“Okay,” I said, because he was right about all of it, so I couldn’t argue.

I straightened and started working at getting my ample boobs back into my bra.

Dante happily helped me, bending down to nuzzle between when we had them back in place.  “Can we .  . . hang out at your grandma’s tomorrow?  We’ll meet at Gram’s.  I—“ he paused voice thickening, “need some time alone with you.  More than a few minutes in the woods.”

I kissed him, then kissed him again.  “Of course.  We can watch a movie or something.”

He looked amused.  “Whatever you want to call it.”

But when I showed up at his gram’s the next day she was there with him.

I turned around and started walking home.

He caught up to me, stopping me with a hand on my arm.  “Stop.  Just meet her, okay?  She’s not that bad.  Just come get introduced and we’ll make an excuse and leave, huh?  But there’s no need to be rude.  She’s not rude. Trust me.”

I was fuming, but I went back with him.

If only to get a closer look at the girl his family wanted him to marry.

Dante introduced us.

I mumbled out a surly, “Nice to meet you.”

She seemed unfazed, beaming at me.  “Nice to meet you too, Scarlett.”

We did not leave right away, much to my chagrin.  Instead we stayed while she chatted with Dante and I glared at them both.

She was very sweet, even to me.  And she had an obvious, extreme crush on Dante.  She looked up, up, up at him like he was the center of her universe.

I knew the look well.  I wore it often myself.

Meeting her didn’t help.  I hated her more than ever.  The sweeter she was, the more it made me sick to my stomach.  I’d wanted to her to be awful, and ugly.

But she was beautiful and good.

It made no sense.

I was a fighter.  A warrior of a girl.

She was a delicate flower.  A shrinking violet.

Why did her timidity cow me?  How?

Self-disgust resonated through me, and I steeled myself.

Just because she was something I couldn’t understand, something he might like, that didn’t mean I’d back down.

I studied her while they talked, eyeing her head to toe.  She was thin in the way that models are thin, not an ounce of fat on her, but still some shape, even if it was just the way her skin molded around her bones.  She’d look good in anything.  She had no breasts to speak of, so she was basically a walking clothes hanger.

Everything I wore pulled across my breasts, drawing eyes, making things fit worse than they should have.

And her hips were nonexistent.  That I hated even more.  Breasts, particularly big perky ones like mine, were well beloved by boys, and more importantly, well beloved by Dante.

But fleshy, shapely hips?  It was anyone’s guess.  Mine were a handful and then some.

I had mentally catalogued every inch of her by the time either of them turned back to me.

They seemed to be getting along, which made me sick.

What if he liked her more than me?

Maybe he’d had enough of sharp tongues and rough edges.  Maybe he longed for someone soft.

I couldn’t even stand the thought.

I turned around and started striding away.

“Did I say something?” I heard Tiffany asking him.

“Nah.  We just had plans.  Catch you later.”

I heard him running up to me, falling in beside me, but I ignored him.

“You don’t have to come with me,” I bit out.  “Go back to your new girlfriend.  Do whatever you want.  I don’t even care anymore.”

I swear I could hear him grinding his teeth, but he didn’t respond at first.  We were into the trees before he spoke.

“What the fuck?” finally burst out of him.  “What is it with you?  I was being polite.  We talked about nothing for five minutes with you right there.  I was just being nice.”

“You and I were supposed to have plans.  You weren’t supposed to bring her along.”

“I didn’t!  She came by Gram’s house to say hi to me.  The timing wasn’t good, but it was a perfectly normal thing to do, unlike how you’re acting right now!”

I rounded on him.  He’d hit a nerve and I wanted to hit him back.  “If you don’t like the way I’m acting, if you don’t think it’s normal enough for you, then leave me the hell alone.  If you don’t want to fight, you followed the wrong girl!  Go follow her instead, if that’s what you want!”

He made a noise of deep frustration.  “It’s not what I fucking want!  What is your problem?  Why do you turn everything into a fight?”

“That’s what you think I do?  Turn everything into a fight?”

“Sometimes it feels that way,” he responded with no hesitation.

“That’s all you think I am,” I returned dully.  My jabs were delivered furiously, but his always hit harder.  “One messy fighter of a girl and apparently now you’re sick of the challenge.  Why do you even bother with me?”  I started walking away again, because I didn’t know what else to do.  I just wanted to go somewhere and lick my wounds.

He didn’t let me get far, but when he tried to touch me, I fought him.

He wasn’t deterred, hugging me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides.  He buried his face in my neck.  “Not true,” he finally spoke.

He was out of breath from the struggle.  At least I hadn’t made it easy on him.

“You’re letting your insecurity get the best of you,” he continued.  “You’re a fighter, yes, but that is far from all that you are.  And I do see all of you, Scarlett.  You’re more to me than a challenge.”

“What, then?  What am I to you?”

He moaned and kissed my neck, which was about the fastest way he could weaken me.  “My angel.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

“Lead us not into temptation.  Just tell us where it is; we’ll find it.”

~Sam Levenson

PRESENT

Dante joined me at the butler’s pantry, pouring himself a fresh scotch.

Tiffany hung back a beat, looking unsure, before she approached us and reclaimed the glass of liquor she hadn’t been drinking.

Dante gave her a less than friendly look.  “Can you give us a minute?  I need to talk to Scarlett.  Alone.”

She did something odd then, something I didn’t understand.  Her fake nice facade slipped for a second, and she gave him a very hard look that felt to me like a warning.  “You sure you want to do that?” she asked him.

I was looking back and forth between them, for once completely lost on the nuances of what was going on.

“Absolutely,” he pronounced, turning his back on her.

I smiled as she walked away.  “You two don’t seem to get along so well anymore,” I noted gleefully.

“We sure as hell don’t.”

“You were engaged to her,” I pointed out.  I was provoking him purposefully.  He knew it and I wanted him to.

“I was engaged to you too.  Didn’t do me much good, did it?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?  If it did you no good, it’s on you.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” he noted bitterly.  “I forgot I’ve been painted as that guy.  Serial fiancé.  Because that adds up to you.  I’m the guy that makes promises and doesn’t give a damn about them, right?”

“Of course you are.  Are you denying it?”  I felt my temper boiling up from the bottomless place inside of me, that place that was so full of rage it could feed itself indefinitely.  It was only ever looking for an excuse to erupt.

He didn’t deny it, at least, which was perhaps the best way to defuse my ticking time bomb of a temper.

We gave each other a moment of silence.  I didn’t realize Dante was stewing in his own temper more than giving space to mine until he said, “How long have you been seeing him?”  He was looking down at his glass.

I just stared at him.  Somehow, even with all of our history, knowing the ins and outs of him, he still managed to surprise me.  “Excuse me?”