Kai’s punch snapped my head back with such force my teeth rattled. The taste of copper filled my mouth, and when my vision finally cleared, his frown came into focus like a photograph in a developing tray.
“That was an easy dodge. Where’s your head at today?”
“It was one hit. Don’t get cocky.”
“Three.” He grunted when my uppercut caught him beneath the chin.
“And that doesn’t answer my question.”
I blamed the next words out of my mouth on the residual impact of his strike.
“I kissed Vivian over Thanksgiving.” Willingly. Of my own accord.
We’d done more than that, but I sure as fuck wasn’t discussing our sex life with Kai.
The engagement photoshoot kiss had been forced. Bali had been…hell, I didn’t know what Bali had been other than a mind fuck.
Vivian had been asleep or pretending to be asleep after I got out of the shower, and we’d avoided discussing what happened in the week since. She probably thought I’d rejected her for whatever reason, and I was too disconcerted to correct her.
Kai gave me a strange look. “You kissed your fiancée. So what?”
Fuck. The kiss had screwed me up so much I’d forgotten he didn’t know I despised her family.
To him, our engagement was business, but most arranged marriages still involved physical intimacy before the wedding. If not sex, then at least something as simple as a kiss.
“It was different this time.”
I shouldn’t have done it. The kiss, opening up about my family, all of it.
Yet I did it anyway.
Somehow, someway, Vivian Lau had burrowed under my skin, and I didn’t know how to get her out without losing a piece of myself in the process.
A knowing glint passed through Kai’s eyes. “Mixing business with pleasure. It’s about time.”
“Look who’s talking.” Kai’s idea of fun was translating academic texts into Latin for no reason other than he was a showoff and bored as hell.
“What can I say? I prefer the company of words to people. Except for you, of course.”
“Of course.” He was so full of bullshit.
He laughed. “Cheer up, Russo. Liking your fiancée isn’t the worst thing in the world.”
Maybe not in his world. But it was in mine.
My efforts to avoid Vivian disintegrated when I returned home and promptly ran into her in the foyer.
“Oh my God. What happened?” Her horrified expression confirmed what I already knew—I looked like a mess.
And if I had any lingering doubts, the mirror hanging opposite the front door smashed them into smithereens.
Bruised jaw. Blackening eye. A cut over my brow.
Thank fuck I didn’t have a board meeting in the next two weeks.
“Kai.” I removed my coat and hung it on the brass tree. My tone was indifferent, but an unsettling warmth unfurled behind my ribs at her concern.
Vivian’s brows pulled together. “Kai hit you? He doesn’t seem like the type. He’s usually so calm and…nice.”
Just like that, the warmth turned into annoyance.
“I told you, he’s not as nice as he seems,” I said in a clipped voice. “But to clarify, we sometimes blow off steam by boxing. He happened to land more hits today since I was…distracted.”
Thinking about you.
“You box for fun.” Vivian set the vase of flowers in her arms on the marble side table. “That makes so much sense.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you have a temper.” She straightened the stems, oblivious to my scowl. “I’m sure boxing helps, but have you ever thought about anger management classes?” A teasing note ran beneath her voice.
“I don’t need anger management classes,” I growled. First, she was the reason Kai got the upper hand in the ring. Now, she was insulting me? “I’m in full control of—” I broke off at her laugh. Realization dawned. “You’re teasing me.”
“It’s too easy.” Vivian’s smile faded when she faced me again. Her eyes swept over my face, lingering on the nasty cut above my eye. “You should ice your bruises and clean that cut, or it’ll get infected.”
“I’ll be fine.” They weren’t my first or worst injuries from the ring.
“Ice and disinfectant,” she said firmly. “Now.”
“Or what?” I shouldn’t be indulging her, but she was so endearing when she tried to boss me around that I couldn’t resist.
Her eyes narrowed. “Or I’ll place every candlestick in this house at uneven intervals and make sure your foods touch every. Single. Meal. Greta will help me. She likes me more than you.”
I took back what I said about her being endearing. She was fucking evil.
“Meet me in the guest bathroom. I’m getting the ice.”
I didn’t take well to people telling me what to do, but a reluctant wisp of admiration curled in my chest as I headed to the bathroom.
I leaned against the counter and checked my watch. I had a mountain of paperwork to review, and God knew I should stay the away from Vivian until I sorted out my aggravating feelings toward her. Yet here I was, waiting for a goddamn ice pack.
My injuries didn’t even hurt. Much.
The door opened, and Vivian entered carrying two small ice packs.
“I told you I’m fine,” I grumbled, but a spark of pleasure lit in my chest when she brushed gentle fingers over my jaw.
“Dante, your skin is purple.”
“Purple black.” A smile tugged on my lips at her cutting look.
“Precision is important, mia cara.”
“Are you trying to get a matching injury on the other side of your jaw?”
she asked pointedly, pressing one of the packs against my face. “If so, I can help with that.”
“It’s not very sporting of you to threaten bodily harm while patching me up. Some might even say it’s hypocritical.”
“I don’t like sports, and I’m an excellent multitasker.”
“Yet Asher Donovan and Rafael Pessoa, two sports stars, are on your dream husband list.”
I used to be a fan of both. Not anymore.
“First of all, you have to let that list go. Second of all—hold this over your eye”—Vivian pushed the second ice pack into my hand while she dampened a washcloth”—don’t deflect from the main issue here, which is your utter refusal to ask for help.”
“I can handle a few injuries. I’ve been through worse.” Still, I didn’t resist when she dabbed the cloth on my wound.
“Do I want to ask what you mean by worse?”
“I broke my nose the first time when I was fourteen. Some asshole was bullying Luca, so I hit him. He hit me back. It got ugly enough I had to go to the ER.”
Vivian winced. “How old was the other kid?”
“Sixteen.” Fletcher Alcott had been a real piece of work.
“A sixteen-year-old was picking on a nine-year-old?”
“Cowards always pick on people who can’t fight back.”
“Sadly true.” She retrieved a bandage from the medicine cabinet. “You said that was the first time you broke your nose. What happened the second time?”
My mouth curled into a grin. “Got drunk in college and fell on the sidewalk.”
Vivian’s laugh washed through me like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. “I can’t imagine you as a typical drunk college student.”
“I did my best to erase any incriminating evidence, but the memories are there.”
“I’m sure you did.” She placed the Band-Aid over the cut and stepped back with a satisfied expression. “There. Much better.”
“You’re forgetting one thing.” I tapped my jaw.
I didn’t know why I was dragging this out when I didn’t want to be here in the first place, but I couldn’t remember the last time someone fussed over me. It felt…nice. Disturbingly so.
Vivian’s brow wrinkled. “What?”
“My kiss.”
Pink crept over her cheeks. “Now you’re the one teasing me.”
“I would never tease about such a serious matter,” I said solemnly. “One kiss for each of my injuries. That’s it. Would you deny a dying man his last wish?”
Her sparkling gaze held a touch of exasperation. “Don’t be dramatic.
You’re the one who said you were, quote-unquote, fine. But since you insist on being such a baby about it…” She moved closer again. My pulse beat in my throat when she brushed her lips over my brow, then my jaw. “Better?”
“Much.”
“You’re incorrigible.” Laughter bubbled beneath her voice.
“It’s not the worst thing someone’s called me.”
“I believe it.”
She turned her head a fraction, and our eyes held.
The bathroom smelled like lemon cleaner and ointment, two of the unsexiest scents known to mankind. That didn’t stop heat from sparking in my blood or the memory of her taste from flooding my mind.
“About Bali.” Her breath brushed my skin, warm and tentative.
My groin tightened. “Yeah?”
“You were right to stop things when you did. Our…what we did was a mistake.”
Something that felt suspiciously like disappointment snaked through my chest.
“I know we’re getting married, so we’ll have to…eventually.” Vivian skipped over the specifics. “But it’s too soon. I had too much wine at Thanksgiving and got caught up in the moment. It was a…” She faltered when my hands rested on her hips. “A mistake. Right?”
Her skin branded my palm through the layer of cashmere.
A hard smile flickered over my mouth. “Right.”
My touch lingered for a beat before I moved her to the side and headed to the exit.
I should’ve stopped in Bali, and what happened before I stopped was a mistake.
We were both right.
But it didn’t mean I had to like it.
