Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Anton wanted to blame his sudden strangeness on the weed, but that wasn’t likely. Weed didn’t make him feel completely fucking crazy.
Like a fucking rope had tied itself to his middle, Anton made a move toward the patio doors at the end of the living room that would lead to the back beach. He wanted to know that girl ... he didn’t know why, but he did.
Pushing open the patio door, the heat of Barbados Island slammed into Anton. His bare feet—he hadn’t though to go back and get his shoes—hit the hot sand and sunk in. Something odd and awful welled in his gut as he watched the guy who had been chasing the black-haired girl pick her up just before she reached the water, tossed her over his shoulder, and charged the shore.
She smacked the guy’s bare back, but it didn’t seem to have an effect. Anton wondered if the two were intimate, considering the closeness they shared. Her light laughter filtered back to Anton’s spot just before the two disappeared under the lapping waves. Her laugh sounded like wind chimes. Musical and sweet to his ears.
The ball building in his gut welled harder.
Jealousy, something whispered. You’re so fucking jealous.
Anton had never been jealous of a man coming near any woman who perked his interest before, not a single one. This feeling in his stomach, twisting like metal rods heated up under an open flame, was burning right through his blood and veins. It seared white through his nerves and over his skin.
He didn’t even know who the girl was that made him feel this way!
When the two popped back up from the water, the guy shouted, “Where’s my damn phone, Vine? I swear to Christ, I’ll dunk you again!”
Her untamed giggles echoed as she kicked water at him and charged the beach again. “Should have left me alone!”
Vine.
Vine. Vine Vine.
Oh, shit.
Anton’s heart was in his throat and his entire body felt like it was recoiling in on itself. He had never seen the Viviana “Vine” Carducci he was to marry; he never knew she was crazy beautiful, light in her soul, and ... this.
She acted like there wasn’t two very influential mafia families just a couple of hundred feet away. Like nobody else mattered but her and that guy she was having fun with. Like she was just ...
God, she was so normal.
“You called her that first, you know.”
The unknown, feminine voice coming from the side of the house slammed Anton back into reality. Feeling dazed, he blinked at the redhead sitting on a lounger. She was older, around his mother’s age, with a comforting smile and large, dark framed sunglasses covering her eyes. Wearing a one-piece black bathing suit, a wrap covered her lower half and a book rested open on her stomach.
“It’s proper to introduce yourself to a lady, Anton,” she said.
Anton swallowed the lump forming in his throat, threatening to keep him quiet. “You already know my name.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’d like to make sure you know how to be a gentleman, or something relating to it, when my daughter makes her way over here.”
Christina Carducci.
Another face he hadn’t seen but had heard enough about.
“Anton Avdonin,” Anton said, nodding down at her in greeting. He might have been a cocky asshole, but he could clean up well when he needed to. “It’s nice to finally put a face to the name, Mrs. Carducci.”
Christina barked a laugh, pulling her sunglasses off to regard him with her green eyes. “Hey, now. If you start calling me that, I’ll feel as old as my mother-in-law. Nobody wants that. It’s just Christina, all right?”
“Got it.”
Sighing, she turned back to watch the two people still fighting at the water’s edge. “You did, though.”
“Huh?”
“Called her Vine first.”
Anton shifted on his feet, feeling unsure. “No one’s told me that before.”
Christina smirked. “Hell, we haven’t even told her the truth of where it came from.”
“Why not?”
“A choice we made at the time,” Christina said, dismissing the question with a wave of her hand. “You two were so young, just two and four, so it was a cute thing, anyway.”
“I remember that,” came a voice from behind Anton.
Nicoli stepped out of the patio doors, closing them before coming to stand at Anton’s side. He couldn’t help but notice how Christina sunk lower into her chair and averted her gaze to anywhere but their direction at Nicoli’s presence. Anton didn’t understand why.
“Yes, well ...”
“You don’t have to go, Chris,” Nicoli said. “I can leave, as you were out here first.”
Christina nodded once. The sharp action confused Anton further. “I do, actually. It was nice to see you again, Nico.”
“Sure,” Nicoli muttered heavily.
Anton wanted to ask his grandfather about the awkward exchange as Christina disappeared back into the house, but he was too caught up in watching the two run down the shore line.