Page 93 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

Apparently, ‘stay calm and follow the plan’ does not apply when the man you love walks away with someone else.

Ididn’t care if Carlos noticed. I didn’t care the plan Lynx and I had come up with for tonight was that I’d end up in Luca’s bed.

All I could see was Dax walking away with another woman and the last expression on his handsome face was pure anger, all of it directed at me.

Maybe I should have felt bad. I knew I’d hurt his feelings. But what had he expected me to say? He couldn’t grab my arm, touch me, whisper that he hated seeing another man’s hands on me.

Didn’t he know the walls here had ears? That none of these people were on our side? That they were all smiling to my face, welcoming me into the fold, while holding knives behind their backs?

Carlos might not have been in earshot when Dax was saying things he shouldn’t have, but every single person at this party was watching us, waiting for me to slip up so they could go running to tattle.

I’d had no choice to say that I belonged to Carlos. No choice but to say he could touch me whenever he wanted.

Hell, it was true. I hadn’t been able to stop him spreading my legs and thrusting his fingers inside me.

Dax had been reckless and stupid, and so I’d shut it down before his lack of care got us both buried.

And now he was upstairs with a woman who wasn’t me.

I wanted to scream. Tear at something. Throw this fucking champagne glass into the tiles beneath my heels and let it shatter into a million pieces.

The same way my heart was.

I forced my feet to stay still for at least ten minutes. I smiled, nodded, pretended to sip my champagne that I’d been quietly pouring into potted plants all evening.

When Carlos was deep in conversation with the other men, and the women around me had hopefully forgotten the scene he’d made with Dax, I quietly said, “Excuse me, please. Bathroom.”

If anyone noticed me slip away, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I couldn’t control my feet a second longer.

I couldn’t just stand there, knowing Dax was upstairs, fucking a woman who wasn’t me.

I glanced over my shoulder, expecting Lynx to fall in behind me, but knowing he wasn’t going to stop me. The moment I got to the doors, all composure fell away and my short, choppy strides, impeded by the tight dress, turned into a run, fueled by anger for Dax and hate for Carlos. The split was so high up my thigh it was indecent, and yet I didn’t stop to fix it.

I passed waitstaff dressed in tuxedos, but none of them gave me a second glance, their attention solely on not spilling their trays of food and drinks.

I made it upstairs, passed my bedroom and Luca’s, my body on autopilot, a heat-seeking missile that only had one objective, now that all rational thought had left my head.

I threw open the door to the room Carlos had given Dax, accusations ready on my lips, though what I was accusing him of exactly I didn’t even know.

What was I going to say? How dare he cheat on me? We weren’t together.

All I knew was the jealousy and pain inside me, screaming this man was mine, and I was going to claw the eyes out of any woman who even thought about touching him.

The bedroom was dark, nothing but moonlight coming in through the open window.

The bed empty.

For half a second, I stood there confused, wondering why they weren’t naked, rolling around together. I considered that maybe I’d misunderstood which room Carlos had given them.

Fingers wrapped around my wrist and hauled me inside, the door slamming shut behind me. His warm body pressed against mine, stealing my breath in a gasp of shock.

His hand came over my mouth, silencing me.

His eyes were different than any other time I’d seen them.

Gone was the warm gold and the sweet crinkles at the sides because he smiled so much.

There was nothing there now but pure anger.