The Ciresa mansionoften feels more like home to me than my own apartment.
I've been here a thousand times, maybe more. I know which floorboards creak, which doors stick in their frames. I know how the house feels when something goes wrong, that tension that settles into the air and precedes violence.
Tonight's tension is different—softer around the edges, but somehow more dangerous.
I’ve been hanging around for a few hours, waiting on Romeo. Right now, I’m leaning against the dining room doorway, bored and watching the staff set the table with a precision that comes from the fear of disappointing Dante Ciresa. Crystal glasses catch the light from the chandelier. Silver gleams against white linen. Everything is perfect and polished to a high shine, exactly as it should be.
Just like the daughter they're putting on display tonight.
I shouldn't be thinking about her. I've spent the last year since she came home from boarding schoolnotthinking abouther, and I've gotten pretty fucking good at it. Or at least, I've gotten good at pretending.
The problem is that Giulia Ciresa isn't the girl I remember anymore.
She's not the awkward teenager who used to trail after Romeo and me during summers, asking too many questions and getting in the way. She's not the kid with scraped knees and messy hair and a book always in her hands.
I remember the last summer before she left for boarding school. She was sixteen, all gangly limbs and too-big eyes, following us around like a puppy. I'd ruffle her hair, and she'd swat my hand away laughing. She'd ask me about my work with Romeo, and I'd deflect with jokes because she was too young to know the truth about what we did. Too innocent.
She'd looked at me like I hung the fucking moon, and I'd been careful—so careful—to keep that distance. To be the older brother figure, nothing more.
Now she's nineteen. A woman. And she's so goddamn beautiful it makes my chest tight just being in the same house as her.
And I’m going to have to spend all night at this dinner party with her. I need a moment to get my shit together before I have to look at her.
I make some rounds outside, trying not to think about her. When I come back inside, just before the party is supposed to start, I hear her and Romeo talking in the living room.
Fuck. I’m supposed to find Romeo before all of this, but she’s with him. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to see her yet. In fact, a part of me doesn’t want to see her tonight at all, looking gorgeous and grown-up and being courted by other men.
I step into the living room, and for a moment I forget how to breathe.
She’s wearing an emerald green dress that slithers over her curves like water, the cut and neckline probably meant to be stylish yet modest, and yet just the sight of her makes my cock twitch and swell, my suit trousers becoming uncomfortably tight. I clench my teeth, willing my half-erection away before anyone can notice or before it can become worse, but it’s so goddamn hard.
I’ve somehow managed to never once let myself think about Giulia Ciresa while jerking off. I’ve forced myself to never picture her, never think about her when my cock is in my hand, and for fucking certain to never let myself think of her when I come. But in this moment, I feel like I’ve been struck by fucking lightning looking at her, and I know I’m going to fail at that tonight.
I’m going to think of stripping that dress off of her, and…
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.My teeth grind together. I’m hard as hell, and I hang back in the dimmer light of the room, desperate to get in and out before anyone realizes.
This is Romeo's sister. Romeo'slittle sister. The same Romeo who once broke a man's fingers for looking at her the wrong way. The same Romeo who has a possessive streak a mile wide and a complete absence of mercy when someone crosses a line, and no emotions whatsoever except for the two women in his life… his sister and his wife. I know he respects me and considers me a friend, but I also know he’s a fucking sociopath.
And Giulia isn't just across a line. She's so far beyond it she might as well be on another fucking planet.
I know what her duty is. I'm part of this world too—I've been part of it my whole life. I know how things work. I know that daughters are currency and marriages are transactions, and that love is a luxury people like her can't afford. Romeo was lucky, because he was the heir. She won’t be afforded that privilege.
I know where the lines are drawn.
But then she turns and looks at me, and I fuckingacheeverywhere.
“The first car just pulled up,” I tell Romeo. Then I look at her, and keep my tone as professional and cold as I can. “Giulia.”
“Luca.” There’s a faint tremor to her voice, and I hate it. I hate that this is happening to her. God knows she’d never choose me, but I wish she could choosesomeone. That she wasn’t being auctioned off to the highest bidder just to make her father look better.
“I should go greet our guests,” she says quickly, her heels clicking against the wood as she hurries past me. I catch a whiff of her floral perfume as she passes, and that white-hot lust snakes down my spine again, my cock so hard it hurts.
I let out a slow breath, trying to get myself under control. I need to get my head on straight. I need to remember who I am and who she is and why this can't ever be anything more than a passing attraction that I'll get over eventually.
I've killed men without feeling a fraction of what I feel when I look at her, and that fucking terrifies me.
It’s the only thing that ever has.
