Page 88 of Darling Venom
This spot offered a clear line of sight to Charlie, which wasn’t ideal, considering she looked like she had stuff she wanted to say and I found it fuck-hard to drag my eyes away.
She mouthed something, but she sucked at it so bad, her tongue swiped her lips. And that got my dick’s attention.
Fucking pathetic.
It was an asshole move to stare at Charlie while talking to Hannah. But yelling at me to send my brother off to military school was also an asshole move, which Kellan had apparently heard.
As Terry could attest, holding grudges was a special talent of mine.
Hannah cleared her throat. “You’ve really moved on, haven’t you?”
“There was nothing to move on from.”
The words tore out of my mouth.
She flinched, but I didn’t regret them. I knew Hannah. If I didn’t make the status of our relationship crystal clear, she’d latch onto whatever hope she could.
But also, prick was my default setting, and I found it disturbingly easy to slip into. I was Terrence Marchetti’s son after all. And she was the woman who’d tried to kick my brother out of my home.
After he passed, Hannah returned and stayed around for six months, only bailing once she realized I had no plans to off myself and Kellan hadn’t been the problem in our relationship. He’d been the reason for it.
My attention veered to Charlie again. She’d moved on to a new strategy—repeating the same word over and over, emphasizing each syllable.
Har.
Vard.
I didn’t understand her fixation.
In my office, I’d chalked it up to a stalling strategy. Or maybe she genuinely hadn’t known about his acceptance, and it meant she wasn’t as close to him as she thought she was.
Hannah pretended she didn’t notice me staring. It reminded me a lot of our former relationship—pretending everything was okay when nothing had ever been.
She reached for my arm, trying to draw me back into the conversation. “How have you been?”
“Is this what you wanted to talk about?”
“It’s a pleasantry, Tatum,” she spat out. There you are. “Something you say when you haven’t seen someone in three years and seven months.”
But who was counting, right?
“I didn’t come here to fight.”
Or see you.
Why are you here again?
“I wanted to know why things ended, but I guess the better question is why they ever began.”
“Is that important?”
“It is if I want closure, which I think I deserve.”
And then it clicked.
What Charlie wanted.
She wanted to know The Why.
