“Get in,” I said.
She scoffed but took my hand, letting me steady her as she climbed inside, still mid-rant. “And you don’t get to manhandle me because you’re angry!”
I shut the door a little harder than necessary and rounded the hood. By the time I slid into the driver’s seat, she was still going.
“You don’t trust me. That’s what this is.”
“I do. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stand by while you disappear in a room full of men who’d love a reason to make a fucking point.”
She leaned across the console suddenly, fire in her eyes. “You don’t own me, Matteo.”
I grabbed her face, thumb brushing her jaw, and kissed her – hard, angry, reckless. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was teeth and breath and months of tension colliding in a second that shouldn’t have existed.
She kissed me back, moaning into my mouth – the way she always did before palming my cock over my pants.
But tonight, she shoved me away and slapped me across the face.
The sound cracked through the car.
I barely felt it.
I rubbed my jaw slowly, a smirk tugging at my mouth despite everything. “You done?”
She stared at me, breathing hard, furious. “Don’t youeverdo that again. I’m being angry with you right now!”
I pulled out onto the road, gripping the wheel tight. “Then don’t ever scare me like that again.”
We drove off into the night still arguing, the city lights streaking past the windshield.
And yet, beneath the anger, beneath the shouting, there it was.
That dangerous, undeniable thing between us.
Still burning.
Chapter 30
Present
Upper-East Side, New York City
I FOLLOWED MATTEO INTO HIS office, just as angry, if not more, the longer this fight went on.
We’d argued the entire way home in the car, and in the elevator ride.
I didn’t let down, not even when Matteo was clearly done with the conversation. He threw his jacket over the back of a chair and started undoing his tie like he was actually suffocating.
“You’re being a brat.”
“Ugh! How can you even act like that after everything you’ve already put me through? Like it wasn’t enough you had to swoop in and fuck up my life with a fake marriage!
“You’re in this because of your family. So, stop blaming me for everything.”
“Oh, I will keep blaming you! What are you going to do once I’m Underboss in a few months? Lock me away in your penthouse?!”
He smirked. “There’s an idea.”
A scream of frustration escaped me. “Just because we’re married on paper, and fucking on the low, doesn’t give you the right to act like the possessive Mob husband.”
