Unwillingly Yours (Warning: Love Moderately) Read Free Page B

his eyes deepening into the color of stormy clouds, and his beautiful lips thinned into a forbidding line.
    “I don’t even care if he lives or not. It’s you I care about,” he gritted out.
    The last words snatched Jaike out of the reverie she had lost herself in, flinging her back into the painful reality of the present. “I don’t need your pity!”
    Derek met her gaze unflinchingly. “Pity is the last thing I feel for you,
koukla mou.
I’m just pissed that you had to see something like this.”
    “I’m not your
koukla,
whatever that is, so stop calling me that.” It was an absurd thing to say, not to mention a lie, but right now Jaike needed to cling to the absurdities. She was desperate for anything that could blind her to how her boyfriend was practically banging another girl in public.
    Derek didn’t reply, his gaze merely following hers, as did everybody else’s. Every person in this party had to know who Angelo was, and they had to have an idea who
she
was. But not one of them seemed incline to put a stop to Angelo’s source of private entertainment.
    “You don’t need to talk to him.” Derek’s body vibrated with suppressed rage.
    She knew what that coiled form meant. Just one word from her, and he would make a move against Angelo.
    “Jaike?”
    “No. I have to do this myself.” She forced herself to say the words even though all she wanted was to lean on Derek and let the inevitable happen.
    Jaike pushed her way into the throng of couples crowding the poolside, stopping only when she stood half a foot away from Angelo and the unknown girl in his arms. Shouldn’t Angelo have sensed her presence by now? They were still oblivious, and that hurt even more. Angelo used to know the moment she came into a room he was in, no matter how many other people were with them, no matter how noisy, no matter how busy he was.
    The pain of his betrayal began to sink in, and she struggled to control her chaotic emotions when the other girl enfolded Angelo in an embrace, pulling his head down for an open-mouthed kiss.
    What now
, she wondered. Should she scream and make a scene? Should she burst into tears like she wanted to and wait if Angelo would comfort or ditch her? In the end, all she could think of doing was…
tap.
Her fingers played on Angelo’s broad and hard shoulder like they were a piano.
    Nothing.
    She had to tap thrice.
    Oh God, he was so into the other girl Jaike – his girlfriend - had to tap thrice!
    Angelo finally tore his mouth away from the girl’s. When he turned to her, there wasn’t even a flicker of surprise, no sign of guilt or regret coloring his gaze.
    The Angelo she knew had been the gentlest and sweetest man alive, a guy who always did what was best for her.
    The Angelo in front of her was a stranger. He was still the tall, dark, handsome Italian-American Jaike had cared for, but those were the only things that she could recognize. Everything else was different. His eyes used to be so bright when looking at her, but now they were completely hard. Even his clothes were all wrong, with his gray silk polo unbuttoned almost all the way to his navel and even a bite mark in the middle of his bare chest. He wasn’t the typical flamboyant Latin lover, but now he could easily pass for a first-class gigolo.
    “What’s wrong,
caro
?”
    Jaike wanted to gag. Angelo had asked her to call him ‘caro’, too, which meant ‘darling’ in Italian. Now this girl was doing the same, in front of her, and in such a shrill voice that Jaike half-expected Angelo to curse right after.
    Angelo hated shrill voices, and it had been one of his few explicit requests that Jaike speak with him in a soft voice all the time because it soothed his ears. But the seconds ticked past, and Angelo still hadn’t spoken, didn’t even seem to hear the girl freaking out next to him.
    “Do you want me to talk to her?” the girl demanded more shrilly when Angelo still hadn’t uttered a word. She turned to Jaike, chin