Page 91 of Ruin

His grin doesn’t falter. If anything, it softens into something practiced, soothing. “Nothing for you to worry about, sweet girl.”

He couldn’t have irritated me more unless he’d said, ‘Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.’

My man doesn’t lie, and I stare at him, searching for some kind of tell, that twitch in his jaw when he’s holding back or the shadow in his eyes when he’s trying to protect me from something he doesn’t want me to know about. But there’s none of that. He’s polished. Smooth. Unreadable.

Terrifying.

It’s not the woman I’m jealous of. It’s that I can’t tell anymore if the man across from me—the man I love—is lying when he smiles at me.

He chuckles, that maddening velvet sound, and reaches for his glass of wine. “It’s just politics, Gi.”

But the way he says it—smooth, deflecting, almost patronizing—makes me scream at him.

I lean in, keeping my voice low. “You think I don’t know the difference between politics and flirting?”

His smile softens as he tilts his head at me. It’s a gesture he’s always done, but tonight it looks calculated, rehearsed. “You don’t have to worry about me, Gi. Not ever.”

His words should soothe me. Once, they would have. ButI can’t see him anymore. The smile is too perfect, the words too even. No intensity in his voice or in his eyes.

“Do you hear yourself?” I whisper. “You sound like…like a politician.”

That makes his smile widen, like I’ve complimented him.

The fury spikes hot in my chest. “That’s not good, Tommy. I don’t want to be with some polished mask smiling at me like I’m an audience you’re trying to win over. I wantyou.”

For the first time, his smile falters for a second, his jaw flexed, his hand tight around his wine glass. But just as quickly, the smile is back in place.

“Gi,” he says softly, but the softness feels rehearsed too. “This—all of this—is for you. Don’t you see that?”

And my heart breaks a little right there, because I do see it. I see him burying every jagged edge of himself to build a future for me.

But I miss those jagged edges.

I miss him.

37

Tommy: New Year’s Eve, 7 Years Ago

“Ican’t find my tie,” I say, standing in the closet in my boxer briefs staring into the suit bag. The tie was with the suit when I sent it out for dry cleaning, but now it’s gone.

“It’s in there, Tommy,” Giovanna snaps from the bathroom.

I step out of the closet as she is fastening her earring, glaring at me in the mirror.

“It’s not,” I say, irritable. I hate being late. The New Year’s Eve gala is already hell, but it’s worse if I don’t get there early and get a feel for things first: who’s talking to whom, who’s smiling too much, who’s hanging back.

But now the clock is sprinting, and Gi’s simmering anger only tightens the vise inside my skull.

She brushes past me, yanking the suit bag from its hanger with more force than necessary. Maintaining eye contact with me, she fishes her hand around inside, looking for the tie. When she can’t find it, I raise an eyebrow, and she scowls.

“God damn it,” she mumbles. She rips the bag apart, the suit pieces spilling on the floor, then tosses it aside and stalksback to the bathroom. “Pick another one.”

I stare down at the suit crumpled on the floor. I don’t want another one. I want the silver tie she chose, the one that matches the liquid gray fabric of her dress. There is no other option.

“Where the fuck is it?” I rake through the suit and the bag again, desperate. Nothing. I rake my fingers through my hair.

Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. Cold. Distant. “Just wear the black one.”