"We might have to arrange a meeting," I say carefully.
"You'll let me go?"
"No, I'll let your father see you. Briefly. Under controlled circumstances."
Hope flashes across her face, quickly followed by disappointment.
"But then I come back here."
"Yeah."
"With you."
"Right."
She nods slowly, processing this. "How long do I have to stay here?"
"As long as it takes to find out who really hit your family."
"And if you never find out?"
It's a possibility I don't want to consider. Without the real enemy, without proof that neither family was behind the attack, this standoff could last indefinitely. Roberto will never trust me, I'll never trust him, and Viviana will be stuck in the middle.
"We'll find out," I say with more confidence than I feel.
"But in the meantime, I'm your prisoner."
"You're a job, Viviana. Nothing more, nothing less."
The words come out harsher than I intended, and I see her flinch. Maybe that'll kill whatever fantasy she's building in her head about this situation.
"Right," she says quietly. "And when the job's over?"
"You go back to your life and I go back to mine."
"And we pretend this never happened."
"There's nothing to pretend about. This is just business."
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can see her processing the reality of what I'm telling her. Finally, she nods.
"Got it."
But as she stands up and walks toward the stairs, probably heading back to her room, I catch something in her expression that looks like hurt.
Which pisses me off, because she has no right to be hurt. She's Roberto Bonacci's daughter. The enemy. A complication I don't need and a temptation I can't fucking afford.
The fact that I want to fuck her senseless is irrelevant. The fact that she seems to want me back is dangerous as hell.
And the fact that I keep thinking about what it would be like to touch her, to taste her, to hear her say my name while I'm buried deep inside her is the most dangerous thing of all.
But wanting her and caring about her are two different things. I can handle wanting her.
It doesn't mean shit.
It can't mean shit.
Because at the end of the day, she's still the enemy's daughter, and I'm still the man who's going to hand her back to her father when this is all over.
