Dinner was lovely, the theater was magical, and Desmond had been charming and attentive. But I can’t shake how his hand on my leg made me feel, as if I were being backed into a corner rather than flirted with and seduced.
Maybe I'm being paranoid. Maybe the combination of alcohol and the intimate setting had just made him more forward than he intended to be. Maybe I'm so unused to male attention that I'm misreading normal romantic interest as something more sinister.
I head upstairs, slipping out of the silk dress and tossing it over the back of a chair as I fall into bed in nothing but the thong I wore under it. My hand grazes my breast, and my thoughts flit back to Elio. To the look in his eyes when he saw me. The way I felt when I saw him.
All of that was supposed to be buried long ago. Destroyed. And I feel a pulse of resentment that he’s come back now, disrupted my life when I might finally have found someone I want to pursue.
I throw back the blankets and slide underneath them, rolling onto my side as I try to banish all thoughts of Elio. I’m going to see Desmond again. I’m going to find out where this leads. And next time, I’m not going to let myself overthink it.
I’m not going to ruin what might be a good thing over a man who proved to me years ago that he never really was.
4
ELIO
The O'Malley mansion feels both exactly the same and completely different from it did when I was seventeen. The dark wood paneling in Ronan's office, the large windows that give a grand view of the estate beyond, the massive mahogany desk that his father used to sit behind—it's all exactly as I remember. But now I'm sitting across from that desk as an equal, discussing territory divisions and profit margins instead of sneaking around corners trying to avoid getting caught.
"The docks are going to be your biggest headache," Ronan is saying, sliding a folder across the desk toward me. "Rocco let discipline slide there for the last two years. Half the crew thinks they can show up whenever they feel like it, take whatever cut they think they deserve."
I flip through the documents, noting the discrepancies in the numbers.Annie wrote these, I think, and then push the thought away to focus on what’s in front of me. It's worse than I thought. "How did he let it get this bad?"
Ronan’s jaw tightened. “He was focused on aspects of the business that his father didn’t let him develop. Human trafficking, mostly. He lets the other parts of it slide. Stoppedpaying attention to those details because he was making money hand over fist selling young women to foreign buyers.”
My lips press together tightly. “That’s horrible,” I manage, feeling my chest tighten at the thought. I can’t imagine ever doing something so evil. But I’ve heard through the grapevine that that’s what happened to Ronan’s wife, Leila. He saved her, and then he almost lost not just one but two wives to Rocco De Luca. I can’t imagine how painful Rocco’s end must have been. Ronan is a calm, levelheaded man most of the time, but in that situation—after Rocco had killed his first wife and threatened his second—I doubt he was merciful.
"I'll handle it," I tell him, closing the folder. "Give me two weeks, and those docks will run like clockwork."
"I don't doubt it." Ronan leans back in his chair, studying me with his sharp gaze. "You've changed, Elio. Grown into this."
I shrug modestly. "I had good teachers."
"Not just that." He's quiet for a moment, and I can see him choosing his words carefully. "You always had potential. Even as a kid, you were destined to be more than just a consigliere’s son. You thought the way I did. Carefully, practically. But now you've got the authority to back it up."
It's as close to a compliment as I would expect from Ronan, and I appreciate it. We've been dancing around each other all week, both of us trying to figure out where we stand now that the power dynamic has shifted. We're not the same people we were eleven years ago—he twenty-five and working hard to gain his father’s approval, me nearly eighteen and wondering what my future would be. We were both so much younger then, with a less jaded view of the world.
Ronan has been through hell since then, and I saw plenty in Chicago that took any rose-colored lenses I might have had about this life right off of my eyes.
"Speaking of authority," I say, "what's the situation with the Ferro family? I heard there might be some friction over the Brooklyn routes."
"Nothing you can't handle," Ronan says, but there's something in his tone that suggests it's more complicated than that. "Joseph Ferro has been testing boundaries since he heard about the transition. He thinks you're going to be an easier mark than Rocco was."
I drum my fingers against my side of the desk. "He's about to learn otherwise."
"That's what I figured." Ronan's smile is sharp and approving. "Just remember?—"
He's cut off by a knock on the door. "Come in," he calls, and I feel my entire body tense when Annie steps into the room.
She's wearing a navy blue wrap dress that falls over the slender lines of her body in a way that makes my palms itch and my cock instantly swell. It falls just above her knees, showing off the slender lines of her calves and the graceful arch of her feet in nude heels with a flash of red on the bottom. Her red hair is pulled back today in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, a few curls loose around her face, as if she was poring over something at a desk. I can picture it instantly—I saw her that way a hundred times when we were children, studying in the library.
The hairstyle shows off the elegant line of her neck, and the dress frames her sharp collarbones, the silk clinging to her small breasts. I’m half-hard by the time she reaches the desk, and when I catch a waft of her perfume—an herbal, windy scent—I’m stiff before I can think of anything to stave off my erection.
I shift in the chair, alarm thrumming through me at the thought that she—or god help me, Ronan—might see the bulge against my fly. The fear only seems to add to the throbbing in my cock, though, and though there’s nothing about Annie’s outfitthat isn’t purely professional, I couldn’t be any harder if she’d walked into the office in lingerie and a garter belt.
Fuck. Holy mother of God, fuck.That image sears into my mind, turning my hard-on from something inconvenient to a raging, throbbing erection that demands to be dealt with. I couldn’t stand up right now if the office was on fire. I’d burn to death remembering the way that soft, curly red hair looked spread out over my hands, the feeling of her plush lips under mine.
"Sorry to interrupt," she says quickly. She’s speaking to Ronan, but her eyes catch mine for just a moment too long, and I feel a thick stream of pre-cum pulse from my cock and soak the front of my boxer briefs.Fuck, I could come just from her looking at me right now. What the hell is wrong with me?
It was like this with her, back then. A hair-trigger of pleasure, a kiss enough to push me to the edge and once, even over it. But I always chalked it up to me being a teenager. It was intense, yes—I never downplayed that for a moment. But I’ve never felt anything like it since, and I assumed that part of it was the intensity of youth. My inexperience with pleasure.
