Yesterday, after Giorgio told me he didn’t want to see me for the rest of the day, I took it to mean our lesson was canceled. I spent a few hours bouncing around my room, my body buzzing with adrenaline. I couldn’t believe the things I said to him. It felt like someone else had slid inside my body and started moving my mouth for me, spitting out bold, very un-Martina-like statements.
But it was working. I was getting through to him, and his struggle to keep himself from doing what he wants to do was addictive to watch. It filled me with a wicked sense of pleasure.
After a while, I got tired of pacing the floor of my bedroom and came down to the greenhouse. Polo was there. He seemed pleased to see me, and we worked together for a few hours during which he asked about my life back in Ibiza and shared funny stories about Allegra and Tommaso.
Today, he’s far quieter. I barely get a hello when I arrive, and when I ask him if I should finish the project I was working on yesterday, he responds with a grunt.
I eye him curiously. There’s a frown on his face, and his shoulders are slumped. Something must have happened.
An hour passes before I hear his voice. “Look over here,” Polo calls, gesturing for me to come over. “The magnolias are in bloom.”
I go over to his side and peer at the purple and blue flowers spilling out of a rectangular planter. “They’re beautiful. Can I cut some for my room?”
“Sure.” He walks over to a desk and extracts a pair of scissors from the drawer before handing them to me. “Here.”
As I look for the perfect stem, I glance at him. “You okay?”
His frown returns. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. You just seem upset.”
He sniffs and looks down at the ground. “Nah, it’s nothing.”
Deciding not to push, I finish cutting the flowers. “You said something about planting more veggies the other day. Do you want to work on that today?”
“I won’t have time. I’ve got an errand to run.” He moves to the sink to wash his hands.
“Oh, okay. I guess I’ll just hang around until it’s time for Giorgio’s lesson.”
“He’s gone. Didn’t he tell you?”
I arch a brow. “Gone where?”
“Naples.”
“What for?”
Polo’s expression hardens. “He said he went to see his father, but who knows if he’s telling the truth. Getting anything out of him is like pulling teeth.”
The way he says it, his words short and clipped, makes it clear something happened between him and Giorgio. Did they get in an argument?
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“He said this afternoon, but it’s a long drive to Naples.” Polo wipes his hands on a towel and nods at the cut flowers. “You should put those in some water. I need to get to the nursery before it closes.”
I pick up the bouquet. “Where is that?”
“Near the closest town, and by town, I mean an intersection. It’s a fifteen-minute drive or so.”
“Can I come?” I ask, half-expecting him to say no. Giorgio doesn’t want me leaving the property, but this is so close, it barely counts. Plus, there’s nothing else to do, and I’m irritated he left without giving me a heads-up. We skipped our class yesterday, and now we’re skipping it again today? He could have said something. He knows how important the classes have become to me.
Polo tosses the towel on the table. “I shouldn’t—” He purses his lips. For a moment, he looks like he’s wrestling with something, but then he blows out a breath and says, “Fuck it. We won’t be going far. Go drop off your flowers, and I’ll take you.”
My eyes widen. Hell yes! “Okay, great.”
I meet Polo in the courtyard a few minutes later, and we get into his truck. The back of my mind prickles with knowledge that Giorgio might not be happy if he finds out about this, but given how close we’re going, we’ll be back before he returns.
“I looked you up, you know,” Polo says as he backs out of the gate. “Your brother is some big shot in Ibiza.”
I pick some dirt from under my nails. “He owns a few businesses on the island.”
“A few.” Polo chuckles under his breath. “According to Forbes, his net worth is estimated to be close to half a billion.”
Heat creeps up my cheeks. “My brother’s done well for himself.”
“How do him and Giorgio know each other?”
Ugh, what am I supposed to say to that? I still don’t know if Polo is aware of Giorgio’s involvement with the Casalesi, and I sure as hell am not going to be the one to bring it up.
“I’m not sure,” I say dismissively. “Probably from their work.”
“Yeah, their work.” He shakes his head as he takes a turn. “Your brother isn’t just a businessman, Martina, is he?”
The back of my nape prickles. “What do you mean?”
“I know what Giorgio does.” His voice hardens. “He handles security matters for the Casalesi. Your brother must be a part of the clan, too. Why are you here, really?”
I meet his scrutinizing gaze in the mirror and wonder what I should say. So he knows some of it, but clearly Giorgio doesn’t trust him enough to tell him why I’m here. Or maybe Giorgio just doesn’t think it’s relevant information. I school my expression into a neutral mask. “Giorgio already told you.”
“I don’t buy it. This isn’t some kind of nature retreat. Like I said, Giorgio hates this fucking place. He comes often, but never for more than a few days. He wouldn’t have agreed to stay here with you for this long if there wasn’t something big in it for him.”
I pull my lips into my mouth. There’s nothing I can say to that. “Why do you keep saying he hates it here?”
“You won’t tell me anything, but you expect me to tell you things?” He scoffs. “Forget it.”
Something in how his face moves strikes me as familiar. I squint at him, trying to decipher who he reminds me of, but I come up blank.
We pass by an abandoned barn. “Polo, there’s nothing to tell. My brother’s busy this summer, and he thought I’d have a better time spending it out here.”
“He sent you here over literally anywhere else in the world?” He adjusts his hands on the wheel. “You know what I think? I think your brother is the capo of Ibiza. And if he sent you all the way over here with Giorgio… You’re being hidden away.”
I don’t react. He turns to look at me, dragging his gaze over my profile. When I don’t say anything, he clicks his tongue. “Who are you hiding from, Martina?”
His proximity to the truth twists my nerves into tight coils. “What is it to you? It’s my business.”
“I’m tired of secrets.” And then he mutters under his breath, “And I’m tired of being told how to live my own damn life.”
Tension lingers inside the vehicle. After a while, Polo turns on the music, and I focus my eyes on the scenery outside window.
Unease swirls inside my stomach as we park in a dirt lot by the nurseries. Even though Polo’s frustration is directed more at Giorgio than me, I don’t like that he looked me or my brother up. Why does he care so much? Is he really just that bored, or is there something else behind it?
“I need to go talk to the owner about my order,” Polo says, sparing me a look once we get out of the truck. “You can walk around while you wait.”
“Okay. See you in a bit.”
As he disappears behind the door of the office building, I spin around, taking it all in. The place is huge. The plant nursery is situated on a large, sprawling piece of land and is filled with rows upon rows of various plants and flowers. I can see a range of different species, from tall trees to short shrubs, and colorful blooms in every hue. My attention catches on the glass greenhouse a little farther away, and I decided to make my way over to it.
My conversation with Polo replays inside my head. I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t have, right? I didn’t even confirm he was right about my brother being the capo of Ibiza. I’m probably overthinking it. Giorgio trusts him, and he must have a good reason for that trust.
As soon as I step through the door of the greenhouse, I’m struck by warmth and humidity. The air is thick with the scent of soil and growing plants, and sunlight streams through the matted glass above my head. I suck in the earthy aroma and let out a sigh. It’s gorgeous.
I walk over to a long wooden table stacked with potted plants and start to browse. Some of them we already have in the garden, but I find a few that will make great new additions.
Somewhere on the distance, a car door slams. Is Polo finished with the owner? I glance in the direction of the entry and then get back to my task. He knows I’m here. He’ll come and get me before he leaves.
When I’m done sifting through the pots on the table, I crouch down to look at the ones on the ground.
A sound penetrates my ears. Heavy and sure footsteps.
Before I get a chance to rise, a pair of familiar leather shoes come into view. When I look up, I see they belong to a very angry Giorgio.
“Hel—”
He leans down, wraps his hand around my biceps, and hauls me to my feet. His hold on me is so rough, it’s almost bruising.
I frown at him. “What’s going on?”
“What the fuck are you doing here, Martina?”
The raw anger in his voice sends blood away from my face. His eyes are hard and dark with ire.
“I just came with Polo to get some air.”
“You came here to get some air.”
“Yes.”
He jerks me closer. “Are you stupid?”
Hurt blooms inside my chest at his words. “No.”
He flashes me his teeth. “You’re living on ten acres of land. That wasn’t enough fresh air for you?”
“We barely left the property. We—”
He shakes me, making my hair spill into my face. “Anyone could have seen you driving here!”
“No one saw us,” I protest, jerking my arm out of his grip. “We drove straight here from the castello.”
He grabs me again, wrapping both of his hands around my biceps and practically dragging me into him. “You cannot know that. Did any cars pass you?”
Did they? “I-I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Of course you weren’t,” he growls.
Anger drips into my blood. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
He snarls, turns me around, and pushes me out of the greenhouse. “There’s a camera at the stoplight five minutes from here, which means it likely got a picture of you. Do you understand what that means?”
“Not really,” I confess as we near what I presume to be his car.
“It means that unless I manage to erase any trace of it quickly, someone might use it to track you down to this precise location.”
He jerks open the passenger door and stuffs me inside.
“Sal has an army looking for you,” he continues as soon as he gets into the driver’s seat, “and this is exactly the kind of idiotic slipup that might give him what he needs.”
My stomach drops. Shit. As we back out of the lot, I notice Polo’s truck. “Polo is still there.”
The temperature in the car plummets. Giorgio’s eyes are on the road, but I can’t miss the grind of his jaw. “Polo should have known better,” he says in an icy tone. “Now, he’ll have to deal with the consequences.”
“I was the one who asked him to take me,” I say weakly.
“I’m doing everything I can to make sure no one knows you’re with me, while you do the exact opposite. Do you know what Sal will do to you if he finds you?”
I swallow. “No.”
“He’ll use you to get Damiano to surrender. Sal knows how much your brother loves you, and he’ll exploit that weakness to its maximum extent. Do you know the kind of man our don is? He doesn’t have morals. There’s nothing that’s beyond the pale to him. He’s a murder and a rapist, and he’s ruined countless lives. If he gets his hands on you…” He slams his jaw closed and strangles the wheel with his hands.
He’s worried about me.
Silence descends. When we take a turn into the property, I whisper, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“That much is obvious.”
“I’m trying to apologize.”
“I don’t need your apologies. I need your obedience, and for you to take your safety as seriously as I do.”
A huff escapes my mouth. “Giorgio, I got it, all right? I won’t leave the property from now on.”
“That’s not the only thing.”
Tires squealing, we pull into the yard of the castello and come to a stop. Giorgio turns off the ignition but doesn’t unlock the doors.
I have a feeling I know where this is going.
A beat passes. “I said it was a mistake,” he says, his voice dropping low. “You need to let it go.”
My eyes meet his. “Why should I, when I think you’re lying? Do you think I haven’t noticed how you touch me during class? How your hands linger, and how you stare at my lips? I might be young, but I’m not stupid, Giorgio. Your cold act… That’s all it is, isn’t it? An act.”
Something wild and barely contained dances in his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re embarrassing yourself, Martina. Do you really think I’d be attracted to you?”
The air in the car turns heavy, pressing against my lungs. Just a few days ago, those words would crush me, but I see past them now.
I reach into the depths of myself and pull from that newfound confidence.
Undoing my seat belt, I lean over the center console and bring my lips close to his ear. The scent of his spicy cologne washes over me, and his entire body tenses. “You don’t fool me, Giorgio,” I whisper, glancing down to see his hands curl into white-knuckled fists. “You can insult me all you want. It won’t change the fact that you want me.”
His breath hitches.
Slowly, slowly, he turns his head until his lips are a hair away from my cheek. His hot breath caresses my skin, fanning the fire licking inside of me. Anticipation wraps around my body, eager and impatient, every cell begging for him to claim my lips.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, his hand shoots up and wraps around my neck. He pulls me away from him, his palm a tight collar around my flesh.
Our eyes meet for a brief moment before he shoves me back into my seat. The darkness and desire I catch in his gaze sends shivers over my skin.
“Get the fuck out of this car, Martina.”
Some dormant survival instinct comes to life, and I decide maybe I’ve pushed him enough for today. Heart pounding, I reach for the door, but just before I open it, I cast one last glance at Giorgio.
Body tense, hands in fists, jaw as hard as granite.
And a bulge in his gray, Italian-wool slacks.
