please.”
I dig my fingernails into my palms, which are getting sweatier by the second. As I shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other on the Persian rug, Alberto doesn’t even look up from his files. Instead, he swats me away like a fly.
“You no longer have an escort.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“It’s not mine, either.”
“We had a deal, Alberto!”
The anger in my voice makes him slam down his Mont Blanc pen and regard me with a warning scowl. “Aurora,” he says low and steady. “I won’t tell you again. You’re not going to Devil’s Dip on your own today, and everyone on the grounds is too busy to take you. I’ll try to find someone for Saturday.” He takes a sip of whiskey, not caring that it’s not even 9:00 a.m., mid-week. “No guarantee, though,” he adds over the rim of his glass.
I whip around to glare at the bookshelf. First editions that have never even had their spines cracked stare back at me, and I will myself not to cry. I seem to have that down to a fine art these days.
I’m being punished for his nephew’s hotheadedness and it’s not fair. Max was the only associate Alberto had who’d humor me. Nobody else in the family would give up their precious time to drive me all the way to Devil’s Dip and wait around for an hour while I visit my father. And even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t let me go and see him on my own. Christ, I can’t imagine how scared he would be if I turned up flanked by a sour-faced Italian with a weapon tucked into his slacks.
I suck in a lungful of air, trying to think of a solution that doesn’t involve me clubbing Alberto around the head with one of those paperweights on his desk.
Then I remember last night. In bed. The way his bulge pressed against my lower back as he pressed himself up against me. The way his hot, whiskey breath tickled my ear as he told me he can’t wait for our wedding night.
My eyes flick up to the chandelier, and I mutter a bird-word under my breath.
What other choice do I have?
Rolling my shoulders back, I harden my jaw and turn back to face him. In three steps I’m at his desk, leaning over it. His attention falls to the ‘V’ neckline of my top, and he lets out a soft grunt.
“Alberto. What do I have to do to go and see my father today?” The words feel sticky in my mouth. I hate how desperately they spill out into the space between us. “Because, perhaps we can come to an…agreement.”
He shifts back in his leather armchair and rakes a hungry gaze over the length of me.
But then, his face darkens. “You’d be a lot more tempting if you weren’t dressed like such a fucking hobo.” I recoil from the venom of his words. “Why must you let your hair get so frizzy like that? It looks like a bird’s nest. And would it kill you to put on a slick of lipstick?”
Rage thumps in my temples and instinctively, my eyes dart to the paperweight.
Oh my goose, how tempting it is to pick it up, and slam it against his skull.
Alberto’s attention shifts over my left shoulder.
“Angelo.” He clears his throat and bolts upright, mildly embarrassed.
You have got to be kidding me.
I stay there for a few moments, my eyes closed, leaning all my weight against the desk. Is this guy ever not lurking around?
Inhaling deeply, I turn and brace for the weight of Angelo Visconti’s disgusted sneer. In the handful of days I’ve had the misfortune of knowing him, I’ve come to expect it. In fact, I’d say I’ve almost acclimated to the heat of it; how it turns my skin feverish and twists my stomach into uneasy knots.
But the moment he lifts his gaze from Alberto to me, I know I’m only lying to myself. I’m anything but used to it. Today, his stare is indifferent, scornful. Like he’d come into his office and found servants in the middle of a lover’s tiff. But I can’t keep my eyes off him, and because I’m watching him so intensely, I peel back his layers and notice something harder underneath his disdain. The thumping pulse in his jaw. The flair of his nostrils.
He’s angry.
He pushes off the door frame and takes three steps into the room. Drops a file on the desk. It’s nothing more than a slither of paper, but it sounds like it weighs a ton.
“The names you wanted.”
Alberto’s leather chair groans as he shifts his weight. “Grazie.”
Angelo doesn’t move. Instead, he shifts his attention down to Alberto’s face and pins him with a glare so dark I’m immediately relieved I’m not the subject of it. He’s still and silent, unwavering in his intimidation as he looms over his uncle like a bad dream. My gaze moves between them, my heartbeat increasing with every tense second that ticks painfully by.
I don’t dare breathe.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen Alberto look…small. Angelo’s shadow engulfs him, and suddenly he’s not the larger-than-life mafia boss who sits at the head of the table, commanding obedience with his booming voice and enormous silhouette. For the briefest of moments, he doesn’t look like the Almighty Alberto that has me bent at the knees, chained to him with a contract I know he’ll break.
For the briefest of moments, I’m not scared of him.
It’s him who slices through the tension. He glances toward the door and confusion flashes over his face. “Everything okay, kid?”
A heavy beat passes. Then Angelo drags his knuckles off the desk and returns to his full height.
The study crackles with static. There’s a hot itch under my collar now, too. It’s crazy; I’ve been in a hundred rooms with a hundred made men, and yet, they’ve never made me feel as nervous as Angelo does. It feels like I’m standing on the edge of the cliff and I can taste the danger again.
“Aurora.” I jump at the sound of my name. “I’ll take you to Devil’s Dip.”
My ears ring. “Y-you will?”
I steal a glance at Alberto and notice a steady flush creeping up his neck.
“I’m heading that way.”
Angelo strolls out the door without looking back. I stand awkwardly, suspended in limbo between the two men who each hold broken pieces of my life in their hands.
Alberto has the power to ruin my father’s life.
Angelo knows all of my sins.
I turn back to Alberto and study his face. It’s instinctive to want to ask permission, but I swallow the question in a small act of defiance. He stares after Angelo for a few moments, before looking up at me.
Then he nods. It’s so small that if I’d blinked, I’d have missed it.
“Thank you,” I breathe, but it’s quiet and I’m halfway out the door so I doubt he even heard it. Heart racing, I run across the lobby, crash through the front door, and come to a stop on the steps.
Angelo stands leaned against the bonnet of his car, hands tucked into his coat pockets. He’s staring intensely at something in the distance, and disappointment starts to chip away at the edges of my excitement.
Did he mean it? Or am I just a pawn in this weird power play between him and Alberto?
Before I can pluck up the courage to ask, he pushes off the hood and strolls to the passenger side. He holds the door open. “Get in.”
I don’t have to be asked twice. I scurry down the steps and inch past him, feeling the burn of his narrowed eyes as they trail me, and slide into the passenger seat before he can change his mind.
He slams the door a little too hard, plunging me into silence. I try to ignore the warm, masculine scent engulfing me—a cocktail of new leather and his oaky aftershave. The way it heightens my instincts, raising the hairs on the back of my neck and sharpening my senses.
Danger is imminent.
The car dips as he slides into the driver’s side and I regret my haste even more. The interior is sleek and sporty and feels infinitely smaller the moment he slams his door. In retrospect, perhaps I could have waited until Saturday to see my father. Until Alberto found someone else to escort me, someone more…appropriate.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
The engine comes to life under my seat, purring like a tiger. Clenching my hands in my lap, I keep my eyes trained ahead, on the lone water droplet snaking its way down the middle of the windshield. I don’t dare steal a glance at Angelo; his anger radiates off him so hot and heavy that steam is starting to gather on the windows.
“You know, being a whore is—”
“A sin,” I blurt out, my voice too loud for the tiny gap between us. I cringe and clear my throat, lowering my volume as I add, “Yeah. I know.”
Silence. I can feel my face turning crimson. So, he saw my desperate attempt at flirting with Alberto in the office, which means he also saw how venomously he shut me down. Goose, how embarrassing. Did he agree to escort me to put me out of my misery? He doesn’t seem like the type to feel second-hand embarrassment.
He hooks his thumbs onto the steering wheel and speeds up, taking the road out of the Visconti grounds with the speed and control of a Formula One driver. I bite my lip and try to keep my stance neutral, like I’m totally used to traveling at a million miles an hour all the time.
“I was going to say, unattractive.”
Frustration claws at my throat, threatening to cut off my air supply if I don’t let it out. “I’m not a whore.”
“You’re not unattractive, either.”
I freeze.
What?
Only when my heart decides to beat again, I steal a glance at him. He’s staring at the road ahead, jaw clenched too hard for any misspoken words to have slipped out of it. I imagined it. I must have. It was nothing but the sound of a low-hanging branch scraping against the windshield, or a passing car with a radio turned up too loud.
It was anything but a twisted compliment from Angelo Visconti’s lips.
But his next comment, although nothing more than a mutter, I hear loud and clear.
“What the hell does he have over you?”
I stare ahead, eyes fixed on the wrought iron gates creaking open, revealing the coastal highway behind them.
What does he have over you? It suddenly dawns on me like a new day; Angelo has more over me than my fiance does.
And I need to find out exactly what he knows.
Steeling my spine and wiping my sweaty palms on my Lululemon leggings, I edge toward the subject.
“You have things over people, too.”
He cocks a brow, waiting for me to elaborate. I fight against my nerves and add, “I heard about your voicemail service. It’s why you killed Max, right?”
A smirk curves on his lips, deepening the angle of his cheekbones. “Apologies if I got blood on your pretty little dress,” he drawls. Then he shifts his gaze from the road to me. Runs a cold eye over the curl I’m twirling between my thumb and forefinger, then dips his eye line lower, to the curve of my breasts. His glance is over as quickly as it began, but leaves me breathless.
He turns back to the road, taking a sharp right toward Devil’s Hollow. “Seems like you only get that dressed up when you want something, Magpie.”
I pause. “Magpie?”
Another smirk. Oh, right. He thinks I’m attracted to shiny things, like my fiance’s will and Vittoria’s pearl necklace. But I don’t bite, because I can’t let the annoyance thrumming in my veins push me off track.
“Sinners Anonymous, right?” I rasp. “How does that work, then?”
He frowns. “Why?”
“I’m just wondering. I’ve seen the cards about and—”
He cuts me off with a low chuckle. It’s soft and dark. Deliciousness underpinned with ill intentions. “You’ve been calling the number.”
My head swims. Oh, swan.
When he laughs again, I realize I said that aloud. “Don’t worry. No sin of yours is going to be interesting enough to ping my radar.”
“Perhaps I’m not as innocent as I look,” I snap back. Immediately, I regret my outburst. Darn it. Why can’t I just be relieved that he’s unaware of my obsession with the hotline? But the way he looks at me so condescendingly, like I’m a child, makes my skin itch with the desire to prove I’m not.
“Let me see. You’re a twenty-one year old virgin who swears using bird puns. The worst thing you’ve done is steal Vittoria’s necklace, and I already knew about that. And yet, your conscience is so heavy you want to throw yourself off a cliff.”
My fists clench. “Not true.”
His stare scorches my cheek, hot and unrelenting. When I turn to meet it, my heart stills.
“Are you a bad girl, Aurora?”
I swallow. His eyes dance with dark amusement, but his tone is more sinister. Dripping with an insinuation that ignites a flame between my thighs.
“Sometimes.”
The car rolls to a lazy stop outside the church. The engine cuts out, plunging us into silence. All I hear are my shallow breaths; all I feel is the path his eyes carve down to my lips.
Any hint of humor in them is long gone.
“Do you like being bad?”
Our gazes clash. I give a slow, small nod.
He releases a puff of air through his parted lips and rakes his fingers through his hair. The action reveals an inch of tanned, toned flesh above his pants. It’s a visual that suddenly makes me wonder what else is underneath that expensive-looking suit.
My stomach flips.
“Be back in an hour,” he rasps.
Face burning with a cocktail of frustration and embarrassment, I unclick my seat belt and grab the door handle. “Are you going to insist on coming with me?”
“You’re a bad girl; you can handle it.”
I pause, grinding my teeth to stop myself biting back. As I open the door, his hand locks around my wrist.
Oh, holy crow.
The ability to breathe escapes me, and I force myself to look at him. His gaze is turbulent, flashing like a lightning storm against a starless sky.
“I could listen to every secret you have with a tap of a button.”
My blood runs cold. “But you won’t.”
“But I could.” He tilts his head in the direction of the phone booth. My phone booth. “I know exactly where you’re calling from. It’d be piss-easy to trace.”
My breathing quickens. I’m torn between begging him not to listen to my sins and ripping myself away from his touch.
His grip tightens around my wrist. So I guess that eliminates my second option.
I dig my nails into the palm of my free hand and swallow. “What do you want from me?”
“A sin.”
I blink. “W-what?”
“Tell me a sin, Aurora,” he drawls. His tone drips in syrup, thick enough to drown in. I briefly close my eyes from the twisted pleasure of it.
“You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
Racking my scrambled brain, I bite down on my bottom lip. For some reason, I have the urge to tell him something of substance. Nothing too bad, but just enough to show I’m not the blithering little girl that replaces swear words with bird puns.
“Last week, I went into Alberto’s closet and cut a hole in the pocket of every suit.” My eyes dart to his expressionless face. “Small ones, the size of a dime. But big enough for him to lose his car keys four times in the last seven days.”
The silence is suffocating, stretching out like there’s an endless void between us. Within it, all I can hear is my heartbeat thumping against my rib cage, and all the blood from my fried brain rushing around my ears.
And then, his laugh. A delicious, throaty laugh that lights up my skin like a live wire. I can’t stop staring at him. At the way the hard lines of his face soften, all except the cleft in his chin, which deepens under the weight of his broad smile. It’s the same laugh from the dinner table, moments before he shot Max—the one I’d craved to hear again.
He’s so handsome it makes my teeth ache.
I have to get out of this car before I lose my mind. When I tug out of his grip, he lets me go and I dive out onto the road, feeling his gaze follow me through the windshield as I head into the forest.
