Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Luka had never believed in karma, but as he stood there, dripping vomit and trying not to breathe, he acknowledged he might have been wrong. What was more cosmically correct than this humiliating display?
Down at the other end of the table, Elona sipped her champagne with a smug smile. She seemed wholly unbothered by the spectacle. After the horrible shit he’d said to her, he deserved this.
Sobbing hysterically, Dafina stumbled away, clutching at the wall and then onto one of the waiters who hastily helped her escape. He reached for her, wanting to reassure her, but she evaded his grasp.
Ana screeched unintelligible nonsense, and the old man looked ready to pass out as he gripped the table and shouted. Aston waved her hands and visibly gulped before running to the nearest door with Ben hot on her heels. Vivian and Nikolai murmured softly to each other, probably to plan their exit.
“Hold still.” Marley approached him with a handful of cloth napkins. “You’ll make a bigger mess if you move.”
As if to drive that spike of regret deeper into his heart, Marley gingerly helped him out of his filthy jacket and tie. She showed yet again what an incredibly giving and kind woman she was, and he couldn’t stop thinking about all the ugly things he had said to Besian about her.
Speaking harshly and meanly to women seemed to be a theme in his life, and one that he desperately needed to end. When had that started? And why?
You’re a fucking asshole, that’s why.
He silently chastised himself as Marley continued to help him, mopping at his chest with her elegant hands while Rina fled with everyone else. Only Besian remained behind, grimacing as Marley handed him filthy napkins that he hastily dropped onto a nearby plate.
“Here.” The housekeeper he had seen earlier in the kitchen appeared with a clean T-shirt and Target shopping bags. “For the dirty clothes.”
“Thank you, Mariana,” Marley said, taking the bags from the housekeeper. Of course, she knew the housekeeper’s name.
“From Elona,” Mariana said, handing him the shirt. “The powder room is open if you’d like to use it to clean up before you leave.”
He accepted the shirt with a nod. Mariana stepped away and began to give orders to her nephews to clear the room.
“I think he can handle the rest.” Besian obviously wanted to get Marley as far away from this shit show as possible.
“What are you going to say to her?” Marley gazed up at him expectantly.
“To Elona?” he asked, wondering if she had somehow learned about the pig remark.
Marley frowned. “To Dafina. Your fiancée.”
“Oh.” He glanced at the mess she’d left behind and shrugged. “Aim somewhere else next time?”
Marley huffed. “She doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who enjoys a joke at a time like this.”
It was evident from Marley’s tone that she thought he should have known that about the woman he was about to marry. After all, he’d had years to get to know her. Maybe if he’d done that, he would have known that she tended to drink when she was nervous.
He left the dining room wondering how the hell to salvage this nightmare.
Before he even reached the bathroom to tidy up, he heard Ana screaming at Dafina.
She switched between English and Albanian, insulting and scolding and threatening her in the worst way.
He walked back to the staircase, intending to insert himself and tell her off, but Elona beat him to it.
“She made a mistake!” Elona hissed. “She was nervous, and she drank too much. She’s under a lot of stress, and you screaming at her isn’t helping.”
“She’s under a lot of stress?” Ana snarled. “You two girls have no idea what real stress is! You have no idea how much I’ve sacrificed and suffered and—.”
“Can you please just shut up?” Dafina interrupted rudely. “I need a shower, and our guests need your attention.”
A door slammed. Angry clacking footsteps echoed off the ceiling as Ana stormed toward the staircase. She spotted him and instantly her scowl melted into the fakest, syrupy sweet smile he’d even seen. His skin crawled as she hurried down to meet him. There was something very wrong with this woman.
“Luka, I’m so sorry about all of this. The nerves, you know.” She touched her hair and slipped a few errant strands back into place. “And the dieting,” she added sotto voce. “It’s not a good mix.”
“Dafina doesn’t need to diet. She’s beautiful just as she is.”
“Well, you know how we women get when we want to look perfect for our men.” The gleam in her eyes reminded him of the evil witch with the snake in her handbag at the beginning of that scary movie Rina loved so much.
The one with the little boy who gets turned into a mouse while on holiday with his sick grandmother.
“If only Elona had a man she wanted to impress,” Ana said with faux sincerity. “The threat of losing the man she loves might finally teach her to push away from the table.”
Fuck me. The whole family apparently loved to shit on Elona. Artan calling her fat. Dafina with the not-funny story about the older boys calling her sister E Cup. Ana suggesting her daughter should starve herself for love.
And me, a guest in her home, cutting her down in front of a crowded room by calling her a pig.
“Maybe you can help me find a man for Elona,” Ana said. “Maybe someone like your friend Dusan who was so kind to us when we visited Tirana.”
Before he could tell her that Dusan was the very last man in the world he would suggest for Elona, Ana caught sight of Nikolai and Vivian.
She excused herself and rushed to apologize for the turn of events.
He took advantage of her absence and darted into the bathroom to strip out of his shirt and wash at the sink.
When he was done drying off with a hand towel, he tugged the blue T-shirt over his head. It was too big in the chest and arms, but the length was just right. He eyed the red mustang and the letters emblazoned above it—SMU Softball.
He used his phone to image search the logo. Southern Methodist University. It was a private school, very highly regarded, and a business and finance powerhouse. He added Elona’s name to the search and found multiple entries on her softball stats and awards.
Curious, he clicked on a video montage someone at her university had made of her hits during her senior year.
Clip after clip of her powerfully cranking those balls into the outfield and even over the fence played.
She had impressive stats, but it was the genuine excitement and joy on her face that startled him.
She loved the game. It was obvious to anyone who watched her play. She loved it, and she was good at it. Better than good. Excellent.
Yet not a single member of her family had said anything about her playing in college. They hadn’t said a single thing nice about her period.
He considered what he had seen of the house so far. There were photos of Dafina, her brother and her mother all over the place, even a giant gaudy one over the fireplace in the room where they’d enjoyed cocktails and canapes. He couldn’t remember seeing even one of Elona.
What the hell is wrong with this family? What could Elona have possibly done to be so mistreated? To be excluded in this way?
Whatever it was, he needed to find out soon. If there was some kind of horrible family secret they were hiding, he couldn’t have it blowing up in his face after he married Dafina.
He climbed the stairs with those thoughts in mind. What kind of marriage would he have? The drinking and getting sick was easy to explain away as a one-time occurrence but what if this wasn’t an isolated incident? What if Dafina struggled with drinking? With dieting? With anxiety or depression?
The cold hard reality washed over him like an arctic tsunami.
He and Dafina were strangers only weeks away from tied together legally and spiritually.
He’d seen enough of the disastrous marriage between his parents to know how badly these sorts of arranged situations could go.
His mother had been utterly devoted to his father who had been cruel and cold and abusive toward her.
And how am I any different?
He had made no effort at all to get to know Dafina.
He hadn’t even picked out a proper ring.
He had taken one of his mother’s less loved pieces from the safe, had it cleaned and handed it to Dafina.
She hadn’t said anything, but he’d seen the disappointment on her face.
Instead of apologizing and offering to let her pick out a ring, he had grown annoyed with her for being ungrateful.
I’m punishing her for something she didn’t do.
It was a painful thing to admit, but there it was. Dafina didn’t want to marry him any more than he wanted to marry her. There was so much riding on this union, and not only peace.
Money.
Money he needed badly. Probably even more than the Dushku family needed to get their hands on their tied-up cash.
Determined to be better, he approached the door that he had seen Ana storm away from earlier. He stepped back and waited for Dafina to answer only to be met by Elona’s scowl. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Yes. It’s me.” Her withering gaze made him want to shrink away, but he stayed rooted to the spot. “I need to talk to your sister.”
Elona rigidly guarded the doorway, pushing it closed until only a sliver of her face was visible. “She’s not in the mood for visitors.”
“I’m not a visitor. I’m her fiancé.”
“Are you? Really? What kind of fiancé have you been?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Irritated, he insisted, “If your sister has a problem with me, she can tell me to my face. She doesn’t need to send her bulldog out to attack me.”
“Wow.” Elona sneered at him. “Are there any other animal names you’d like to throw at me?”
Abashed, he gritted his teeth at his stupid mistake. “I didn’t mean—.” Aggravated, he called out to his fiancée. “Dafina! I want to talk!”
Elona kept her foot against the door, making sure he couldn’t force his way inside. He might have tried it, but after watching those clips of her swinging a bat, he thought there was a good chance she would knock him flat on his ass if he did.
She turned back, and he heard murmuring and crying. Facing him again, she said, “Dafina will see you tomorrow for brunch. She’ll text the details later.”
“I’d rather we talked now.” He was speaking to Elona, but his voice was raised for Dafina to hear.
“And she’d rather take a shower and go to bed so kindly fuck off.
” Elona started to shut the door, and he reached out to stop her.
Her eyes widened at his movement, and she forcefully pushed harder, nearly smashing his fingers in the process.
He snatched his hand away at the last second and heard the click of the door locking.
Barefoot and holding his shoes and clothing in the plastic shopping bags, he stormed down the stairs and right out of the house. On edge, he gritted his teeth and quelled the urge to yell or throw something. This was turning into a disaster—and nearly all of it was his fault.
“Not a word,” Luka warned as he heaved himself into the front passenger seat next to Devil.
Heeding that warning, Devil silently lowered the windows. He turned up the air conditioner, blasting cold air that carried the smell clinging to Luka outside.
Luka glared at the hideously scarred mechanic but let him have his moment of fun. “Go ahead. Laugh.”
“I’d rather hold my breath.” Devil grimaced. “You smell like a biker bar’s bathroom.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” If anyone would know what that smelled like, it was the behemoth behind the wheel.
“You want to find out if I’m telling the truth?” Devil pulled away from the mansion. “You look like you could use a drink—or ten.”
“Getting piss drunk is probably not the best idea right now.”
“I didn’t say it was a good idea.”
I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t. I need to go back to Besian’s, shower and go to bed.
Instead, he found himself asking, “Is there somewhere I can shower?”
Devil nodded. “You can borrow shoes and clothes, too.”
The little invisible angel on his shoulder begged him to go home and sleep, but Devil’s encouraging smile won him over. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
Devil laughed, his gravelly voice filling the cab of the SUV. It would be the last clear memory Luka would have of that night.