She cleared her throat and wiggled out of my hold, her sharp elbow wedging beneath my ribs like a dagger.
“Don’t touch me.” Her hand dove into a tiny clutch purse, and she pulled out a keychain with a lone key dangling from a pair of gold ballet slippers.
“Get over yourself. You were about to fall.”
Her eyes hardened. “I was not.” Her shoulders snapped back, and like magic, the hesitation and powerlessness rolling off her disappeared.
I snatched the key out of her hand and unlocked and opened the door in a matter of seconds. Evie stepped in front of me, her head held high and her hands wrapped around her purse like it was a shield.
Carmela sat on the sofa, fiddling with her iPod. She caught my gaze, and her brows snapped together. “Hey, guys.” She slipped off her headphones and rested them around her neck. “What’s going on? Did you give Evie a ride?”
I glanced at Evie. She stood frozen, her muscles tensed, and her eyes wide like she didn’t know what to say. “Um,” she muttered. What was her problem? Either she sure was a piss poor actress or Carmela had lied to me.
I settled into the gray and white chevron patterned club chair. “Listen, Evie is going to move into my place.”
My sister shook her head slowly like she didn’t understand what I had said. “You mean at the apartment above your bar? I thought Evie decided she didn’t want to work there.”
I rubbed my hand over my lips. As much as I hated lying to my sister, I didn’t have a choice. While our dad always did his best to protect her from the ugly side of being affiliated with the Trassato Crime Family, and I intended to do the same, that didn’t mean she was in the dark. She’d seen enough over the years to know our family was about more than love, loyalty, and tradition. And if she didn’t get the full picture as a kid, she sure as hell understood when her fiancé was rushed to the hospital with four bullet holes in his chest after a shootout with the DiTonnos.
“No. She’s going to move into my home with me.”
“What?” She jumped to her feet with her hands curled into tight balls next to her black lounge pants. “Why the hell would she do that?”
“Carmela,” Evie said, her hand dropping onto the top of my shoulder. “Gian and I…” She paused, visibly swallowed, and plastered a megawatt smile on her face. “We’re dating.”
Carmela’s attention locked on me like a sharp shooter. “Dating? You broke up with the art douche last week, and my brother doesn’t date. He…he…” she flicked her wrist in my direction, “has meaningless flings that last hours, not days or months.”
Coming to my feet, I slipped an arm around Evie’s waist, acutely aware of the way her body stiffened under my hand. Carmela needed to shut the hell up so Evie didn’t end up more suspicious of my motives and me than she already was. I needed her compliant and trusting if our ruse had any chance of succeeding.
“That stopped the minute I met Evie,” I said.
Carmela’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you seriously trying to convince me you are a changed man as of…” she glanced at the clock on the wall above her long rectangular fireplace with zen-like black rocks lining the bottom “…three hours ago?”
Evie leaned her head against my shoulder, strands of her silken hair tangling in my whiskers. “Carmela, we met a few months ago. We were friendly in the beginning, but it recently evolved into more.”
“Wait. I don’t get it.” Carmela frowned. “Why didn’t you mention you knew my brother?”
I squeezed Evie’s waist, signaling her to let me answer. “I asked her not to. I know how protective you are of your friends, and I thought it’d be better to keep it quiet until her ex was out of the picture and she was ready to commit to a real relationship. We both knew we couldn’t keep you in the dark much longer when you asked me to hire her.”
“Are you serious, Evie?” Carmela asked, her voice climbing higher with every syllable. “You just got out of one fucked up relationship, and now you’re moving in with my brother? My fucking brother? Do you realize how crazy this sounds?” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Tell me you guys are only messing with me because this is absolutely insane.”
I kissed the side of Evie’s head. “Go get your things. Let me talk to my sister alone.”
She leaned into me, her lips brushing against the rim of my ear. “I can’t stand you. You know that, right?”
Ice seeped deep inside of my core, and my fingers dug into her waist. Even though this arrangement was a necessary hoax, she needed to remember her place. “You only wish you did, sweetheart, but don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.”