27. VIN
VIN
Siena and Giovanna are throwing a late one-year birthday party for the babies at Dragovari Tower. Not something that would usually hit my radar, but Siena has been texting me about it re-fucking-lentlessly for the last three days.
And Sophie’s going to be here. So I’m here.
Matti’s place is filling up with people. Balloons everywhere. Not much food though. I wonder if Sophie is bringing some. What am I saying? Of course she is.
But I don’t get how this is a baby birthday party. It’s all adults and so much fucking noise that the babies aren’t even fucking here. I pour myself a drink and settle into the far corner of a couch that gives me a good view of the door.
I’m on my second whiskey when fucking Gavin walks in.
I go very still.
He’s carrying a gift bag in each hand, wrapped in yellow tissue paper, a bottle of wine tucked under his arm. He looks comfortable, like he thinks he fucking belongs here. Like he’s among friends.
He’s fucking not.
He scans the room and when he spots me, the dumb ass grin on his face fades. If I didn’t hate him so much, I’d like that.
“Vin.” He juggles the bags in his arms and awkwardly extends a hand to me. “Good to see you.”
I hold his gaze and ignore his outstretched hand. ”Gavin.”
He withdraws his hand with a small sigh, glancing over his shoulder. Is he looking for Sophie? Where is she? He sets the gifts down on the table beside me and tucks the wine under his arm again. “Been meaning to get that refund back to you, actually.”
I look at him flatly. “What are you talking about?”
“Sophia’s place. The linen contract you set up.” He’s pleasant about it, easy, no agenda visible on his face. “She decided to go a different way and the bill decreased, so there are some upfront payments that need to come back to you.”
Fucking hate him speaking for her.
“Keep it,” I say, looking down at my phone, done with this conversation.
He laughs. “Well, I can’t do that. We’re all practically family at this point, right? Can’t do something like that to family.”
The word lands in my chest like a lit match. Family.
I glare at him. “Are we?”
“I mean—” He pauses and adjusts uncomfortably. “You’re marrying into my family, and Sophie and I are—”
I stand slowly in front of him, a few inches taller than he is and more than a few inches wider, and he stops.
Matti appears at my elbow from nowhere. He doesn’t say anything, and I can’t tell if he’s backing me up or backing up Gavin and that pisses me off all over again.
Tommy clears his throat from behind me. “If I haven’t said it, congratulations on your engagement, Vin.” His tone is neutral, but when I turn and raise an eyebrow at him, his jaw is set.
When Giovanna appears next to him, her eyes murderous, I know why he made that stupid comment.
“Yes, congratulations on your pending nuptials.” Giovanna says, her voice dripping with condescension. “Vin, can you hand me the present Gavin brought, please?”
I narrow my eyes at her, and she holds my gaze without blinking. I snatch the gift bag off the table and shove it at her.
She takes it with one hand and grabs a fistful of my shirt with the other, pulling me down to her level, her voice dropping to a hoarse whisper.
“If you do anything to fuck this up for Sophie, Siena is going to fucking kill you,” she says pleasantly, her smile not moving.
“And I am going to help her bury the body, you whorish asshole, no matter what your fiancée and Valentina and any of your other slutty ass side pieces have to say about it.”
Valentina? What? I sneer at Tommy over her head with a look that says “control your fucking woman.” His eyes move to Giovanna and back to me.
“Gi,” he says mildly. “We’re good?”
“Your brother,” she says, releasing my shirt and smoothing it with a flat palm, “is a whore.”
“Ah.” Tommy shrugs one shoulder.
“Fucking pussy whipped bitch,” I mutter.
“Settle down.” Tommy’s voice is low, angled away from Gavin, who is talking to Matti and may or may not be pretending not to notice what’s happening over here.
“Vin, as your consigliere, I need to know if the wedding is happening or not. You told us you don’t want it and I’m hearing about you with Valentina, stalking Sophie at her restaurant, but no confirmation that you’ve ended the marriage contract. ”
“Not here.” Giovanna’s smile falters as she turns back toward the room slowing filling up with more people. “It’s the babies’ birthday and you two are absolutely not going to spoil it.”
I roll my eyes as Tommy gives me an extra second to answer his question. When I don’t he shakes his head and follows her to greet incoming guests. I go get another drink.
When Sophie arrives, I’m staring at the door, waiting.
She comes in with her arms full of gifts stacked to her chin, a bag over each shoulder, her hair down around her face and her cheeks pink from the cold. She’s laughing before she’s fully through the door as half of it slips out of her arms and tumbles to the floor.
“Where are my nieces and nephew?” she calls out, and three people answer her at once as Gavin jumps to help her.
Then she sees me.
It’s less than a second. The laugh doesn’t disappear exactly, but it pulls back, recedes, like a wave pulling away from the shore.
We don’t speak. We don’t move. We just exist in the same room, and for a minute, I can’t hear anything, can’t see anyone else but her. I fucking pray she doesn’t say rosso right now.
Gavin takes the rest of the gifts from her arms, bending to say something close to her ear, and she tips her face up toward him and smiles.
I look away.
“Oh, you know what,” Sophie’s voice is bright and louder than it needs to be. I turn back to see her touching Gavin’s arm lightly. “I actually just realized I didn’t update the specials for tonight at the restaurant. I’m just going to say hi and drop these off and then I should probably—“
“I can take you,” Gavin says immediately. “If you need to get back.”
“No.” I hear the word before I realize I’m saying it.
Sophie pointedly ignores me, but fuck if I’m letting that Irish fuck take her anywhere when I’m standing right here.
“I’ll take her home,” I say, looking at Gavin. “You can go.”
“No.” Sophie’s voice is final and directed at both of us. “No need. Gavin, thank you, truly. But it may be a little while, and I don’t want you to wait.”
Gavin is looking between us. He can feel it, whatever this is.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “I can just drop you off if you—”
“We’ll get her back. Thanks so much for coming, Gavin.
” Siena steps forward from nowhere, her smile enormous and entirely insincere, and tucks her arm through Sophie’s, walking her over to me.
Which confuses the fuck out of me. Didn’t Giovanna just yell at me because she thought I was stepping between the two of them?
“Yes, thanks so much.” Giovanna blinks at Siena but picks up on the shift and takes his arm, turning him gently but firmly toward the door. “Let me introduce you to a couple of people on your way out.”
I don’t take my eyes off Sophie who’s watching the two women suspiciously, looking as confused as I feel.
Matti and Tommy exchange a look. “We’ll go get the kids,” Matti says. “They’re the only ones not at this party, and it is technically for them.”
Siena pats Sophie’s arm and gives her a look I don’t understand and follows my brothers. Then we are more or less alone.
I can’t take the space between us for another second and before I can think it through, I cross to her, reaching out to put my hands on her shoulders then pull away, stuffing my hands in my pockets. Fuck, am I fucking nervous right now? Is this what that feels like?
“I have to talk to you,” I say, keeping my voice down. ”There are things I need to say.”
“Vin.” She stares at the ground. “There’s nothing for us to talk about. You and your future wife have my best wishes, sincerely. If this is about the restaurant, I’ll pay you back when I have a chance. Other than that—”
“Princess…”
She stops and takes a slow deep breath. “You don’t get to do that.” Her voice is very quiet. “To you, I’m Sophie. Just Sophie. Not Sophia. Not la mia regina. Not princess. I am not your anything. I’m just Sophie.”
I take my hands out of my pockets and hold them up in an ‘I surrender’ position. “Fine, but I need you to listen for one God damn minute.”
“This isn’t about you. I have to—”
“SOPHIA.”
The word comes out louder than I intend it to, and every conversation nearby goes quiet. She stops and looks at me with a kind of exhausted reckoning, like she knew it would come to this eventually and has been waiting. I bow my head and exhale hard.
Matti and Tommy walk in, babies in their arms, and stop dead in the doorway. The room is silent.
Matti eyes me. “Vin.”
The other partygoers make their way out of the room, leaving the four of us alone.
I look at my brothers, then at Sophie. Then back at my brothers. She starts to turn away and I grab her arm too hard and pull her back to me. “All three of you need to hear this.”
She stares at my hand on her arm, but I don’t let go, squeezing harder until she meets my gaze.
“I’m not marrying Ashlyn.” Sophie’s lips part softly with a sharp intake of breath and I can’t tear my eyes away from her mouth though my words are for my brothers.
“I hate to do this when you would rather be home with your families, but when word gets back to the Irish—and it will, as soon as Ashlyn tells them I left her—we’re going to war. ”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Matti exhale hard. Tommy doesn’t move, just watches me with those flat, cataloguing eyes.
Sophie’s arm trembles under my hand, and I wait for someone to say something.
Tommy shifts the sleeping baby against his chest. He looks at me for a long moment then nods once. “Okay.”