In the mirror, I saw him tilt his head as though he was seriously considering my question, like it hadn’t occurred to him before now to do so. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “But I won’t let it happen again.”
I laughed. “There’s nothing you can do about it. Gino owns me.”
“No,” he said. “He doesn’t. Not anymore.”
I didn’t have time to stand there and argue with him. Turning to the mirror, I used my fingertips to try to repair the damage to my makeup my emotional breakdown—and his mouth—had caused.
“You look beautiful.”
I stilled. He’d said it so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “What?”
The door opened and closed, and he was gone.
When I came out a few minutes later, so was Gino.
CHAPTER 14
Tristan
Iwatched as Luna was escorted out of the restaurant by one of Gino’s men. Unfortunately—or rather, fortunately for Gino—he’d been called away by an urgent matter. The matter being that Luca didn’t want me to rip out his intestines in front of everyone, so he’d strongly urged him to go home by telling him he’d just gotten word of a threat being made on Gino’s life.
Not entirely untrue. The warning had come from Enzo, who’d caught me coming out of the ladies’ room and demanded to know what I was up to that was so goddamn important I’d left him alone to watch over Luca. Apparently, “gutting Gino with my bare hands” wasn’t the correct answer.
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
Tearing my eyes from the doorway Luna had just walked through, I nodded to Enzo and went with him as we followed Luca around the restaurant so he could make his excuses for leaving early. I couldn’t stand the thought of her going back to that house, and it had taken everything in me not to follow her.
I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue. I could still taste the delicious earthy sweetness of her pussy. When I inhaled, I could smell her perfume on my clothes. A moan caught in my throat. Or maybe not, because Enzo gave me a sideways glance. But I didn’t really give a fuck if he heard me. All I knew was I wanted more of that taste, but first I needed to get her away from Gino.
Luca wouldn’t look at me when we got into the SUV. When he did, his mouth was drawn into a tight line. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I was off my game tonight, and I left you unprotected.” My own frustration with the situation was apparent in my tone, even to me. A get-together like dinner tonight was normally pretty low risk, but Luca was the boss now, and you never knew who might have it out for him. Even within the family.
“You have a job to do,” he ground out. “If you can’t do that job, let me know, and I’ll find someone who fucking can.”
He was angry. I could tell by his tone and the tense angles of his posture. “I have no excuse for my behavior,” I told him. “But I swear I won’t put you in a situation like that again.” Seeing Luna’s swollen and cut face tonight as she headed to the restroom had caught me by surprise, but that wasn’t what made me react without thinking. It was the expression on her face. The panic in her eyes. She’d been on the verge of a complete meltdown. Something that I understood well. And I’d wanted to help her.
“No,” Luca said from the backseat. “You won’t. Because starting tonight, you’re off duty until you figure out whatever the hell is going on with you and that woman.”
I twisted around in my seat to look at him. “That’s not necessary, Luca.”
His blue eyes, as cold and hard as glacial ice, met mine. “Yes, Tristan. It is.”
Along with Enzo, I’d been by Luca’s side since I was barely a man. But unlike Enzo, I’d been groomed from a young age to protect him with my life without fear. And I would. I fuckinghave. I never thought about any danger to myself. My life wasn’t important.
But Luca…he ran this family. He was important, and he needed to stay alive. “I disagree. I can’t let you endanger yourself by sending me away. And Enzo can’t be there every hour of every day. He has a new wife.” A person who might make him think twice before throwing himself in front of a bullet.
“Tristan, you’re too distracted, and proved that to me tonight. Even when that woman isn’t around, you’re thinking about her. Asking questions. She’s a mystery you’re trying to figure out, and I’m giving you the time to do that. That’s all.” He sighed, and some of the stiffness left his shoulders. “Look, I get it. I do. When I met Veda…well, you saw how crazy it made me. And I’ve known you a long time. I know how your mind works. Once you’ve satisfied your curiosity about her, you can come back to work.”
“She’s not a curiosity.”
“Then what is she?”
“She’s…” I paused. I didn’t know what she was. But if he was trying to get her out of my head, this wasn’t the way to do it. “You do realize that if you take me off duty, I’ll have nothing else to do but stalk Luna?” Because I knew that was exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t normal. Wasn’t an acceptable social behavior. But I’d never given a fuck about that before. I wasn’t going to start now.
Enzo broke into our conversation. “He has a point, Luca. You know how Tristan fixates on things that catch his interest. Probably because there’s so few things that do.“ He smirked at me, and I ignored him.
Luca glanced at Enzo, then shifted his attention back to me. “Alright. You’re not completely off duty, but you’ll stick to the house and doing pickups. If I need to go anywhere, I’ll take Enzo and a couple of the other guards. I’m sorry, T, but things aren’t very stable within the family right now, and I can’t have you in the middle of it while she’s around, pulling your attention away. And it looks like she’s going to be around for a while.”
“Capisco,” I told him. I did understand. I didn’t like it, but he was right. Like he’d said, I’d proven tonight that my “curiosity” with Luna would only put him in unnecessary danger. And that couldn’t happen.
