Page 70 of Sinister Intentions

Dante and Matt stared at me for a beat before bursting out laughing.

I frowned, utterly bewildered by their reaction.

Once Matt caught his breath, he grinned at me. “No woman other than Isa or Mira has ever stepped foot in Vince’s apartment. It’s his golden rule—he never takes them home.”

The way he held my gaze after that statement, as if he was trying to convey something without outright saying it, made me slightly uncomfortable.

He never takes them home.

But he took me there. Vince had kidnapped me, brought me to his home, thrown me in his pool, showered me, and left me in what was apparently his sisters’ room and wardrobe.

Despite his “no women” policy.

I shifted my gaze to Vince, studying his striking profile while he was talking with Hero and Alex.

He’d broken his own rule with me. Why?

I stared down at my plate as if I would find the answer in the remnants of my food but looked up when I felt the weight of Vince’s stare, his intense eyes burning into me like a physical touch.

The way he looked at me was unnerving yet somehow thrilling at the same time. A shiver ran down my spine as our gazes locked, and I had to tear my eyes away before the heat building inside me became too obvious.

And herein lay the problem.

Why would Vince Salvini take me to his apartment when he could’ve taken me anywhere?

Why did he look at me like he wanted to devour me sometimes, and like he wanted to kill me at other times?

What was going on inside his brain? And did I really want to know?

The more I learned about this enigmatic man, the more complicated and puzzling he became, and my life was already complicated enough.

So the less I knew about the real Vince Salvini, the better. And vice versa.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The rest of the dinner went off without me leading the conversation or putting my foot in my mouth.

I just focused on eating and followed the conversation, which flowed naturally, while ignoring Vince as much as I could.

“So,” Dante said while turning his attention to Vince, a sly grin spreading across his face. “What have you been up to lately?”

Vince shifted his eyes to Dante, and his jaw tightened.

And I couldn’t resist. “He meant apart from arranging marriages and kidnapping innocent people,” I quipped, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

Shit. Why did I not just keep my mouth shut until we were through with dessert?

Vince snapped his gaze back to me, and I could practically see the storm brewing behind his eyes. Clearly, he was not amused. “I must have missed the part where it said ‘innocent’ in your dossier,” he shot back, his voice low and dangerous.

Hero and Dante exchanged amused looks, the whole table’s attention now fully focused on the growing tension between Vince and me.

Great. Just great.

I met his challenge head-on, refusing to back down. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t skip lines. For me, I re-read the part where it said ‘complete dickhead’ three times when I went through yours,” I retorted. “Oh, and the headline was ‘Vince the Evil Prince’, which now, I kinda know why.”

Oh, shit. What the hell was that?

There was a second of complete silence before Matt, Hero, Alex, and Dante exploded with laughter.

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