Page 103 of Lovely Venom

When I notice Cristian’s here, our eyes collide, and my stomach does a weird little flip.

He’s wearing a pair of black sweatpants that hang loose on his hips, and a plain black T-shirt.

Against my better judgment, my gaze sweeps over him, cataloging the details of his height and build.

“See something interesting over there?” Lucia elbows me in the side.

I groan at the smirk on her face. “You need a hobby.”

“This is my hobby. I insert myself into everyone’s business.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

The conversation continues around the table, but I find myself overanalyzing every second of last night, my mind leaping from one conclusion to another.

When my phone chimes, I see a message from Kenzie, and I latch onto the distraction. It’s a series of red exclamation marks, which is code for “the stalker left you something.”

I stare at it for a minute, trying to decide if I even want to know. I should just enjoy my time with my friends, but my head is all over the place today.

Ultimately, I decide to call her while the girls chat amongst themselves.

“Hey,” Kenzie answers, slightly out of breath. “I only have a few minutes. Gotta go change into my costume.”

“Okay, can you give me the TLDR version?”

“There were five notes, Chantel.” Concern bleeds through her voice. “And they were deranged.”

“Well, that seems excessive.” I try to make a joke out of it, but truthfully, it’s a little terrifying how fast he’s escalating.

“Most of what he said doesn’t even make sense. There was a bunch of rambling stuff about you cheating on him, and how he knows where you were last night…and he said you ruined what you had together.”

“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. “You weren’t kidding when you said deranged.”

“Will you please let me help you?” Kenzie begs. “I can talk to Andreas and Elias. You trust them, right? They could figure out what to do.”

“No.” I shut that down quickly, eyeing my friends and hoping none of them heard that.

The last thing I need is the Greeks involved when the Vitales are keeping a close eye on me.

“I have it covered,” I assure her.

“As in you’re asking your friends for help, and not keeping this from them, right?” she presses.

“Yes.” I blow out a breath.

I’ll have to tell Cristian about this later, since he’s taken it upon himself to deal with this problem.

“Okay, please be careful in the meantime,” she says.

“Alright, go do your costume change. I don’t want to make you late.”

We say our goodbyes, and I hang up the phone, casting a quick look over the table. Fortunately, nobody seems to have overheard anything, so I don’t have to make a big deal of it right now.

“Hey.” Lucia elbows me again. “Check it out. He finally took off his shirt.”

I glance over at the men, only to find Cristian staring right at me.

That same weird energy sparks between us, and I try to avert my gaze, but it just ends up coasting over his bare chest.