“Alright.”
The word should sound ridiculous. But it doesn’t, not in that low husky voice. Not with his hand warm at my waist and his otherlifting a bite of the dessert toward my mouth as if this is exactly the kind of game he was born knowing how to play.
I take the bite. And I don’t look away from him.
The dessert is chocolate mousse, dark and not too sweet. I barely taste it. His thumb moves once against the side of my waist, a small pressure through the fabric of the dress. Nothing inappropriate. Nothing anyone could object to if they were watching from across the room.
His gaze stays on my mouth until I swallow. Then he leans closer, the fork still in his hand, the gravely tone of his voice meant only for me. “Do not do that in public.”
I lift my brows. “Do what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“Like what?” I ask playing innocence.
“Like you’re trying to decide whether to kiss me or kill me.”
“I’m not deciding.”
“No?”
“I know which one I’d choose.”
His mouth curves, and he leans closer, close enough that for a moment I think he might actually kiss me. “Liar.”
His hand tightens slightly at my waist, and for a second, the room shrinks around the place where our bodies touch. This is supposed to be a power play. Mine. A way to throw his own role back in his face and prove I can be just as unpleasantly convincing as he needs me to be.
Instead, I am aware of him in layers. The warmth of his thigh beneath mine. The controlled strength of the hand at my waist. The faint scent of smoke and soap at his collar. The bruise on his cheekbone that I put there. The way his gaze has stopped being amused and become something far less safe.
In a silent standoff, I take another bite from his fork when he offers it, because retreating now would be worse. He watches me swallow.
“You’re enjoying this,” he says.
“I enjoy winning.”
“You haven’t won.”
“I made you pause.”
“That was not winning.”
“What was it?”
His thumb shifts against my waist again. “Recalculation.”
I lean in before I can think better of it, bringing my mouth near his ear the way he has done to me twice now. “Then recalculate this. If you want me to play your acquisition, I’ll play her. But I’m not a doll, Stefano. I’m not pliant. I’m not breakable. And if you put me in a room with Leon O’Reilly, I will use every second of it to make sure he pays for what he did to my sister.”
His hand slides from my waist to the small of my back, holding me there when I start to pull away.
“I know,” he says.
The words are quiet. Not amused. I search his face, but he gives me nothing else.
I stand before my body can make the decision complicated. My legs are steady, thankfully. My face is too. I have learned many things in bad rooms with worse men, and one of them is how to leave before anyone realizes how much the room is costing me emotionally.
At the door, I look back.
Stefano still sits at the head of the table, one hand resting on the arm of his chair, his plate half-finished, his attention entirely on me.
