Page 146 of The Art of Ruin

Then mornings come with stolen kisses in a quiet kitchen while Letty brushes her teeth, and heated looks over Letty’s head while she chatters through breakfast, completely oblivious to the fact that her father keeps staring at me like he’s trying and failing not to imagine me naked.

It should feel reckless. Instead, it feels frighteningly natural. Which is probably why I’m currently lying flat on a yoga mat in a class Izzy dragged me to on a Saturday morning. She watches me over the rim of her water bottle with a deeply smug look on her face while I stare at the ceiling, questioning my life choices.

“You slept with him.”

I close my eyes immediately, a blush staining my cheeks as I look around and pray nobody heard her. “Hush, someone will hear you.”

“That’s not a denial.”

I glare at her with no heat. “You’re impossible.”

“That’s also not a denial.”

I drag a long-suffering groan from somewhere deep in my chest before lifting my arm to cover my face dramatically. “I hate how smug you sound right now.”

Across from me, Isabella laughs softly, tucking one leg beneath herself as winter sunlight spills through the enormous studio windows around us.

The yoga class had sounded like a good idea an hour ago.

Now my muscles are shaking slightly, my hair is sticking to the back of my neck, and my best friend is interrogating me with the relentless focus that once helped dismantle a money laundering operation and accidentally led her to marry into organized crime.

Terrifying, amazing woman that she is.

“You’re glowing,” she says.

“I’m sweaty.”

“You’re glowing because Adriano’s been looking at you like he wants to drag you into the nearest locked room for the last seven days and bang you until you scream.”

Heat crawls straight up my neck. “Please never say that sentence again.”

Her grin only widens.

God, I’ve missed this.

Being with her without stress or heartbreak sitting between us, talking nonsense while soft music hums through the studio and snow drifts lazily outside the windows overlooking Manhattan. For the first time in years, I feel… light.

It’s unfamiliar enough that part of me keeps waiting for something to ruin it. I barely survived Jasper, but Adriano could break me completely. It’s reckless getting involved with him, but it’s like a runaway train now and I don’t want to get off.

“So,” Isabella says casually, though her eyes are sparkling now, “how was it?”

I narrow my eyes immediately. “You’re a journalist. You should know how to ask less obvious questions.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“I’m not talking about your brother-in-law’s sex life with you.”

She laughs again, then tosses a rolled towel lightly at my head.

I catch it on instinct.

“So, you did sleep with him. I knew it.”

“Oh, my God. Now I know how your victims feel.”

Izzy rolls onto her back and kicks her legs up, as people around us start to pack up to leave, casting slightly snooty glances at us as they do.

“I’m so pumped about this. You deserve this, Case.”