Dante squeezed my hand, and for a second, I let him before pulling away.

I nodded at the screen.  “This is my favorite part,” I said weakly.

“Mine too.”

“I could stay in here all day.”

“Let’s,” he replied.

We didn’t do that, but it was tempting.

One of Dante’s old football buddies came in shortly, sat down next to him, and started catching up.

I didn’t even look at the guy.  I hadn’t been friends with any of the jock douchebags in high school, and I saw no reason why I should have to waste my time on one now.

Also, just thinking about football put my mind in a dark place.

I got up without a word and left.

I couldn’t move without tripping over a server, but I went back through the kitchen and served myself another scotch.

It was starting to do its job and take the edge off.  Numbness felt just around the corner.

I lingered at my moment of peace.  It was just too pleasant to take a minute alone when the last thing I wanted was company, especially the company that could be found in this house at present.

“Of course you drink scotch,” a soft voice said behind me.  “That’s so you.  Always the guys’ girl.”

I turned to face Tiffany, tipping my glass back to pointedly finish off my drink.

Once again, I eyed her dress.  It was perfect, damn her.  Flawlessly tailored and obviously designer.

I wore cheap, trendy clothing, and I despised all the people there that knew the difference.  She was certainly one of them.

One consolation was that my shoes were up to snuff today, at least as nice as hers, though I still had a mad shoe crush on her lavender stilletos.

We just stared at each other for a pregnant moment, and I, for one, had no clue what was going through her head.

It seemed to me that some bond should be made between two women when they’ve both had their hearts broken by the same man.

But there was no bond here.  There was no person on earth I felt less of a kinship with.

It was like we didn’t even speak the same language.  She was fluent in passive aggressive fake niceties.  Darling is what she said as she plunged a knife into your gut.

I’d never understood it, could never relate.  Passive aggressive women were beyond me.  Or the passive part of it, at least.

Straight up aggression, that I understood.

I was fluent in liberal doses of painful honesty, well, at least when the subject didn’t delve too deeply into how I felt about a certain manipulative bastard.

“No guests in the kitchen,” I finally broke the silence with.  Rudely.

I was feeling three-scotches-in honest, could not even try to play her fake nice game.

“Actually, I’m staying at the house.”  She dropped the words on me pleasantly as she moved to the old bar I was leaning against, carelessly tossing her drop-dead gorgeous black and white clutch on it.  Damn her and her amazing bag choices. “That grants me the precious kitchen access even according to Gram’s rules, right?”

I was floored.  Why the hell was she staying here?  Unless . . . My mind wanted to draw the worst conclusion, which was likely the truth.  Of course she was doing it to get close to Dante.  The only question was: How did he feel about it?  Did he know?  Care?  Was he playing the same games with us both, drawing us in, messing with our heads?

“Why wouldn’t you stay at your parents’ house?” I asked her bluntly.

She started making herself a drink.  She didn’t answer me until she’d taken a drink that made her nose scrunch up in distaste.  “Renovations.  Two thirds of the place is under construction.  You know how my mother is.”

I didn’t.  I only knew her as Adelaide’s evil counterpart.  I’d never been to their house and I had no clue about her decorating choices.

“Isn’t it like a mansion?  They don’t have one spare room you can use?  A sofa?”

She shrugged.  “It’s fine.  I don’t mind staying here.  I love this house.  Reminds me of the good old days, spending time with Dante here when we were teenagers.”

She could have punched me in the stomach and it wouldn’t have knocked more of the wind out of me.

She’s a manipulative bitch, I told myself.  She hides it better, but she’s just like his mother.  She’s either lying or exaggerating.

“Did you spend a lot of time here when you were a teenager?” I asked, trying for a bland tone, having no idea if I succeeded.

I knew she’d spent some, I’d been there for most of it, back in the early days of my hatred of her.  But the way she said it was the way I thought it, like it had meant more to her than the simple short trips when she’d come to visit.

She eyed me and, seeing something, changed the subject.

Either she couldn’t back up what she’d said or she wanted me to think that she was sparing my feelings.

It wasn’t hard for me to pick one, and I felt instantly better when I did.

“Did you see that Whitney Holloway is here?”

Well, she was certainly a good subject changer.  That got my attention.  “I did not,” I said succinctly, taking a long drink.

Whitney was another privileged trust fund baby.  She was rich from birth, but for fun she modeled in her spare time.  Barf.  She also happened to be the woman Dante had started seeing immediately after he and Tiffany had called off their engagement.

Her tinkling laugh rang out hollowly.  “We should start a Dante’s ex club.  There are certainly enough of us floating around, right?”

That passive aggressive jab was meant to bring home the fact that we’d both had a relationship with him, and that mine was no more significant than any of his others.

“Oh look, speak of the devil,” she said with a smile.

I turned to watch as Dante approached us, looking ill at ease.

Tiffany met him halfway, throwing her arms around his neck as she rose up to say something in his ear.

Images of her wrapped around him assaulted me.  Of them, together, naked and writhing.  They were graphic, and I’d never get them out of my head.

Seeing him with her gave me that feeling again.  My skin humming, bile rising in my throat.

But then—he recoiled from her, moving around her without so much as a hello.

Well, whatever he was doing with her for this twisted little trip, he was not playing the same games as he was with me.  If I had thrown myself at him like that, I’d have been over his shoulder and carried to the nearest bed in about three seconds flat.

It was something, some sad sop to my ego.  I made a vengeful note to use that against Tiffany the first chance I got.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

PAST

Tiffany was only a despised name in my head for years before I actually met the girl.

When her parents started sending her to stay at Dante’s house for a few weeks every summer, I was already solidly turned against her.

It is a fact that I never gave her a chance.

Blind hatred will do that.

Dante was kinder than I was, or at least that’s what I told myself back then.  He tried not to hold their mothers’ crazy ideas against her.

When I first got wind of it, we were alone in Gram’s parlor right before dinner.  We were sitting side by side, waiting for her to finish a phone call.

He had a hold of my hand when he told me the news.

I wrenched it away.

I was already his girlfriend, already possessive of him and sure of my ownership.

And so I threw a fit.