1
LYDIA
"Enjoying the champagne?"
At the sound of Nico D’Ambrosio’s deep voice at my back, my fingers tighten around the stem of the champagne glass with its bubbling liquid half-finished. I briefly contemplate throwing it in his face instead of dignifying his question with an answer.
It’s more than what he deserves from me.
But it’s my best friend Bella’s wedding day, and it seems wildly inappropriate for the maid of honor to cause a scene, especially when half the reason for the wedding itself is the ending of a five-year-long war between the Romanov Bratva and the D’Ambrosio Family.
I dig my heels into the ground, take a slow breath through my nose to school my face for a response before I turn around.
When I do, I see Nico D’Ambrosio standing there with one hand on the bar. The light of the early evening accentuates his beautiful cheekbones, and highlights the scar running from hisright ear down to his chin. His perfect lips tug upward and crinkle the corners of his rich amber eyes as he smiles.
It’s unfair how effortlessly good he looks. Despite the afternoon heat of the French countryside, there isn’t a single wrinkle on his perfectly pressed suit. His angular jaw is chiseled with just the slightest hint of scruff. On someone else, it might look lazy and sloppy.
But on him? Somehow it makes him look even better, especially when paired with that familiar shit-eating grin that I still haven’t been able to forget after three months.
I hate it.
Because if he were at least just a little bit harder on the eyes, then it’d be just a hell of a lot easier for me to hate him properly.
"It's French," I finally say. "They tend to get champagne right, Don Nico."
The smile droops slightly, but never disappears as a muscle ticks in his jaw. “You know I hate it when you call me that.”
“What else am I supposed to call you?”
“Nico would be nice.” He takes a step towards me, and my heart skips a beat when I catch a hint of his cologne—driftwood and salt, like sunbaked skin after a swim. "We need to talk about what happened."
“Actually.” My voice quivers just a little before I find it again. "We really, really don't."
Three months ago, on a blood-soaked New York street, Nico D'Ambrosio put a bullet through his father's forehead and became the new Don of the D’Ambrosio Family.
I saw it all happen because not an hour earlier than that, his father held me hostage along with my best friend Bella’s nephew Anthony. That was when Nico decided that maybe—just maybe—he had a sliver of a soul, and chose to save us all.
Afterwards, he drove me home like he was wrapping up a first date.
I held his hand and did my best to try forgetting what I saw while my heart raced against my throat.
And to his credit, he didn’t seem eager to let me go when we arrived.
I suppose that was why I asked him to come in.
A logical part of my brain told me back then that it would be a very bad idea to sleep with the newly crowned head of New York’s most notorious crime family.
But I had been seconds away from my own death earlier, and I survived only because of Nico. I had to do something to prove to myself that I was still alive, and that it wasn’t just some fucked-up nightmare.
Or maybe I just didn’t want to be alone with my own thoughts after everything that had happened.
So I fucked him.
And it was the best damn sex of my life.
I rode him mercilessly on my threadbare sofa while his teeth left perfectly spaced marks along my throat and shoulders. He fucked me with my legs spread wide on my cheap linoleum floor while I dug my nails into his muscular back. We fucked on allfours against my kitchen counter–his hand yanking my hair like a leash and my hands squeezing his balls as he came.
When my throat was raw from screaming and my knees so watery that I couldn’t stand, he scooped me into his muscular arms, and carried me into the shower so we could do it all over again.
