Leandro takes a drink of his scotch as Lyndsey slides me a drink from across the bar, and then turns her charms on Angelo—Gino to us—born a year after Leandro.Gino hasn’t taken his eyes off Desiree since I walked into the room.He doesn’t have patience for anyone or anything that disrupts the quiet and continuity of his life, and Desiree has certainly been an unwanted distraction to our family.“Do you want it to work?”Leandro asks, pulling me back into the conversation.
My jaw tightens as Gino turns back to his conversation with a group of our customers.“Hell fucking no.I just haven’t figured out a way to get us off the hook without starting a war.”
“What does Desiree want?”he asks.
I take a long drink of my Delmar.“The same as me, to be done with this charade and be left the fuck alone.Neither of us is ready for marriage, or a commitment or kids for fuck’s sake.We’re stuck until I can think of something, but until I do, she’s going to stop throwing herself at every Tom, Dick, and Harry who walks through that fucking door or she’s going to be explaining this shit to her father herself.I’m trying to protect her but damn she makes it fucking hard.”
The bottom of my glass hits the top of the bar with a stronger thud then I intended as a guy walks up to her on the floor.I stalk across the bar, closing the distance in record time.I’ve seen the guy she tries to wraps her arms around in here before, but he clearly doesn’t recognize me.I tap him on the shoulder, only because his hands aren’t touching her at all.“Beat it and don’t come back.”
His eyebrows lift, recognizing me immediately.He turns and walks away without even a word of goodbye to Desiree who’s already fighting mad, placing her hands on her hips, a sure sign that she’s not about to make this easy tonight.
“What did I tell you?”I ask under my breath, hauling her as nonchalantly as I can to the dance floor, tugging her reluctantly around another couple gyrating on the floor.“If you continue to act like a two-bit slut, you and you alone will explain to your father why the eldest son of the Rosellis decided that dealing with you is not worth taking over your father’s business when he’s gone.Do you want to be the one to start that war, Desiree?”
Her eyes fill with tears, and I regret my harshness, but she brings it on herself time and time again these days.“I don’t love you,” she whispers into my ear.
I hold her close and spin her around.“I know, Desiree, I know.Somehow, I’ll find a way out of this but until then, you need to stop rebelling by acting like a whore.”
She pulls back from me and raises her hand, but then thinks better of it.I’ve never hit a woman in my life, well, at least not in anger, but if she slaps my face, she knows damn well there’s going to be some consequence that she’s not likely to want.“Don’t.”
Her hand settles at her side, but her tongue is as sharp as any blade that I wield.“You’re just like every single one of them.All that matters is appearances, reputation, position in the families and almighty power.Just because I like to enjoy life, dance, sing and maybe have a few drinks, does not make me a whore.You should try it sometime.You’re so shut down.When did you last have an inkling of fun?Huh, when was it, Massimo?”
My jaw tightens.
“See,” she whispers.“Don’t rain on my little bit of happiness just because you have no happiness of your own.The only time I can let my hair down is when I’m out of the eyes of my father, and the only time he lets me away from the guards that suffocate me with their security protocols is when he thinks I’m at the club with you.So, if I ask them to drop me off here to meet you, they do, then I’m free, for a few brief hours, I’m free.But then you fucking show up and stifle it all.”
“Whether I’m here or not, it makes no difference?”
“Don’t be like that.You don’t love me, I don’t love you, but we have respect, an understanding, we will find a way out of this nightmare.We’ve managed to keep a formal engagement delayed for this long.I was hoping that soon some magical thing would happen.”
Her lips purse into a pout.She is beautiful, I’ll give her that but there’s not a streak of chemistry between us, just a common bond, used as assets to barter and trade in our fathers’ demand for more territory and power, no matter how it is achieved.
“Someday some lucky man won’t be able to resist that pout but it’s not fucking me, and we both know it.”
Desiree narrows her eyes.“Fine, you’re forgiven.I will try to have a little more constraint, but if you call me a whore again, I’ll tell my father I caught you cheating with a whore and see how you handle his wrath when he learns his plans for retirement are at stake.”
She is as intelligent as hell, yet she’d rather spread her legs for any random guy in the joint just to spite her father and prove her point.At least she doesn’t want me.That would make this doubly hard.I gesture over to her friends who are hovering just out of earshot.“Go have fun and try to get home at a reasonable hour without getting into trouble or causing our fathers to get on the phone with each other, please.”
Desiree’s eyes roll.“Fine.”
I head off the dance floor and past my brother who is talking business with one of our most lucrative suppliers.Leandro glances down at his watch which tells me he’s bored with the conversation and wants Delray to know exactly that.He looks up and catches my glances, giving me a grin.He’s damned good at negotiating and I’m more than happy to let him do the work but still he should have called me about Desiree.
He should have been the one to text me about Desiree’s little escapade on the floor tonight, but I personally think he enjoys watching it play out.But my younger brother is always in my corner.My right-hand man in life and everything we do.“Fucker,” I mouth.
He grins and turns back to business never too worried about anything except our family, dependable as fuck.Except when he wants to get under my skin.
I weave my way to the front of the bar, and once outside on the curb, slide into the luxurious leather of the sleek black limo’s rear seat and shrug out of my jacket.“Back to the house.”
“Yes, boss,” Georgeo says before I push a button to get some fucking privacy from my father’s driver.
I pull my cell out and connect with Jimmy.The only one I’d trust in charge of the soldiers watching the youngest Cassone daughter.The one I trust to drive with me most nights and the only one I would have let take Sophia home or be in charge of guarding her.The woman I shouldn’t have spanked, the one who has caused me nothing but grief since I met her but yet the one I can’t get out of my mind.“How are things at the house?”
His voice lowers.“Hang on.”
I hold the phone away from my face, unaccustomed to being on hold for anyone much less someone paid to do exactly as I fucking say, best friend in the world or not.Jimmy returns to the phone.“Sorry, boss.That Cassone woman is a wild little hellcat.You want me to give her a sedative or something to calm her the fuck down?”
My pulse quickens, and my blood begins racing faster and faster.Somebody has about two fucking minutes to explain exactly what they mean, but the voice of the guy on the other line who I trust with my life on the regular, stays silent.
She was fine when I left her just five days ago, a little quiet, perhaps embarrassed with a heated ass and creamy little pussy, but other than that, fine, or I wouldn’t have left.I left Jimmy, my best friend and most trusted and loyal of capos, to make sure she was safe.Yet still, after five fucking seconds he doesn’t say a word.
