Page 9 of Not Mine to Keep

Steal me away?“You don’t need to—”

“But I do.” He frowned for some reason, then went over to the next item, barely taking notice of the sculpture, and wrote down a cool million again. “Now, can we talk?” He faced me with a hard look, his words coming out rough. No charm this time. Heck, no sugar of any kind.

“Two million just to spend the night with me?” That sounded horrible and suuuperIndecent Proposal–like.

“I’m not propositioning you,” he scoffed, as if offended. But the line on his forehead relaxed as he added, “Well, not exactly.”

“Care to elaborate?” I cut straight to it.

His gaze shot over my shoulder. “Not here, but we do need to talk.”

I followed his line of sight to one of my shadows, Dickhead Number Two this time, and a bad feeling climbed up my body and settled in the pit of my stomach.

“The Maddox Group appreciates your bids, and I’m sure you’ll win both,” I rushed out, trying to keep my cool. “But neither my body nor my time is up for auction tonight. So if you’ll excuse me.” I turned, worried I’d misjudged this man; he was far more dangerous than simply giving me a great orgasm and leaving me alone in bed the next day.

When his hand went to my back, a plea to stop, I froze. It was his first time touching me, and it’d be his last if one of my shadows spotted him doing so. He brought his mouth down over my ear and rasped, “Please, Calliope.” The wordpleasesounded strained and hard for him to spit out. “Wemusttalk.”

“Mustis an awfully strong word.” I whirled around to face him, and his hand fell to his side. “Also, fun fact: no means no,” I said, doubling down, worried he was about to insist upon having our fireside chat (minus the fire).

“In every language I speak, no does mean no. Even in the ones I don’t. I agree,” he said firmly, angling his head and shooting me daggers like I was a problem for him, not the other way around. “When it comes tocertainthings, no means no.” His eyes dipped to my lips, and he blinked as if it’d been a mistake on his part to allow his attention to wander. Why’d I feel as if he was looking at me like I was the sin he craved, even if he didn’t want to, judging by his angry glare? “But in this case, I—”

“No.” I cut him off and backed up, realizing my shadow was now en route. “If you don’t want to get hurt, I suggest you walk away.”

“I want to walk away, I really do.” He leaned in so close our mouths almost touched that time. “You have no idea just how much, in fact,” he gritted out, then shook his head and straightened. “But I can’t.” He’d sighed his displeasure into those three words.

I opened my mouth, prepared to challenge him, but then he shocked me by doing the opposite of what he’d said: he left the ballroom without so much as a parting glance.

CHAPTER THREE

Alessandro

“Please tell me you have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than be at work,” I said, wasting no time once the call connected with Hudson, both a friend and a colleague at my family’s security firm—a.k.a.myvolunteer work. Quite different from Calliope’s.

“You know, I feel like I should be insulted you assume I have no life,” Hudson drawled. “Oddly enough, I’m not. Of course I’m at work. What’s up? And why the hell are you in Nashville?”

So they told you.“I’m taking a case.”Not that I have a choice.“It’s a ‘need to know’ situation right now.”

“Need to know?” A deep, husky laugh cut over the line. “Are you shitting me? I’ve known you for twenty years, and we work together. I’m always in the know.”

Sitting inside my rental Maserati, I leaned back and placed the call with him on speaker while I pulled up Calliope’s address, which I’d far too easily found online.

She lived in Franklin, a small town about thirty minutes south of Nashville—where I was currently waiting for her. And thanks to a friendly chat with the valet, I was able to identify the Jeep Cherokee she drove as well.Damn. She needs better protection; it was too easy to get her information.

“Alessandro?” Hudson prompted, since I’d yet to reply.

“First, promise me you won’t share what I’m about to tell you with my family.EspeciallyConstantine.”

Constantine had been Hudson’s best friend since high school, when the Texan had moved to the Big Apple, where we lived. They’d also both served in the navy, and I had a feeling because of that, Constantine shared more with him than me. I wasn’t jealous, but ...

Hudson grunted his displeasure at my request, and from the sounds of it, plopped down into his desk chair and was drumming his fingers in a countdown, trying to make up his mind. “Why?” The word barreled out of his mouth like a gunshot.

“Because Constantine will do what he always does, and he’ll try and sacrifice himself instead. And I don’t need him doing that. This is my problem, and I’ll handle it.”

Myproblem, because Gabriel had made it my problem. My brother would offer to take over, and I knew he wouldn’t want to marry Calliope and would exhaust every other possibility first before coming to that, just as I was about to try to do. But at the end of the day, my brother would do what was necessary to save a life, even if that meant tying the knot.

Temporarilytying the knot, I reminded myself.

“And what is this problem you speak of? I thought it was a case.”

---