy coursing through me is no help, either.
“Be right back,” I say to Cordia. I’ve been here a million times so I know exactly where the bathroom is.
“Hurry back before I eat all the deviled eggs,” she calls out. She’s just like Theo and Henry with their food obsessions.
I slip out of the kitchen and into the hallway.
The air out here is cooler, quieter. The sounds of the party fade into a low murmur. I walk toward the side parlor which has a half bath connected to it. My footsteps are silent on the plush runner.
The door to the parlor is cracked open an inch. I reach for the handle, intending to push it open and grab my clutch, but I hear Emily’s voice inside.
“Why do we have to stay?” she harshly whispers. “Your sister and that... teacher. It’s embarrassing, Shane. She looks at you like a lost puppy. It’s pathetic.”
I freeze. My hand hovers over the brass knob. The blood drains from my face, leaving me cold and hollow.
Pathetic.
The word hits me like a slap. Is that what I look like? A lost puppy? A child playing dress-up in a room full of adults?
“Drop it, Emily,” Shane’s voice comes through the crack. He sounds exhausted. “She’s Cordia’s friend.”
“She’s obsessed with you,” Emily snaps. “And you encourage it. Holding her hand at the table? Really?”
I hold my breath, waiting. Praying.Defend me,I think.Tell her I matter. Tell her she’s wrong.
There is a pause. A heavy, suffocating silence.
“She’s a child, Emily,” Shane says. His voice is flat. Dead. “She means nothing to me. I’m with you, aren’t I? Just get through the damn dinner.”
The world stops.
It doesn’t shatter. It doesn’t explode. It just stops.
She means nothing to me.
All the heat, the touches, the way he looked at me in the foyer—it was nothing. I deluded myself. I let Cordia’s teasing and my own desperate crush paint a picture that isn’t real. To him, I am not a woman. I am not a threat to his relationship. I am a child. A nuisance. Something to be managed and tolerated until he can go home with his real girlfriend.
Chapter Seven
Dove
It’s not the words that are excruciating, but the meaning behind them. My heart gives one violent, painful throb against my ribs, then seems to stop entirely.
Vision stinging with hot, humiliating tears, I want to run. My instinct is to turn around, bolt out the front door, and disappear before they ever know I was here. I want to save myself the embarrassment.
But then, a different feeling rises through the heartbreak. It’s colder than sadness. Sharper.
