Displeasure flattened his mouth. Then he was wrapping his long fingers around my elbow.
Heat sizzled up my skin, the calluses on his fingers, which I knew were derived from his punishing sessions at the gym, snagging decadently on my skin.
‘What are you doing?’ I demanded, hating the slight wobble that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with my hyperawareness of Cesare Salvatore.
‘You were about to have dinner when Fist came to you.’
‘Yeah, so?’ My gaze strayed to the untouched tray set on the cart.
‘I ordered you another meal,’ he said.
I forced a huff, ignoring the curious softening in my belly at the gesture. ‘Do you seriously think I’m going to accept food from you? Or anything else for that matter?’
A furious muscle rippled through his jaw. ‘You need to fucking eat or you’ll pass out and yet you refuse my offer?’ A hardglint lit his eyes. Then he was marching me across the room. ‘Let me put it another way. You have very little choice, sweetheart. We’re not done talking. So you either risk passing out and leaving yourself at my mercy to do whatever the fuck I want to you, or you eat the food I ordered for you so we can get to the bottom of what I want to know.’
He released me once we were at the dining table, but not before I felt his fingers drag down my arm, almost… linger.
I shook my head, sure I was hallucinating the very brief, puzzling caress. Because when I looked at him, his arms were crossed, his face a mask of immovable granite.
‘How do I know this isn’t poisoned?’ I challenged, not heeding the warning to bite my tongue.
‘You’re not important enough for me to go to the trouble,’ he snapped.
Shit, that stung. But I’d stood up to powerful bullies, even when it was ill-advised. Even when it reduced my poor mother to tears and much intercession on my behalf in church.
‘Then what am I doing here? Because the way I see it, I’m the only one you think you can push around and keep what you think is happening a secret. Because what? You think you have some sort of leverage over me?’
In one lithe stride he’d closed the distance between us.
He was tall. So imposing and towering I had to tilt my head up to meet his eyes. Then I was compounding my dire situation by breathing him in.
His scent had changed subtly from when he was a teenager. The base notes of woodsmoke still lingered, but on top of that, instead of sea breezes, he smelled like furious thunderstorms. The kind that lured you outside, impossible to resist, even though the possibility that you could be struck down by sizzling lightning was real.
‘Not think, sweetheart. Iknow. I have eyes and ears everywhere. And I know for a fact you haven’t said anything to anyone either, including your own family. So fuck yes, I have leverage. Which means you’ll give me access to you whenever I want to discuss this.’ He yanked out a seat without taking his steaming gaze off my face. ‘Now sit down and eat. Because I sure as fuck won’t catch you the next time you swoon like a goddamn Victorian virgin.’
I cycled through the dozen self-defence moves Sofiya had taught me, then discarded them all one by one.
Cesare Salvatore was twice my size, which in itself wasn’t the problem because the bigger they were the harder they fell, right?
Except I’d seen him in action more times than I cared to remember. And every one of those times, my stupid brain had inputted the ruthless violence he’d meted out to some poor idiot as well as noting the hypnotic symmetry of movement. The way he could anticipate and block lines of attack as if he was some kind of sorcerer.
With my weakened state, he would probably laugh his head off if I tried to attack him. Not to mention, Fist was lurking outside.
Either way, I wouldn’t get very far.
So I sat. Plucked the silver cloche off the nearest plate. And barely managed to bite back a groan.
The steak was cooked to perfection. Medium rare with enough hints of pink to remind me I was a failed vegan. The fries were fat and golden. I was startled by the tiny silver container of sea salt sitting next to the plate, though.
Cesare Salvatore knew how I liked my fries?
Unbidden, my gaze slid to his.
He was watching me with the same predatory stillness that sent a few more waves of trepidation through me, mixed withthe kind of absurd anticipation one felt at the beginning of a rollercoaster.
Then my belly grumbled loudly at being kept waiting. Face heating and to cover the sound, I picked up the pristine cutlery, sprinkled a pinch of salt over the fries, and dug into the steak.
At my first bite, he pulled out the adjacent seat and sat down. He picked up a bottle of red wine, and when I shook my head, he swapped it for mineral water, which he poured without asking.
