Reborn Yesterday - Tessa Bailey Page 0,74
to be lifted up by friends, by purpose, she didn’t want to stay down.
Roksana pursed her lips and sat back down.
“Galina.” Ginny called, facing the room again. “Since you’re so worried about the rules, they state that you must be a Coney Island resident to be admitted to the club and I’m almost positive you dwell in Gerritsen Beach.”
Galina gasped and dropped the clutch purse she’d been holding onto her folding table with a dramatic thwack. Guests turned to look at her and she let out a high-pitched laugh. “Yes, but…very, very close to the border. And no matter where I live, my dresses aren’t tainted, Death Girl.”
Ginny’s composure faltered when the woman set down her bidding form and scurried back to the bright side of the room. She could feel the crack running from forehead to belly, but she faced the basement and kept her chin up, ignoring the hot pressure building behind her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry—
The air in the room changed.
Whipped up, lifting her hair as if on a breeze.
She wasn’t the only one who felt the shift, either. Everyone in the vicinity looked around for the source of renewed energy, some people rubbing their arms, others whispering amongst each other. Even Gordon stopped yanking on the collar of his dress shirt and faced the entrance, just in time for Jonas to stride in.
Time slowed down and Ginny…she quite simply stopped breathing.
Remember you’re mad at him.
How on earth was she supposed to do that when he walked purposefully in Ginny’s direction, through a sea of dumbstruck guests, looking at her like she’d just completed work on the Sistine Chapel? Or perhaps turned water into wine. And really, the way he regarded her with such reverence would have been enough to tumble her tower of anger, but he looked…
Righteously sexy.
Careless, black hair. Eyes that held the weight of dangerous knowledge. An air of total command—that was the part she was mad about. Or supposed to be mad about. What was happening to her? Was she melting?
Did he always look like this?
Yes. Yes, but…in a room full of regular, everyday humans, he was transcendent. He dropped the jaws of everyone he passed, one person dropping their Dixie cup of fruit punch, as well.
He wore jeans. Dark ones, much nicer than the pair he’d donned the night they met. Along with boots, a white shirt and an overcoat of soft, chocolate brown.
Flowers. There were flowers in his hand.
For her.
“Ginny,” he breathed, stopping in front of her. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
She nodded. Or shook her head. Hard to be sure.
He handed her the flowers, then cupped her face in his hands, brushing her cheekbones with adoring sweeps of his thumbs. Their lips met and they both shuddered, the cellophane crinkling beneath her grasping fingers. Ginny didn’t have to look around the room to know they were the center of attention and she couldn’t have cared less anyway. She only saw Jonas.
“Why are you over here in the dark, love?”
“Am I in the dark?” she whispered, his green eyes imbuing her with a sort of lovesick delirium. “It doesn’t feel like I am anymore.”
His expression softened. “I’ll have you moved.”
“No,” she blurted, snapping out of her Jonas Hypnosis. “The proper way to phrase that question was, shall I have you moved? Or even better, shall we see if you can be moved?”
Cautiously, he took the bouquet out of her hands and set it down on the table. “I’m not following.”
“You bought half of my funeral home, Jonas.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Owning property together is a way humans express commitment to each other, isn’t it? I thought you would be pleased.”
The fact that Jonas appeared perplexed by her anger dulled the edges of her irritation considerably. He genuinely thought she’d be thrilled by his actions. Still, she couldn’t just let his highhandedness go so easily, could she? Not unless she wanted that kind of behavior to become the norm.
“I suppose I’m pleased that you thought of me—”
“I never stop thinking about you,” he rasped, placing a hand on her hip and squeezing. “Ever, Ginny.”
She lost more steam. “I never stop thinking of you, either.”
His brow knit. “Then don’t be cross with me.”
“I don’t want to be, but until very recently, you were planning to rob my memories against my will. I’m shuffled around among bodyguards and…and I have to find out by accident that you’re going to kill yourself. Then today, you buy the funeral home. You have to clue