“For today.”
She smiles, slow and wicked. “I like it. Maybe you should wear that to bed.”
I look at her over the knot. “I thought you had cramps.”
She slaps my shoulder as she passes me. I catch her wrist as she moves by, pull her in just long enough to steal one more kiss, then let her go.
“Come on, Beda,” I murmur. “Let’s go pretend we like people.”
***
I only catch the tail end of whatever Santo’s sister says.
Something quiet. Something soft enough to get a smile out of Vasilisa where she sits on Santo’s lap like she was built to stay there, one of his arms locked around her waist while the other rests over the back of her empty chair. Santo doesn’t look like he minds carrying the weight of her. If anything, the bastard looks more settled with her on him than without.
Then Vasilisa turns slightly beside me, her attention shifting past Santo, past the champagne, landing on Ayla.
“I like your dress,” she says gently. “And the red in your hair. It’s pretty.”
That gets my attention.
My gaze cuts sideways instantly.
Ayla goes stiff in the chair next to me, spine a fraction too straight, shoulders tight under my hand where it rests at her back. For a second, I think she might bare her teeth. Instead, she glances at Vasilisa and says, careful, “Thank you.”
Polite.
More than polite, actually.
My thumb shifts slightly against her spine, a quiet, absent motion. Her body eases by a fraction after that, just enough for me to notice. Just enough for me to know she’s trying.
Vasilisa still hasn’t looked at me once. Not when we sat down. Not now. I understand it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
I let my gaze drag over the rest of the table instead, taking stock out of habit. Santo at the head of this side with Vasilisa in his lap. Elena beside them, elegant and distracted, though not by anyone sitting here. Her eyes keep drifting across the room, toward Adriana’s brother. Luciano. Head of the Cartel.
That won’t end well if her brothers notice.
Nothing ever does where sisters are concerned.
A chair scrapes against the floor.
I look up just as Angelo drops into the seat across from us like this is any other dinner and not a room full of overdressed people wasting an entire night on flowers, speeches, and champagne. Adriana sits beside him in a sweep of silk and diamonds, beautiful enough to make half the room stare and stupid enough to pretend not to notice.
Vasilisa blinks at them. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the bride and groom’s table?”
Angelo reaches for a drink. “We go where we want. It’s our day.”
Adriana smacks his shoulder lightly, and the bastard actually grins.
“You’re insufferable,” she mutters.
“And yet you married me anyway.”
Santo snorts under his breath like he’s heard that line too many times to be impressed.
“Tragic,” he says dryly.
Adriana rolls her eyes, but there’s something softer in her face when she looks at Angelo. Content. Settled. The kind of look people get when they’ve already made peace with the rest of their life.
