Page 31 of Poisoned Promise
My favorite food, music, and type of wine.
Now we’re dancing.
Felix is going overboard trying to show me he remembers everything I like and it’s almost painful.
I’ve spent fifteen years hating him.
Fifteen years contemplating sneaking out, hunting him down and murdering him for what he did.
What I thought he did.
The night the Salamones attacked my family’s Estate, I thought he was there.
I was certain he was.
I was certain he’d found out the truth and came to kill me in revenge, and when he couldn’t kill me, he killed my family.
For fifteen years, I’ve harbored that belief and fueled my hatred with it.
But in a single sentence over pasta, he destroyed that belief.
Felix wasn’t there that night.
He was drunk. Too drunk from mourning his dead friend to be of any use to anyone or anything.
It doesn’t make him completely innocent because after all these years, he might still know the truth, and all of this is a fantastical, warm plan to trap me and get his own revenge.
But it doesn’t feel like it.
“What are you thinking about?” Felix asks softly, his face only a couple of inches from mine.
I try to avoid his eyes but it’s much too hard. He’s just as handsome as he was back then.
More so, even.
Time has been kind to him and the warmth growing in my belly refuses to back down.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.” His hand adjusts against my back as we sway. “You’re thinking about something you don’t like.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that adorable little curl between your brows always gets so deep when you’re thinking about things you don’t like.”
“That’s just age.”
“Is it?” Swaying leads into a slow spin and Felix steps away, spinning me gently out into the floor and then drawing me back in, but this time, he twists one extra turn and I end up against him, my back to his chest.
“It is,” I reply and my breath catches slightly in my throat.
I’m only against him for a second, but it’s a long second.
The firmness of his muscles against my back, the overwhelming warmth that radiates from him, the strength he exudes with such care that his arm around my waist and his hand in mine remain so gentle; it’s turning my blood to lava.
He spins me again, and this time when he draws me back, we’re chest to chest and his hand rests low on the curve of my ass.
His fingers splay wide and he increases the pressure just enough to keep our hips aligned as we sway.
