His grin lit up his entire face. The cheeky smirkbroke my deep breath and made me smile too.
And then he grabbed my ass, hauled me close, and leaned down.
I threw my palms on his chest. “No. Do not kiss me.”
He froze, frowned, and stepped back.
And, of course, I’d let go of the sheet. It had fallen between us, and I was naked. His appreciative eyes raked over me. I only sighed and got in the shower, feeling his gaze following me all the way.
When I was done, he was nowhere to be seen. And I wasn’t sure if my shoulders sagged in relief or disappointment.
He’d made the bed and taken the condom wrapper.
For twenty minutes, I tried to send a text to my mum, coming clean. Her last message had been telling me to enjoy myself on my mini holiday with my sister… and I couldn’t lie to her. Not outright. Not when it came to the man who had cheated on her and ruined her self-worth for so long.
Mum had told me I was wrong for thinking it, but I couldn’t help it. When he cheated, that was a choice against me, too. That was him risking our family.
So I left her on read. I dressed, putting on a denim skort and an off-the-shoulder yellow top, before sliding on my trainers and knocking on Everly’s door. Luca answered, and the three of us went down to breakfast.
A few other guests had stayed last night, and the garden had been set up with tables for the meal, the flower centrepieces from yesterday starting to wilt. A long rectangular table was on the veranda, where Imre, the bride, and her sons sat. And Zolt’s mum waved and called us over.
I looked around the tables for my nagyi, but she wasn’t there. She was the calm. Everyone would behave around her.
There were three seats left, and Everly sat herself in the remaining one by Zolt, eyeing him up and down with that big-sister glare of hers.
If she knew what had happened last night… if she knew what I’d offered to do… no, she was always on my side. Even when I made mistakes. She would probably roll her eyes and tell me not to get hurt. Or to make sure it was worth it.
It wouldhurt. It wasn’t worth it.
I was doing it anyway.
“It’s such a shame we are leaving,”Zolt’s mum said. “We would have loved to spend more time with you.”
I smiled as she took my hand over the table. “We have a lot of time for that, and I guess Imre doesn’t before the next race. The honeymoon isapriority.”
Next week.
Her smile stiffened the second I didn’t refer to him as Dad, and she nodded with a weak smile.“Yes. You’ll visit? Between work?”
I nodded.“I’ll try my hardest.”
“You can fly back with Zolt and Imre. They always come back home. Benedek… not so much.”
Benedek shook his head and laughed, calling down the table to her,“Some of us have to work.”
Zolt shook his head and then spoke to his mother.
In… a language I did not understand.
I blinked, running back through the sounds he’d just made. There was a root word in Portuguese…demais, which meant‘too much,’but the rest was lost on me.
Had he just called me too much? Was he insulting me in a language I didn’t even realise he knew?
He… knew a language Ididn’t?
It wasn’t that I owned all languages — because of course not — but my back straightened. I’d thought of him only in Hungarian terms.
For me to be hired, it couldn’t be a common language and… I didn’t even know if he was any good at speaking it.
