Page 30 of Princess of the Mafia

I ignored him. The truth was, I suddenly didn’t want to be alone here. This place felt too big. Too hollow. “You have a bike?” Of course, he did. Now that biker attitude he carried made perfect sense.

“Well, I am not using another man’s ride if that’s what you want to know.” He looked at his watch impatiently. “I need to go. You’ll be okay, sì?”

I just stared at him.

He let out a sigh and came towards me. I didn’t back away this time. Even if it took the greatest effort, when something all black and large loomed over me. His palm came up to wrap around my chin. It was warm and rough and all I wanted to do was hang on to it. Stupido! It was probably because he was the only familiar face now.

“I wish you’d tell me what you’re thinking. I can’t help you if I don’t know. You’ll be okay, sì?”

This close, his voice sounded more soft than tight. His thumb was rough on my cheek as it traced my jawline. He made me uncomfortable with those dark whiskey eyes on me. I didn’t understand this feeling. I felt tipsy when not a drop of liquor had touched my lips. I gave a shaky nod and pulled away. His hand dropped, and after an awkward minute, he strode out. The echo of a thick door closing filled the hollow room and sounded like dread.

My eyes followed the metal artwork between the hallway and the living room right up to the ceiling. I counted the huge squares in between. Ten, twenty, twenty-five… I lost count, so I restarted. Anything not to think about his hands on my cheek. I hated how it had felt. Warm. Not going to be Mamma. Not going to be Mamma.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LORENZO

Iwas not sure what I expected from marriage, but running off to a fake meeting the very next day wasn’t it. But tension crawled under my skin, and frustration dripped off every pore of my body. So I had to get out of there before I smashed a fucking mirror into a million pieces. Was it wise to leave my beautiful wife alone in front of a balcony 129 floors up? Not really. But I’d locked those doors with a code she wouldn’t know. Because strangely enough, the moment she stepped out, my hands itched to drag her back inside. I had the nasty feeling that she might have jumped. Not so strange, really. She’d looked miserable the moment we got into our car in Sicily. How she’d turned around and watched till the house and the people in it disappeared as we drew away would have broken anyone’s heart. Even mine, apparently.

I strode into one of my clubs and busted into my office in the basement. I lit my seventh cigarette of the day and watched the gray haze spiral out. My wife was going to be the death of me. I already knew that. She had me all fucked up, and I couldn’t figure out why. Comfort was violence. Pleasure was fucking a woman on her knees. Faceless, non-Italian with a long braid of black hair. She wasn’t any of that. Then why the fuck were my hands itching as if she was my Pandora’s box?

I didn’t ask for much. All I’d wanted was a doll. Not a ‘snapping back’ one minute and ‘lost my voice’ the other woman. Not the ‘I don’t want you to own me’ type of woman.

“What the fuck, bro?” I spun my chair around to Stefano, framing the doorway. “Where’s my cognata?”

“Home.” I frowned as he walked in and dumped the files he was carrying on my desk. I wasn’t in the mood to chitchat and I knew what was coming. But he said nothing. Just sank down on the couch, typing on his phone till it irked my skin like nails on sandpaper. “Spit it out?”

He looked up with an innocent smirk on his lips. “Didn’t say anything.”

“You want to. Get it over with,” I growled.

He dropped his head to his phone. With one leg stretched out on the couch and the other on the floor, he looked relaxed. How I would be if it weren’t for the glossy walls in my penthouse reflecting a girl with brown hair and big blue eyes. They had looked a steel blue to me right before I’d left. #4682B4 to be exact. I would know because my damn phone showed search results for color charts of fucking blue.

“Just think you shouldn’t have left her alone.”

“She was getting on my nerves.”

“Jesus, Enzo, sometimes I wonder if I was born before you.” He ignored my scowl. “She just left everything she knew behind to hop on a plane with strangers and come to a country she’d never been to. She’s never left Italy, for fuck’s sake. Give her a fucking break.”

“She’s not fucking porcelain.”

He laughed. “That she isn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I couldn’t stop my fucking anger from rising.

Stefano sighed, threw the phone on the couch, and sat up straight. “Don’t know what your plans are. You want to keep her home and pretend you never got married? Fine. Just be prepared for the unexpected.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“If she sneaked out and lost her virginity, don’t be surprised if she does worse.”

Something heavy, thick, and green slithered through my veins so fast that I didn’t realize I’d hurled the marble paperweight on my desk till it crashed into the wall an inch away from my brother’s fucking face. He didn’t move a muscle on his face. “No point in shooting the messenger, bro,” he muttered darkly.

There was a time when nicotine was my relaxation. That time wasn’t now. The thought that she might sneak out with another man or, worse, run away, made acid pile in my stomach. I didn’t like that fucking idea one bit, and I didn’t like my jackass brother for suggesting it.

“Do something with that pent-up energy of yours. Go show some attention to your wife.”

Jesus. I loved the moron, but he never knew when to stop.

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