“I will poison you, Nash, so help me,” I bite back, stealing a shrimp from his plate and shoving it into my mouth.
Okay. That’s real good.
I do have to step my game up.
“Pew pew!” Silvio shrieks, pointing his fork around the table. “Pew pew pew pew!”
“Sil!” Alison snaps. “Your fork is not a gun and you are still not getting the Nerf back!”
“Mamaaaa,” he whines.
“No,” she replies.
Trent winces, and she glares at him.
Dad leans forward, looking around conspiratorially. “Come see me after dinner.” He winks.
Alison glares.
“I found-a you-a a cake-a!” Nonna announces to Amelia and Dev.
Amelia stops eating, her fork poised between her plate and her mouth. Strings of spaghetti slither off. “You did?”
“Si!” Nonna exclaims. “Is-a lovely. Is-a white, elegant, just-a what-a you want-a.”
“Okay,” Amelia replies quietly, a smile touching her mouth. “I’d love to see it after dinner.”
I blink quickly. Wait. What was that?
“Liliana,” Mom says from the end of the table. “This pasta isn’t cooked right. I told you that you didn’t have time to make it from scratch for everyone!”
Nonna lets out an annoyed stream of Italian curse words. “Oh, you be-a quiet!”
Aria giggles. Jason pauses, his eyes flicking between the two of them. Dad ignores it as Mom responds.
“It’s hard! Look at it! It’s like granite pasta!”
“Fuck,” Brody mutters.
Bek covers her eyes with her hand.
“Is-a not hard!” Nonna cries. “Look! Is-a perfect! You—you screw-a with me!”
I reach for my glass of wine. And it’s empty. Oh yay.
Drake leans toward me. “Please, please, please learn to cook like this so we don’t have to listen to this circus every week.”
I drag my teeth across my lower lip. “It’s real cute that you think I’d be excused from this. You know Trent and Alison have been married almost ten years and together for fourteen, right?”
He sighs heavily and grabs his beer bottle. “I can see myself taking up alcoholism just to survive this weekly craziness.”
I grin. “Welcome to the family, Nash.”
The smirk that tugs his lips up is amusing. “Oh yeah. Did I tell you? My mom is coming home in September. First time in three years.”
I pause. The last time I saw his mom, she was dressed in a hula skirt for my mom’s birthday party four years ago and she was wondering very loudly when Drake would get married.
“Oh boy,” I reply, looking right at him. “Should we run away now or later?”
“Don’t worry,” he mutters, touching my back. “She despises Jessica. I think it’ll be better than you think. At the very least, you’ll have a bitching buddy.”
“It can’t be worse than this,” I reason, glancing at the women at the ends of the table.
Mom and Nonna are firing various insults back and forth in both English and Italian.
“Can it?” I ask.
“I sure hope not.” He laughs.
“Cazzo!” Gio squawks, flapping his wings. “Quiet!”
Mom and Nonna both stop and turn toward the bright-green bird.
“Gio!” Nonna gasps.
“Cazzo!” he repeats, wings flapping again. “Quiet, I say. Quiet!”
I hold my wine glass to my mouth. “You know,” I say, “I might just like that parrot after all.”
Gio turns to me and fixes one of his beady, black eyes on me. Then he wolf-whistles. “Hot wench. Hot wench!”
Dad roars with laughter, and within seconds, everyone except Silvio, Aria, and Nonna are laughing.
I grab a spoon and throw it at the cage. “Oh, shut your beak!”
Gio squawks with displeasure at my attack. I stick my finger up at him behind Bek’s back, where the kids can’t see.
Drake wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into him. He’s shaking with laughter, but the rich sound of his chuckles are warming to me. “Would it make it better if I said you are a hot wench?”
I turn my face to him, failing to fight my smile, and look down. “You’re an idiot,” I mutter fondly.
He kisses the top of my head and whispers, “Love you, too.”
I glance up, and for this second, just this moment, silence lingers. Questions have been answered, justice will be served, and happiness reigns above all else.
And perhaps, right now, when he replies to my veiled I-love-you in a way I’m sure no one else ever could, that’s all that truly matters.
Me, him, and my crazy-as-hell family.
And yes. Even the parrot.
Mark your calendars for TIED BOND, book four, on February 25th! Pre-order available across all retailers soon.
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Emma Hart is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of sexy new adult romance novels, including the Call series and the Game series. By day, she dons a cape and calls herself Super Mum to two beautiful little monsters. By night, she drops it, pours a glass of whatever she fancies—usually wine—and writes books.
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TETHERED BOND (Holly Woods Files, #3)
Copyright 2015 by Emma Hart
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Books by Emma Hart
About Tethered Bond
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
About the Author
Copyright Notice