Page 10 of Desperate Decisions

“You’d better have an appointment already booked with a doctor for when you get home,” Anita told me.

“And what would that accomplish?”

She snorted. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe they could remove the stick from your ass.”

I flipped her the bird.

“Seriously, though. You should make sure a bonding was what actually happened. Maybe it was some other weirdness.”

I guessed it was possible, but I wasn’t sure what else would make me crave someone with every molecule of my being and go damn near out of my mind to be separated from them. I’d been chafing my cock raw, taking care of myself a dozen times a day just to try to get my body to calm the fuck down. That never worked, at least not for long. I was pretty sure the only thing that would help would be sinking into the sweet little cunt that smelled like lemon tarts.

“I’ll talk to one of the physicians that comes by the compound,” I promise.

It was probably a lie, in all likelihood. I wasn’t even planning on going directly to the compound, even though that would be what Bianca would expect. I couldn’t go there, couldn’t take the risk that she would call me into her bed and I’d be able to do fuck all. The thought of touching her, which had been for many years a mixture of anywhere from a pleasant duty to a crushing obligation, was enough to turn my stomach now. I wouldn’t be able to fake it with her, and if she might kill me for the slight, I was going to make damn sure I had my fill of a mate before that happened.

My main plan was to lie about my flight date. Bianca wasn’t a babysitter by any stretch of the imagination. She trusted us to have our shit together and if I told her I was coming home a week later than I intended to, she’d have no reason to think I’d lied.

I paced the halls of the villa, hypervigilant and riddled with anxiety. Fucking hell, bonds were annoying. Who chose to inflict this upon themselves? Idiots, that’s who. The only recently bonded pair I knew was Marco and Gianna back at home, but that had been a bond under duress for both of them. Not exactly a choice, but it still resulted in the same outcome. Maybe I could talk to them about it.

I checked my gun for the hundredth time that day. If they weren’t about to sell the villa, I’d have suggested they install a shooting range so I could work out some of this nervous energy. Unfortunately for me, that, among the many other things I wanted right now, would have to wait.

I kept careful watch on the trucks that came by all through the next day to collect each of my cousins in turn with their essential belongings, transporting them to apartments in various cities throughout Italy, where they could pretend at a normal life. The last to go for the day was Anita, who’d stayed behind with me until all the others were gone.

“The sale on the villa just closed with the fuckers running us out of here,” she told me. “Generations of Angelos walked these halls and now it’s just the end of it.”

I sympathized with her to a point, but I’d long since shed my attachment to this place. Grateful as I was that the legacy of my family had existed somewhere, I preferred to think it was carried on in the people rather than the places they’d dwelled. With the Angelo matriarch buried in the churchyard, and too much blood soaked into the walls of the family home, we had no real reason to hold onto the villa. It was beautiful, as a great many buildings were in this part of the world, but its future was out of our hands.

“There’s no end to the family, Anita. Nonna would clock you for suggesting it. You and your sisters, our cousins, me…we’re the important part. As much as Nonna loved the villa, you know she would say the same.”

Anita snorted. “Eventually, maybe. I’m half-surprised we didn’t have her haunting us the moment we drew up the papers for sale.”

“Maybe she needed peace as much as the rest of you. She was no stranger to the bloodshed of this place.”

Anita sighed and leaned against me, the first sign of affection from her in days. “I know you’re right, but I’m still sad. And you’re leaving just when I started getting used to you.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Well, if my boss doesn’t take kindly to me having a mate, maybe I’ll come straight back here and you can suffer through having us as roommates until we figure shit out.”

“You joke, but any of us would welcome you back.”

Some of the tension in my shoulders loosened. “I know. I appreciate that more than I can express. It’s so different here than at home. Family feels like it means something else to all of you, but at home it’s all about what I can give them while working for Bianca.”

“The Angelo men weren’t so different when they were still alive,” Anita said. “Luckily for you, the women are all that’s left, so you don’t have to put up with that bullshit on two continents.”

I laughed and hooked my arm over her shoulders. “You’d better take really good fucking care of yourself while I’m gone.”

“I will, but the demand goes both ways. Keep me updated on the mate situation, yeah?”

I nodded, and the two of us finally parted ways, her into the last truck, and me on the back of my bike. Now there was only the distance to the airport and a trip across the ocean that separated me from my goal.

As much as the wait would be agony, it would be over soon.

Amara Pesci. I turned her name over my tongue, walking my memory over her address. She’d better be ready because I was coming for her.

CHAPTER 5

AMARA

“Oh my god, hold your fucking horses!” I yelled at the apartment buzzer that would not shut the fuck up. I slammed my finger on the button. “What?!”

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