I swallowed hard. A heat prickled across my skin at the sight of the blatant ridge pushing against the thin cotton.
My eyes snapped back to his.
The same light brown, glowing almost honey under the last fire of the sunset.
The weight of him, the sheerpresenceof him, pressed across the room, suffocating and magnetic all at once.
And I hated that I could feel my pulse picking up.
I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t do something humiliating – like stare more than I already had. He was standing there half-naked on purpose, I was sure of it.
I lifted my chin, sharpening my voice. “You gonna stand there all night? I didn’t come over to watch you parade around like some calendar model. I came for your signature.”
Matteo’s mouth curved, slow and deliberate. “Calendar model? Is that what you’re into?” His voice rumbled deep. He brought his free hand to the back of his head, which onlymade his bicep flex and the chain around his neck catch the light. “You look… Flustered,principessa.”
“I don’t get flustered. I getimpatient.” Heat pricked at my cheeks, but I held his gaze with practiced steel. “And you’re wasting my time.” I set the contract onto the nearest surface, thethudpunctuating my irritation. “Sign the contract, Di’Ablo. I want this expansion finalized before the week is over.”
He tilted his head, advancing toward me, the towel hanging dangerously low with each step.
“Expansion…” His tongue traced the word, savoring it. “Such a dry word for something so…Exciting.”
I swallowed – hard – but covered it with a scoff. “I bet you find everything exciting when it comes to stringing people along.”
He stopped just short of me, close enough that I caught the clean, warm scent of soap tangled with cigar smoke. His eyes glittered with amusement. “Keep speaking to me like that, Francesca, and I might think you enjoy playing with me.”
“The only game I want to play with you is the one where you shut the fuck up and sign my goddamn contract,scemo. And I get to leave thisridiculoussuite.”
He smirked, leaning down slightly, his voice dipping lower, smoother. “I was just starting to enjoy your company.”
“I don’t doanythingfor the enjoyment of men.”
My underlying message was clear.
“Mm,” He murmured, eyes flicking to the folder I’d left on the table. He didn’t touch it. Instead, he straightened again, towering over me, drawing the moment out as though he had all the time in the world. “Then you’ll just have to convince me, won’t you?”
The corner of his mouth curved with a slow smile, and I hated –hated– the flutter it stirred in my chest.
It wasn’t for any other reason other than the fact that I’d never dealt with a man like him in business before. Every other Capo or fed or Dragon Head, was angry and hating and all business.
Matteo was allsmoothand ‘laid-back’. And unlike the other men I’d turned my eyes into slits at, he didn’t turn to stone.
He didn’t even flinch.
What he did do, was give me those eyes. Like he was appreciating true beauty. It rubbed me the wrong way that it didn’t feel patronizing.
Matteo brushed past me without another word, striding out of the bedroom with that careless authority only men like him could wield. The towel clung to his hips with each step, and I clenched my jaw, scooping up the contract before storming after him.
“Are you serious?” I snapped, heels striking against the sparkling floors as I trailed him back through the suite. We passed the piano, its glossy surface catching a final streak of sunset like a knife’s edge, heading into the other wing of the Suite. “Oh, so what? You’re ignoring me now?”
He didn’t answer. He just kept walking, down another hallway, until he stepped into what could only be his study. Dark wood panels, shelves lined with leather spines, the faint smell of tobacco embedded into the very air.
Matteo sat down behind an imposing desk, in just his low-hanging towel, the picture of unhurried composure, and picked up a pen.
Then he looked up at me.
Expectant.
I plastered on my sweetest smile, walked right up to him…
