Don’t Be in Love

21

Don’t Get Jealous Around Her — Dorian

One moment I was fetching James’s mother’s speech and the next I was finding Adelaide Adorno’s body wrapped in another man’s hands and her lips enveloped in his.

There was a mask shielding the top half of her face. It didn’t matter though. I could spot her from a mile away. I could see it in the curve of her jaw and the freckle at the bottom of her back.

Jesus Christ, that dress was low.

She was pressed up against the railing of the balcony. And she was kissing him back.

She was kissing him back .

I couldn’t watch. But I couldn’t stop either. It was making all of the muscles in my back stiffen and trapping my focus on her. On him. On her. On him touching her. On her kissing him. Kissing him the same way she had kissed—

I took strides across the ballroom.

What is she doing? What am I doing? What the bloody hell I am doing?

Well, it looked like I was pulling her off of him and forcing her into the ballroom so that she couldn’t scream at me.

The air from the balcony pushed at my suit jacket. Instinctively, I grabbed her arm and his grasp on her released. For a dazed moment, she followed my footsteps into the center of the ballroom without a word.

Not the original plan but frustration was running the show and there was no going back now.

No one turned a head. Dresses swished back and forth in conversation. We simply joined the next group of guests planning to dance.

“ Dorian .” There it was. She was pissed.

That made two of us.

I turned once the music began, taking her against my chest. I slipped my hand into hers while the other hovered over her exposed back to lead the same four steps as the rest of the crowd.

“I’m not sure if you noticed, but I already had company,” she stated coldly.

I resisted looking at her and spoke to the air. “I don’t think he wanted your company anymore. And I don’t think you wanted his.”

“Says the one who dragged me out here.”

Was she really going to act like she was enjoying that guy’s company?

I succumbed and swept my gaze over her face.

What a terrible mistake.

Her lips were swollen to a deep burgundy. And her big, spellbinding eyes were cut into dramatic slits; narrowed in determination. If I searched lower than her face, then all of my anger would fizzle out.

The original conversation I had planned—the one where I’d tell her I never wanted to see her again and we could throw this whole tutoring thing out the window just so I could save myself some embarrassment—diminished.

Because looking at her now—holding her, reminding myself of the coconut smell in her hair and the perfect V that connected her top lip and the bite her of words—was a mistake. I didn’t want to go.

She yelled at you, I reminded myself . She made a mockery of you in the middle of the street about coming as your date and being involved romantically and now she was here, kissing someone else.

But last night, she had also kissed me like she missed me. The same way I’ve missed her on this instinctual, primal level.

Her eyes pierced every part of the room with intention. I’d do anything to have them in my direction. Even if it meant facing a few cuts.

She was such a difficult person to read.

Always focused, always carrying a rebuttal. But I could never figure out what thoughts were carved under those looks. Especially not with the line between her brows being covered.

I tilted my head down and slipped my thumb under her mask, nudging it off her face.

“Are you questioning my intentions?” I argued.

She brushed my hand away so quickly that I missed my opportunity to read her.

“With a track record like yours, I think I am,” she said.

“I think you’re the one with questionable intentions.”

“And how is that?” Her eyes narrowed.

I inhaled. Exhaled.

There was no calming the caged bird flapping its wings inside my chest when I was both close enough to see the angry crinkle above her nose as I told her she was wrong and yet still close enough to kiss her. Her eyes were piercing through me, daring me to go on.

“You show up here, despite rejecting my invitation, throw it in my face by kissing another man in this—this, I don’t even know if this counts as a dress—and then you act like you don’t even know me. Frankly, it should be illegal for someone to wear a dress like this. This is an elegant event. It’s really not appropriate.”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion but thanks for that,” she huffed. “And also, I didn’t plan on coming.”

“Yet here you are.” I looked away.

“I’m not happy about it either.”

“I’m glad we can agree on something.”

“Me too.”

Her lips remained tightly closed until I was releasing her and pulling her back into my chest. Then her mouth opened.

“Did James tell you I was here?” she asked.

“What?” I needed to start keeping count of how often she brought up James.

“James—is that how you knew where to find me?”

“I didn’t need anyone to tell me how to find you. I saw you leaning against the balcony. Your back is practically painted in my brain.” I hated how much I had her memorized. I hated how much overtime my brain was running to remember her while I slept, injecting it into my dreams.

I expected retaliation. But nothing came. Only a bright rim of gray painted around her iris that lit with surprise. As if I told her I knew her deepest secret and planned to release it on dove-delivered letters.

She searched my face and then plagued every thought by staring at my mouth.

My hand twitched on her lower back.

What if she was lying? What if she did want this?

I’m not capable of loving you, she had said.

The music halted and she was creating distance between us faster than I could think.