Page 50

She becamemine.
The feeling was so sudden, it rattled me to my core. I stormed away before I did something ridiculous… like kiss her.
Touch her.
Rip the fucking dress off and fuck her in the middle of Liam’s sitting room, which has been transformed by the ebullient Stassi Novikov into some kind of wedding planning headquarters.
Or a dress factory. I’m not sure which.
Either way, I couldn’t fuck Roisin senseless in the middle of it.
So I left.
Now, though, we’re sitting next to each other at the dinner table, which is oddly intimate. Liam and Stassi are sitting across from us, making this some kind of horribly fucked-up double date.
Even more so because Stassi is basically driving the entire conversation, and the rest of us are nodding along, caught in the torrent of her personality like fucking whitewater rafts in a spring torrent.
I force myself to focus on her words, and not on Roisin sitting next to me.
Stassi grabs some salad and passes the bowl to Liam. “Well thatbrings us to the flowers. Next, I’m thinking that we need some kind of options for the bar. Obviously an open bar?—”
“For who?” Liam says.
Stassi arches an eyebrow. “Our guests.”
“Were we planning on guests?” Liam mutters.
Stassi rolls her eyes. “Well I’m obviously inviting everyone that needs to be here in order for it to be legit.”
“If we invite more than just the people in this room, we’re going to risk something that can’t be risked,” Liam grunts.
That’s interesting to me. “Risking what, exactly?”
Liam gives me a very wary stare, and I smile. “We’re about to be family, MacAntyre . I can help.”
“I need your help like I need a fuckin’ bullet in my head,” Liam retorts. “It’s no secret that you’re a fuckin’ viper, De Luca. I’d prefer to not be bitten.”
I’ve earned that, I guess. I put up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “All I’m saying is that there’s a whole lot that I can contribute to the situation, and you may or may not be in a position to decline that help. I don’t know your problems, but I do know that since Roisin is your sister, I’ll lump you in as family.”
His eyes narrow, and I lean back. “I might be a snake, but you sure as hell fuckin’ know that it’s to help my family.”
I’m dead serious, and the severity of my tone seems to convey enough that Liam nods slightly.
Stassi taps one surprisingly sharp-looking nail against her glass. “So the guest list can expand?”
“Who the… hell do you want to bring?” Liam bites out.
Her eyes narrow. “My mother, for one.”
“Stassi—”
“She knows I’d never get married without her. And if you don’t want this whole thing to blow up in your face, you’re going to need to have her on your side,” she says.
The bubbly, California-girl accent is gone.
Interesting.
Liam looks at her for a minute, the bags under his eyes seemingly growing deeper by the second. Abruptly, he stands, the screech of the chair harsh as he backs out of the room.