Page 60 of Wicked Ruin

Is it really cooking if there’s no meat?

I look at her. She's watching me with the particular patience of someone who already knows the answer and is waiting to see if I'll bother lying.

“No,” I say.

She nods, unsurprised. A beat passes. Then, “I don't know if you've caught onto this the way I have, but—we don't have to keep pretending, do we?”

No one has ever called me nice, but I can be civil. “I wasn't aware we were.”

“Weren't you.” It isn't a question. She folds her hands on the table, and something in her posture settles—not warmth, exactly, but the particular ease of a person who has stopped performing. “In my family, marriage is a requirement. My father wants to meet you. To make sure his investment is money well spent.” A pause. “That's what this is. You know that.”

“Of course.” My voice is tight, and my lips are pressed together. I may not be as heavy-handed as some of my cousins and brothers are, but goddamn, I won’t have a condescending wife.

She holds my gaze for a moment, then looks away. Neither of us fills the silence, and neither of us seems to mind.

My phone vibrates with another text, but I can't look now. The server brings over a basket of thickly sliced bread. I grab the biggest chunk and slather it liberally with butter, just out of fucking spite.

Valentina watches me with something like concern. She has the good sense not to come between a man and his buttered bread.

When our food comes, she eats precisely half her plate and instructs the server to wrap up the rest. Then she declines dessert for both of us before I've even had a chance to look at the menu, which is fine because I don’t really want this to last any longer than it needs to.

I am not a fan, by the way, of how readily she's already trying to tell me what to do.

“I'll head off,” she says, as if the decision had already been made before she opened her mouth. “This was lovely.”

It wasn't.

“Thank you.”

She reaches into her bag and produces her credit card, setting it on the table like a small declaration of war.

What does she think I am?

“I've got this, thank you.”

“It’s my father’s⁠—”

“I've got this.” Sterner now.

I finally get to my car, slide into the seat, and drop my head to the dash. A moment later, my phone vibrates.

Bridget

I want ice cream. would she be okay with it knowing I went to get ice cream with you?

It’s not a date

Bridget

That doesn’t answer the question

I can’t get ice cream with a friend?

Bridget

Would Seamus agree?

Do you want ice cream or not?