“Are you jealous, pet?” he asked, his voice velvety smooth and close to my ear.
I tried to push him away. His arms tightened around me.
“No,” I muttered.
“Liar,” he taunted me. “You know what happens to good little girls who lie?”
I swallowed. No, I didn’t, but something told me I didn’t want to know. I shook my head.
His smile was all devil, but thankfully he stopped teasing me when Gabriel spoke.
“Should we take our seats?”
I nodded my head, grabbing Damien’s hand and trying to get him to walk. Gabriel watched our interaction with amusement lighting his eyes.
And though he still looked a lot like his evil little brother, there was something approachable about him. I felt myself relaxing around him for the first time, and he seemed to understand what I was thinking, as his eyes softened marginally.
“Princess, stop looking at Gabriel.”
I groaned and buried my face in Damien’s chest at the sound of Nikolay’s voice. Gabriel laughed. I glared at Nikolay as Damien led us to the front.
Nikolay just winked at me.
I looked away from him. He was incorrigible.
Gabriel led us to the seating section in the front. I sat between Damien and Nikolay while Mikhail and Gabriel took the seats on the outside of us.
A pretty waitress came to us right away.
She smiled, not just with her lips but her eyes. The thing that really threw me off since we got here was that everyone who worked here seemed to be here of their own free will.
They didn’t have that look of someone who had spent most of their time in survival mode, like the women I had seen at Alyosha Petrov’s house, the traitor I was sure my men had killed many weeks before.
The waitress introduced herself as Bianca and was professional in every sense of the word. And despite being insanely gorgeous, I didn’t feel like she was looking at my men.
Her eyes did linger on Gabriel for a quick second, but it happened so fast that I wasn’t sure if I had imagined it. She had bright blue eyes, which contrasted nicely against her fair skin and dark, almost black hair tied up in a high ponytail. She had on some professional-looking makeup, but she was one of those women you could tell didn’t need it.
“What do you want to drink, princess?” Nikolay asked, his lips close to my ears. I tried not to show how badly his closeness was affecting me. I failed.
He smirked as I leaned close to him. “Orange juice.”
His eyes glinted with amusement as he put in our order, barely glancing at Bianca. I felt her inquisitive gaze on me for a moment, and I wondered if she thought I was rude for not talking to her.
My mutism had never really been a problem before, mostly because I was caged at Father’s house and was only let out when he needed to show me off, but now things were different. I was interacting with more people than I’d ever had to in my life.
Frustration made it hard to breathe, and I wished so badly that I could be like other women—other people.
Damien turned to me, his dark eyes never missing anything. I pretended not to notice the look he shot at me and, taking a deep breath, I looked through the clutch and brought out the notebook. I could feel four sets of eyes on me, making my cheeks heat, though I didn’t let that stop me.
I didn’t want to be known as the Mute Princess anymore.
I didn’t want to be known as Angelo Agnello’s greatest treasure—as if that wasn’t the biggest lie ever to be told.
My knuckles turned white from how I gripped the pen in my hand, and I forced myself to relax before opening the notebook to a blank page and writing in it.
I looked up when I was done, holding it away from Nikolay when he made a move to grab it out of my hand. I glared at him before I turned my attention to Gabriel and handed the notebook over to him.
He seemed surprised by the gesture.