Page 63 of Not Mine to Keep

“Which part?” The little break in her voice before she wet her lips had me sliding my hand beneath the pillow so I could curl my fingers into a fist and find my control—to remind myself she needed to go back to being off-limits.

I frowned, fear cutting through my body about the unknown. I wasn’t accustomed to that emotion, but then I relented and shared, “All the parts.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Alessandro

“Did you sleep there all night? Or are you just an early riser?” Callie covered her mouth, hiding a yawn, then peeked at the alarm clock. “Wait, you’re dressed. So you—”

“Yeah, I slept on the couch.” I rose from the uncomfortable piece of furniture meant for looks and not for thirty-nine-year-old backs. “I think I’ll have a couch with a pull-out bed added to my bedroom before we get to New York today. I can’t sleep next to you.”

After she’d tossed and turned for an hour, she’d finally passed out, but it hadn’t taken her long to plant her body right up against me. And the woman was a damn furnace.

Like a cat, arching and curling tight to my side, she’d hooked one leg over mine. I’d remained still, doing my best not to further entangle our limbs. But since I’d been on my side facing her when she’d decided to do gymnastics and a one-eighty, she’d positioned her ass against my dick, and how the hell was I supposed to sleep like that?

I’d gone into the bathroom, rubbed one out again, then shut off the lights and slept on the couch.

Callie sat all the way up, resting against the headboard I’d had to bang against the wall last night. She unleashed her hair from the bun, and the messy locks framed her angelic face. “Why not?”

You know damn well why.“Because maybe I do bite.” I was pissed for reasons she didn’t know yet.Unreasonable reasons, sure. “You move around a lot in your sleep. It was annoying,” I grumbled as she swung her long, sexy legs around and stood. “I’m not used to sharing a bed.”

“Right, I forgot. A regular Casanova. Wine, dine, bang, and move on,” she sassed me right back.

“Looks like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” I grumbled, in the mood to spar after the messages from Braden I’d shamelessly read on her phone after taking it back from Marcello ten minutes ago.

On her knees by her suitcase, she looked up and snapped, “At least I woke up in a bed, Mr. Attitude.” She focused back on digging through her bag, and yeah, hello, itchy palm. I did, in fact, want to smack that ass of hers. “Also, for your information, no one’s ever complained about me being annoying while sleeping next to me.”

The mental gymnastics it took me doing to forget the image she’d painted of sharing a bed with other men was too much.

“That didn’t sound right.” She cut off my thoughts, which were about to edge into the realm of murdering a half dozen people, and at the top of the list was Braden. “I’ve only lived with one guy. I didn’t mean to make it sound like, um ...”

And now the one guy she’d lived with was on that list, too. My death count was going to grow, the longer this woman was in my life.

Fully facing me, her shoulders slumped as if she were ready to give up the fight inside her already, which was a little shocking. She’d just put on her gloves. “Are you mad at me?” She blew away a hair in her face, making a dramatichumphsound. “For what happened last night, I mean? Is that why you’re all snarly and grumpy?” Her beautiful eyes cut to my bad arm. Although it really was just a flesh wound. I could lose the bandage. “Or is pain catching up with you?”

I locked my arms across my chest, and my back muscles yelled at me from the movement. “I think it’s best if we keep some distance is all, don’t you?”

“How do you propose we do that?” She angled her head, catching my eyes. “Ohhh.” A little nod from her in understanding before she added, “My heartbreaker husband is worried about my fragile little heart, so you plan to be a dick to me?”

“You’re clearly not made of glass.” I actually wasn’t trying to be a dick that time. I was just still pissed at the secret she was keeping from me. “I don’t plan to be an ass,” I conceded while she stared me down, gloves back on. Not that it’d be a fair fight. Because I’d never raise a hand to her, and I’d let her whack me all she wanted. Although Little Miss Tennessee would only throw verbal jabs at me, I had a feeling those would be more painful coming from her.

“If not an ass, then what?”

“Cordial.”

Another eye roll from her. “Riiiight.” She went back to the business of trying to find something to wear. “Have you talked to Armani this morning?”

Yeah, about that.I slipped my hand into my pocket and grabbed hold of her phone. “I did. We’re good to go.” I thought back to my conversation with Gabriel after my coffee chat with Armani. Gabriel had asked me to trust him to handle shit on this side of the world while I dealt with the rest of our plan to bring down DiMaggio back in New York. “But I do have to tell you something. We’ll have ears on the ride to the airport and on the flight back, so we need to get this conversation over with now.”

She slowly stood, dropping the clothes back into her suitcase, as if recognizing she wouldn’t like what I had to say.

I finally removed her phone from my pocket and tossed it to her. She caught it, never losing hold of my eyes.

“I woke up to several messages this morning, and so did you,” I shared. “Armani leaked the story of our marriage to the press last night. It went viral.”

Wide, panicky eyes. Check.

I gave her a few more seconds to absorb the news and to do a quick search on her phone. Or maybe she planned to check her texts and voicemails.

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