Page 27 of Deathless & Divided

Dino eyed her plate of food. “We’re not finished eating, Lily.”

“I’m finished, or do you plan on telling me how many calories I have to consume in a day, too? Maybe you would like to give me a list of things I should and shouldn’t be doing, like the miles I jog in the morning or the color of my lipstick. What should I wear, how should I speak and walk? Come on, Dino, what more can you do to me? Let me have it.”

“Lily—”

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “Why, Dino?”

“Because I have to.”

Damian’s words a few days before clanged around in the back of Lily’s mind like a warning bell.

“I am not your way to the top!” she shouted.

Dino didn’t blink. “I’m not aiming to get there.”

Lily couldn’t begin to understand her brother. And God knew she tried. “Dino, please.”

“Stop begging, Lily,” Dino said, his words sharp like the edge of a blade. “You’re a DeLuca whether you want to be or not. DeLucas don’t beg, we never have, and you’re sure as shit not going to start now. As far as what you can and can’t do, you already know the answer to that, so don’t start looking for direction from me. You know what is expected from you; what more do you want from me?”

“To let me live my life,” Lily said.

“I’m trying.”

Abriella Trentini dropped the stack of magazines on the coffee shop’s small circular table and took a seat with a huff. The white lace, pearl buttons, and flowing silks on the covers of the magazines made Lily sick just by looking at them.

“Do you have a style you like?” Abriella asked. “That’d help to narrow it down a bit.”

“She’s going to make this extra difficult,” Evelina informed before taking a drink of her chai latte.

Lily gave her best friend a dirty look. “Classic, A-line, lace.”

“Someone was wrong,” Abriella said in a sing-song manner, grinning.

Evelina shrugged. “Give it time.”

“All white?” Abriella asked.

“Off-white,” Evelina said.

Lily laughed under her breath. “She knows. Definitely off-white. The less whispering I have to listen to, the better. No need to give the mob bitches anymore reason to act like barking spiders than they already have.”

“Hey,” Evelina said, mocking offense with her hand pressed to her chest. “Is that how you think of us—mob bitches?”

“No, just bitches.”

All three girls’ laughter rang out in the quiet coffee shop, drawing the attention of several annoyed gazes. Lily didn’t even care about them. Their life wasn’t being upturned and decided on without their input or approval. They weren’t being forced to plan a wedding they didn’t want or being made to marry a man they didn’t know.

“Seriously though,” Abriella said, sobering. “How are you doing with all of this?”

Lily sighed and eyed the magazines. “I’ve spent the last week arguing and yelling at Dino.”

“And?”

“And here I am looking at bridal magazines.”

Lily thought that statement was self-explanatory without her needing to go into further detail.

“How in the hell did Dino get the church to agree to overlook the mandatory six-month couple’s counselling?” Evelina asked.