Finding Purgatory by Kristina M. Sanchez

Author:Kristina M. Sanchez [Sanchez, Kristina M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B00VF9CWR4
Published: 2015-03-29T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14: Sweet and Sour

For days after her conversation with Tori, Ani hadn’t been able to think straight.

She was aware she was in a restaurant, surrounded by people. She’d answered the host when he asked how many were in her party—just her. She’d jumped all three times the waitress came over to see how she was doing. At the other tables, voices roared. She should have been hearing the typical restaurant background noise, indistinct conversation and vague laughter, but she wasn’t.

In Ani’s head, it was white noise.

“Hey, stranger.”

Startled, Ani looked up. It took her a few seconds to process that West had taken the seat opposite her. His smile was warm—a spot of heat where her soul had gone ice cold. “Hey.” The single word sounded as barely there as her thoughts.

“Are you meeting my brother here?”

Ani cocked her head, considering this for a minute before she realized there was nothing to think about. “I, um . . . no.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

She struggled to remember how to smile. “I hear you have good cheesecake.”

That made West grin, but before he could continue in that vein, Ani spoke again. “You know what I was thinking?” she asked, the words an awkward lurch.

“You were thinking we should try both the red velvet cheesecake and the banana cream cheesecake. Half pie, half cake, all delicious. Zoe.” He caught the attention of the waitress and ordered before he turned back to Ani. “But besides that, what else were you thinking?”

“There are a lot of Greek names. Beautiful Greek names. Persephone, Alexandra.”

Though she was babbling nonsense, West didn’t bat an eyelash. “I always thought Athena was pretty.”

“Athena isn’t bad. So why Antigone? Of all the gorgeous Greek names, why Antigone? That’s my name, by the way. My full name.”

West nodded as he considered her words. “I was named after a hotel. The hotel where I was conceived, in fact.”

Ani had taken a sip of tea. It was a mistake. She choked, spattering tea over her lips as she coughed. There was a smile playing about West’s mouth as he handed over a napkin.

Ani stumbled when she’d caught her breath again. Even if her brain hadn’t been stuck on stupid, she wouldn’t have been quite sure what to say to his admission. “That’s . . .”

“Exactly,” West said with a nod. He cocked his head, his eyes flitted down to where she was patting her collarbone dry, but he looked back up quickly.

Before Ani could react, Zoe returned with their desserts. It gave her a chance to recoup. West’s lighthearted banter was doing wonders to clear the cobwebs from her mind, but she wasn’t there yet.

“Now, are you more a cake person or a pie person?” West asked.

“Cake.” Before he could tell her all about the red velvet cheesecake, she said, “I really don’t know a non-awkward way to say this. And I seem to be missing my filter today. I really don’t mean this as anything more than curiosity.”

West looked wary. “Okay.”

“Before, um .

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