“The chubby girl from yesterday?” he asks, the disgust in his voice evident.
“Watch your fucking mouth,” I growl at his tone. Anger rises in me like a fucking geyser about to burst. “Cheyenne is mine, claimed and all. You put some fucking respect in your voice when you are speaking about her.”
“Sure, boss. I gotta go.” He hangs up without another word.
How fucking dare he? That’s fucking it with him. We’re having a meeting first thing after the wedding. I shove my phone into my pocket. God-fucking-damn it. What the hell is wrong with him?
I walk back onto the main street just as Cheyenne is stepping out with our cones. She looks around, but it’s clear she can’t see me as a throng of tourists pushes between us and the tour guide shouts about the history of gelato. I’m already shoving through them when I hear it.
The sound of a knife cutting through a bag, of Cheyenne’s gasp, of a tussle.
A lanky man with blond hair has one hand on the cut straps of my mate’s backpack and the other raised to fight her for it.
I explode.
I don’t wolf out, I’m a grown fucking man, but I don’t hide who I am either. My fist collides with his face, and he stumbles to the ground. One kick to the gut stops him from trying to get up, and a second to his face has him gushing blood from his nose and mouth. I wrap my fist around his T-shirt, squishing ice cream through my fingers.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I snarl, shaking the guy. It doesn’t matter that I used to do the same shit. I’m too amped up, the need to care for and protect my mate overriding any sense of decency I have. “Do you know who I am?”
“Get the fuck off me!” he shouts in Italian, scrambling to kick at my shins.
“Do you know what it means to cross the Benetti family?” I counter back in our mother tongue, seething with rage. “That’s my fucking wife you raised a hand to. I should gut you right fucking here.”
He blanches, just like I knew he would. Around us a crowd is forming, all the eyes and cameras are bad for business, I know. I know. But I want to make this mansuffer enough to remind the local gangs who owns these streets. Before I kill him for even looking at my mate.
“Valentino,” Cheyenne’s quiet and urgent calling pulls me back though. “Valentino, the crowd.”
Motherfuckers. Fucking hate all these goddamned smartphones. I shake the guy once more and toss him into the street. From behind us, David, owner of the gelateria, steps out and quickly ushers us back inside the now empty store. He’s a quiet man, but a good one. He hands me a damp towel to clean my hands, while Cheyenne’s shaking fingers tug at a loose piece of her hair.
“Did you throw your gelato at that guy?” I ask, trying to distract her. Shit, she looks like she’s about to freak out.
“Yours too,” she whispers. “Gut instinct.”
“Have a seat in the back and I’ll bring you something fresh,” David says, walking behind the counter.
I guide Cheyenne, snagging two bottles of water from the fridge on the way. She sits, crossing one leg over the other. A blush rises on her cheeks while heat blossoms in my loins. It’s impossible to resist. I take a deep breath disguised as a heavy sigh.
There it is. She’s turned on. Did seeing me get in a little fight make her pussy wet? What about it triggered this response from her? I was ready to beg forher understanding before we got back here, but now I’m wondering if we need to skip gelato altogether.
“You okay?” I ask, struggling to keep what I know a secret. She hums a little, so I press her more. An unabashed smirk forms on my lips. “You look a little flushed.”
She looks towards the counter where David has his back to us, watching the door. “That was… hot. I’ve never seen someone get punched in real life, and you looked so aggressive and you did that forme.”
The way she says the last part stirs something in me. A sort of sadness that makes me wonder what people haven’t done for Cheyenne before. My physical reaction to this news affects her almost instantly, the slight droop in her posture obvious to me. We will definitely be having our gelato.
“That is the least I could do for you, sweetheart,” I promise, taking hold of her hand. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Chapter ten
Cheyenne
The rest of our day is a blur of tourism, aching feet, and an amount of introspection I wasn’t planning on when I accepted my invitation to this wedding.
The gelato guy gives me a plastic bag to put my souvenirs in while Valentino takes me on a trek to find his favourite leather goods guy. He seems to know everyone as we’re walking around. Shop owners wave or nod when they make eye contact with him. The manager of the handbag store nearly refused to let him pay for a new backpack for me. I didn’t even try to pay after I saw the price tag. Valentino’s his own man with his own fancy money. If he wants to spend it on me, I’m happy to let him.
“How do you know who everyone is?” I ask as we’re leaving the store.
Valentino leads me down another winding alleyway, his finger wrapped tightly around mine. “I used to spend summers here when I was a kid. My parents wanted to make sure I was properly Italian.”
