Author: Sam Mariano
Category: Young Adult
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/4350_6
I steal a glance at Meg across the table, but she’s tossing her salad as if not even interested in our conversation.
Rafe’s attention is back on me, eyes sparkling with borderline flirtatious amusement. “Yeah, I bet you’re a real good girl, aren’t you?”
I’m not sure I like his tone, even if I know he’s not serious, so I offer back, “Mateo Morelli is the man of my dreams; draw your own conclusions about what kind of girl that makes me.”
“The crazy kind?” Sal offers congenially.
Francesca swats him in the arm. “They’re perfect together and you love them.”
Whispers: Interactive StoriesMake your own choices and decide what happens next!
Sal cocks a dark eyebrow. “But I like the crazy ones myself, obviously, so I can’t say much about that.”
“You all like the crazy ones,” Alec states. “If they were sane, they wouldn’t be sitting here with smiles on their faces.”
“I would,” Elise volunteers. “I have a wonderful husband who would never emotionally terrorize me or put me in the dungeon.”
“Who has already threatened murder once at the dinner table—and we’ve barely started the salad course,” Alec points out.
Elise looks at him and blinks. “So?”
Alec shakes his head, giving up on conversing with the lot of us. “Batshit crazy.”
Adrian merely smirks.
Chapter Four
Meg
Dinner is a blast.
I’ve actually been looking forward to it all day, but I didn’t know the guest list was so long tonight. Sal and Francesca generally don’t come. Mateo’s sister and I had pretty much made our peace, but apparently she’s back to hardcore hating me now. Sal never hated me before, but he definitely prefers Mia so I’m sure he doesn’t like me now. Francesca did mention he would happily kill me. Granted, Sal being willing to kill someone isn’t necessarily personal, but it’s nice to imagine he would at least hesitate before ordering my hit.
Even imagining hesitation is a fantasy, though.
No one at this table cares if I live or die. Well, no one but Mia—ironically the only person I expect to hate me for what I did.
I don’t know how she stays that way. I’m a million times stronger than her and Mateo wore me down over the years. How does she accept the mental blows he deals her—when he has always dealt her so many—and not only keep her sanity, but remain soft and cheerful? It boggles the mind. She should have more guards up than I have at this point.
The first couple of times Rafe openly flirts with Mia at dinner, I tell myself I’m reading too far into things. For one thing, Mateo is right here. He does like to watch his girls flirt from time to time, but my assumption was that wouldn’t apply to someone who has been physically intimate with his wife. Especially a sexy someone who oozes dominance without all the mental torment that comes along with Mateo. Maybe it’s the fact that the only human I’ve seen for more than two collective minutes this week is Maria, but Rafe is looking even hotter than usual tonight in his crisp gray suit with his easygoing smile.
When he’s still lightly flirting with her at dessert, I give up. The funny thing is, Mia is so not into it. Normally Mia loves to flirt, so you’d think she’d enjoy having a playmate, but she’s resisting the hell out of this one. Despite his preferences, somehow her resistance only seems to feed his interest.
Mateo seems less concerned that Rafe is flirting with her and more intent on Mia’s lack of response. I’m so desperate for human contact after two weeks in the dungeon, I sort of wish we were still friends so I could talk to him about it. Or about the linens—I’ll talk to anyone about anything. I’m starved for interaction at this point.
I don’t get much of that. No one at the table likes me. It seems like the only reason Mateo invited me was to rub my nose in the fact. Maybe to show me Rafe is here and I’m not allowed to visit. Maybe he bought Mia’s insistence that I like Rafe. I totally don’t. Especially by the time Maria clears our dessert plates and I’ve run out of fingers to keep count of his stupid flirty interactions with Mia.
Asshole. They’re all assholes. I’m almost sad my baby is a boy; he is doubtless going to grow up to be an asshole.
And I won’t even get to see it because Mateo is going to kill me.
God, this is the worst dinner of all time. Yet I feel a suffocating sense of dread that it’s over, because now I have to go back to the basement for another week of isolation.
I take the cloth napkin off my lap—well, my belly. I don’t have much of a lap left at this point, it’s all belly. As if to remind me of his presence, baby Roman—if they let him have the name I picked out for him—jams a foot in my lung. I grimace, rubbing the heel of my hand into my belly to try to get him to move.