His smile came slow, making the hidden light in his eyes glint wickedly. “Simple. I want something.”
I took the bait and asked what, but he closed his eyes, holding a finger up. The slow song on the radio had ended, another sensual song taking its place. He stood, placing a hand over his heart, moving back and forth with the cadence.
He stopped, opening his eyes. “Toi.”You.“That is all.”
“That’s everything, isn’t it?”
Grinning, he danced his way over to the bed, moving his body like a man who knew how tousehis body. He stooped to my level, eyeing my mouth. “Three layers. That is all it takes. I havepénétréthe first already. The first is the only level where the pain exists. After that…” His eyes slid further down, to where the mounds of my breasts rose above the covers. “Get dressed. Or no. But let us enjoy the day.”
“Can’t,” I said, tightening the hold on the covers, pulling up a bit. “Things to do.”Like, a fitting for a wedding dress that I’ll possibly never wear.I released a trembling breath.
“Fine.” He sighed dramatically. His breath tickled my lips. “Tomorrow then.”
I pointed toward the door. “Go.”
He stopped when he was at the window, the light burning around him.
“Open the curtains, angel. When the light makes love to your skin, you become otherworldly. You become a creature that beguiles men and sends them to their doom. The sun will chase thebleuaway, and come night, your truecouleurwill blush your cheeks, as if you just drank their blood for supper.”
He opened the door, but I stopped him.
“Your ring.” I picked it up from the covers, offering it.
He smiled, winked, and then whistled his way out of the apartment, leaving me with a solid promise.
This is only just the beginning.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Brando - What is life without a heart? Death
I had been staring at myself in the mirror long enough that the summer heat made me sweat again, the saltiness mingling with the left-over drops from the shower. I ran my hands through my hair, slicking it back, exposing every inch of my face.
There’s no hiding from who you really are, you bastard.Wouldn’t even if I could.
It’s a curse to resemble the person you despise the most. It’s a constant reminder of the truth.
Yeah, that’s all he could give me—honesty, without it costing either of us much.
A friend will sometimes tell you what you want to hear. The truth is usually too hard to deliver. But certain enemies will look you straight in the eye and give it to you straight and mean every damn word.La verità fa male.The truth hurts.Therefore, the truth comes easily from a foe’s mouth.
The tendons in my forearms flexed with the pressure of my hands against the counter. I despised his truth. That didn’t stop me from believing it though.
I was good enough; of course, I was his son. But could be better. Always better than who I was. I was nothing without thefamiglia.
How fucking close I had come to giving in, to becoming one of them, all because she had asked it of me.
“What about—”she knew what it meant to even ask it of me and yet she did. Though she didn’t know the full extent of the situation, she knew how much it would kill me to even touch that string cash—help that comes with chains attached.“The money from Luca.”
It took me two seconds to give in.At her complete mercy,came to mind.Powerless. I’m weak in the heart and in the knees.
Never could the word “spontaneous” be used to describe my methods or me. If my feet went in one direction, it was because each step had been planned. I wasn’t a man who threw caution to the wind and said,to hell with it, and then let life lead me. No, I led my own life. Then this tiny ballerina appeared in the window, the most graceful thing from heaven on this earth, and changed me to my core—my core adjusted to fit with hers to form a perfect circle eight. Never ending.
She had proved to me all those years ago that life could never be planned fully when it came to her.This man proposes and Scarlett disposes. I had planned on asking her to marry me on the date that we had fallen in love. I had intended to do something memorable—roses, candles, dinner, music—who fucking knows now. Instead, I fell to my knees in Who Knows Where Paris, a spur of the moment decision,spontaneous, and our wedding was planned for the date that I was supposed to propose.
Yeah, it was a visceral thing to end this pathetic dating game and make her mine. My name hers and my rings on both of her hands. All me—officially.
It wasn’t until I went to see him that the truth slammed into me. All those planned footsteps ran me straight into a fucking metal pole while my eyes were on her. He dosed me with a shot of reality that made my head reverberate. When I fell to my knees and a date was set in stone, it was more than a lifelong commitment being agreed to—my last name came with high-stake uncertainties.
