Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,124
his head turning. “What are you doing down there if you’re not…?”
I think quickly, carefully before I give my answer. “Plotting my next move.”
“Which is what?”
“I don’t know. That’s what ‘plotting’—”
“I fucking knew it!”
“Knew what?”
“You have a boner for her. You have a hard-on for the fucking girl who—”
“Shut up,” I snarl.
“This is bad, Bear. Really bad. Bear… Fuck, man, this shit won’t go away. It’s never going to go away. Can you even fucking do that?”
“I can do what I need to.” My voice is thick. I lean against a tree trunk. “I could protect her. I don’t have a choice,” I rasp. “I love her.”
“Goddamnit, Bear. You went and got yourself fucked up.”
“I know.” The words are whispered.
“Do you?”
“Tell Blue I don’t want to see his fucking face. Nowhere near here. Make him understand. I mean it, Dove.”
I hang the phone up. I stand there in the moonlight for a long time, just breathing.
GWENNA
December 31, 2011
I march straight to the bar, order two Jäger Bombs, down them in quick succession, and on a whim, decide to get Mr. Friendly at my table a fish bowl. The bartender hands it over, gentle as if he was handling a baby, and I clutch the cold bowl to my chest. As I whirl around, I bump into something solid.
“Oops!”
A guy. My heavy-lidded eyes peruse him, processing, after a second, a striking face, with kind eyes, princely lips, and model-gorgeous features. “You’re like…a wall. A nice wall.”
He chuckles softly.
He’s got sad eyes, my drunk mind thinks, but the thought is lost as my gaze reaches his hair. Curly hair… Mmm. My sluggish pulse surges.
“Are you a model?” I ask, blinking as I do, because I’m slightly dizzy.
He gives me the funniest little smile that starts out kind of smirky and turns into a gorgeous grin—with dimples!
“No—I’m not a model. Are you?”
“Yes.”
His face gentles, looking curious and, I think, charmed. “Yeah?”
“A model and a singer,” I say proudly.
He gives me a thoughtful-looking smile, as if he thinks I’m cute and is pondering the model-singer part of the equation. Heat roars through me, and I realize I can feel my heartbeat in between my legs.
Because he’s beautiful. And he seems nice. Someone I should stay away from on a night like this.
I turn slightly to head back to my table, forgetting, in my drunken state, that he’s still right in front of me. Beer sloshes over my arms.
“Shit!”
His big hands steady the fish bowl. “You need a hand?”
I groan and push my right sleeve up, baring the tiny snowflake tat I got on the inside of my forearm last Christmas, with some of my modeling money.
“Sigh.”
“Did you just say ‘sigh’?”
I look up into his nice, sad blue eyes, which just now seem to be dancing with amusement. He tilts his head back as he chuckles.
“I text too much,” I say.
I have no idea if he understands what I’m trying to say—too many times typing “sigh” has got me saying that aloud rather than sighing—and I find I’m too drunk to guess.
I hold out my hands. “I can get it.”
He passes my bowl back to me and I allow myself another look at his beautiful face. “I should be able to hold a fish bowl, even though I am drunk.”
He pushes a curl out of his eyes. “Where ya headed?”
I nod in the direction of our table.
“Over there with John and Nic?” he asks.
“How’d you know?”
He smiles again, this time smaller and more fleeting. “They’re good guys.”
“I’m too drunk to tell,” I confess.
Tears fill my eyes as I remember the voice on the other end of Elvie’s phone. I try to tell myself it’s nothing. Just some stupid fangirl. He’ll call me later tonight, after the ball drops.
“Trust me, then,” the guy says.
I blink, surprised anew by the gorgeous mug in front of me. I smile absently, imagining his lips on mine when the ball drops. My drunk self thinks, He’s much cuter than Elvie.
The guy’s hand is on my forehead. He presses a fingertip against my hairline. “Snowflake,” he says softly, looking at his finger, then at me.
“What’s your name, snowflake?” he murmurs.
“Gwenna.”
Part III
“How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?”
— Richard Siken,
from “Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light,” War of the Foxes
ONE
GWENNA
November 8, 2015
I awaken to a troubling noise: one that’s loud enough to rouse me but forgotten when I crack my eyelids open. A smeary mess of colors