Page 79 of On The Edge

It’s not.

It isn’t.

She’s crazy.

“Let it rest, Sofia.”

“Not every woman is like Mamá, you know?”

My hands tighten into fists, and I drain the last of my drink. And yet that is the constant comparison, isn’t it?

“Glad I found you two together.”

And the hits just keep on coming.

“Dad,” Sofia says.

I sigh and opt to stare at the sunset. At the dark silhouette it casts of the mountains and the orange of the sky.

What is Maddix doing right now? Is she working? Is she curled up in a ball on the balcony with the breeze in her hair and her nose in a book like she enjoys doing? Is she standing in front of the open pantry trying to figure out what to eat but doesn’t have me there to ask what each thing is—some of the items foreign to her—so she can decide?

“Yes, Cruz?” my dad asks, forcing me to participate in this conversation.

“Yes, what?”

“The Prince of Monaco has invited the Navarros to the charity gala again this year. I’d like you and Sofia to represent the family. El patriarca is too ill, and I have other business to attend to, but you two will go.”

“Other business?” I probe.

“That’s what I said.”

“Mamá can’t go this year?” I ask, my eyes boring into his. The charity gala is exactly what my mother loves. Glitz. Glamour. To fly in on the jet, to show off the body good money has bought her, and then leave the second all the cameras are gone.

“No.” Steel is in his eyes when they meet mine. So his wife won’t go with him this year, huh? Can’t have that stain on the Navarro name now, can we? We can have affairs that we think are hidden but that everyone knows about, but your own damn wife can’t stand you enough to show up.

“The Dominic Navarro is going to pass up the opportunity to have the limelight?” Sarcasm drips off my every word. “You live for that shit. For the chance to be the prized son.”

He grits his jaw. His disdain owns his every feature. “You and Sofia will attend.”

“Ah, so the prized children get the privilege,” I toy with him.

“I expect you both to represent our family appropriately. You will not make a scene. You will be seen with who needs to be seen with. You will converse with the prince. You will be Navarros.”

“Might be weird if we go as each other’s dates, but, whatever,” Sofia says with a shrug and another full pour of wine in her glass.

“You will go together,” he repeats with no room for interpretation, but there is a flicker of a smile at the corners of my sister’s mouth.

Well, well, well. Look at that.

Seems rebellion might just run in the family.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Maddix

I know he’s there.

I heard the key in the lock. I heard the front door slam.