He Shoved Cake in My Face. I Destroyed His Empire! novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Soup

Tobias finds her packed, Dominic and Colette bring a shellfish platter to a woman with a severe allergy, and Colette spills scalding soup on her.

At my Tribeca penthouse, I dragged two leather suitcases out of the storage room.

I didn't need much.

I packed my passport, a few changes of clothes, my grandmother's watch and the seal my father had put in my hand before he died.

I left the guest list, the place settings and the leather book of vows where they were.

It was past one in the morning when the front lock clicked.

Tobias came in alone.

He stopped in the hallway when he saw the suitcases.

For the first time that night, he looked unsure.

"Where are you going?"

"Milan."

"Allegra."

His voice was different now, and it wasn't anger.

He crossed the room fast and lifted his hand toward my face.

"Don't do this."

For one second he looked like the man who used to pull me against him after every fight, because he couldn't sleep with space between us.

He bent his head toward mine.

I turned my face away.

He went still.

I had never done that to him before.

"You're serious," he said.

"Yes."

Panic crossed his face.

Then pride covered it, quickly.

"You're angry. Fine. Be angry." His hand dropped to his side. "But you're not ending three years over one party."

"I'm not ending it over tonight. Tonight just showed me the other three years."

He said nothing for a while.

Then he laughed once, short and disbelieving. "You were in my bed last night. You trusted me yesterday."

"It's why what you did hurts."

"You don't get to humiliate me and then use the fact that I loved you to make me stay."

Before I could answer, the front door opened again.

Tobias had left it unlatched.

Dominic walked in carrying champagne, and Colette followed with a seafood platter held in both hands.

"There you are." Colette smiled too brightly. "We figured everybody needed to calm down."

Dominic looked at Tobias's face, then at my suitcases. "Oh, come on."

Colette set the platter down on the kitchen island.

"We came to save the night. Eat something, have a drink, and by tomorrow nobody will remember."

Lobster tails and oysters lay in a ring of ice across the middle of it.

I am severely allergic to shellfish.

Colette had known that since our first week of college.

Beside the platter sat a pack of gluten-free crackers, because she had decided wheat made her bloated.

Tobias stared at the ice.

He had sat beside me in an emergency room once, after one bad oyster, holding my injector until the nurse took it from him.

"Dom," he said. "The shellfish."

"She's not going to eat it, Toby." Dominic waved a hand. "Nobody's making her."

Tobias looked at the platter a moment longer, and then he said nothing else.

I reached for my suitcase.

Dominic laughed. "Here we go again. You threaten to run back to Italy every time we fight, and you're home by the next day."

"This time is different."

Tobias kept his eyes on me.

"She says she's canceling the wedding."

For once Dominic stopped smiling.

Colette blinked at me. "Over a little cake?"

"It isn't the cake."

"It's the bet," Tobias said. He dragged a hand over his jaw. "It didn't start well. But the last three years were real, and you can't rewrite them because you were embarrassed."

"Because they were real, you can't call tonight a joke."

He had nothing ready to say to that.

Dominic poured himself a glass of champagne and leaned on the island.

"You're exhausted, Allegra. The wedding is close, and you're taking everything personally."

"And you're punishing Tobias for one bad call," Colette added softly. "Just apologize to me for what you said at the party, and we can all move on."

I looked at each of them in turn.

"You walked into my home with food that could put me in the hospital, and I'm still the one who owes an apology."

Tobias's eyes dropped to the platter.

For half a second, shame crossed his face.

"Nobody's asking you to eat it," Dominic said. "Stop turning every mistake into proof that we don't care."

It was the same trick as always, in a different suit.

If I named the pattern, I was twisting things.

If I stayed quiet, they called it proof that nothing was wrong.

Colette's eyes filled.

"This is my fault. I shouldn't have brought up the bet, and I shouldn't have let everyone egg him on. If it matters this much, I'm sorry."

She picked up an insulated container she had set beside her purse.

"I brought soup, too. At least have something warm before you go."

"I'm not hungry."

I bent to close my suitcase.

Colette stepped closer, and the container slipped out of her hands.

Boiling broth poured down the side of my blouse and over my waist.

I cried out and stumbled back.

The heat went through the cloth and into my skin almost at once.

"Oh my God." Colette covered her mouth. "Allegra, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to."

Tobias grabbed a towel off the oven door, and Dominic pulled Colette away from the spill.

"It was an accident," Dominic said. "Don't start another fight over this."

Colette looked at me with wet eyes.

"I was only trying to take care of you."

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