Page 13 of The Bratva's Forced Innocent Bride

“Hey, Jenna,” I said on the landing, stopping her before she headed down the hall to the theater. “I’m going to skip out on this, I’ve got a wicked headache from all the sun.”

“Oh no,” she said, getting a look of motherly concern on her face. “I’ll tell the others.”

“Thanks. And can you give me Brooke’s number?” Before she could clam up with suspicion, I hurried to explain I had some pictures from the day before I promised to send her. “Or I could just send them to you or Lev,” I said with a shrug. “And you could pass them on to her.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, hang on a sec.” She dug her phone out of the pocket of her long, flowy sundress and tapped on it a few times.

My phone pinged in my own pocket and I hid the self-satisfied smile of getting what I wanted. I kissed her cheek and feigned a look of pain as I traipsed back down the stairs, only jogging triumphantly out the front door when she was out of my sight.

Just having that small link to Brooke calmed me down. Not that I was going to message her, since there would be plenty of time tomorrow to be with her again. I was calm, cool, and collected and no longer raging at invisible strangers.

Strangers who might have been someone special to my woman, taking her hand, making her laugh. Nope, not going to freak out. I had all the confidence in the world I could turn her head back to me, if it had even been turned away for a few minutes by some other guy.

I took a brisk shower and got into bed, completely sure of myself. So, why was I tossing and turning like the weight of the world was resting on my chest? It wasn’t too late. Why not actually send her the pics I had taken?

I scrolled through and found one of us with the Ferris wheel in the background, with blue sky and ocean surrounding us. Her smile and bright eyes in the photo almost had me gasping at how pretty she was.

Thinking of you, hope you’re having a great night.

I didn’t hope that at all, but I sent the message with the picture anyway and forced myself to get some sleep.

Chapter 7 - Brooke

As I snuck down the winding road to the meeting spot, I was so excited I hardly felt any guilt about the little fib I told Jenna. She hadn’t asked too many questions, not ever suspecting I’d lie about getting together with an old friend, and had warmly told me to have fun. As much as I wanted to blurt out the truth, there’d be plenty of time to do that once we were back in San Francisco and I was back to real life. Right now, I didn’t want any fuss that might get back to Max.

The last thing I needed was another display of jealousy, not that he was actually jealous, but it was nice to imagine. All my life I’d never been anyone’s choice and now there were two men vying for my attention, both of them handsome, charismatic, and successful. The absolute top of the heap and for some reason they both wanted to spend time with me. It was still hard to believe I wasn’t dreaming all of it.

I never really considered myself having a “type” and Luca and Max couldn’t have been more different in looks, with Max being taller and bulkier with muscle and Luca being more lean and rangy. Max was dark while Luca was golden, Max’s black coffee eyes simmered while… I hadn’t really noticed Luca’s eyes doing anything special when we were chatting and dancing. Well, there was time for that tonight.

It had to be both of their confidence and maturity that did it for me, rather than anything specific about their looks. I’d always been attracted to older men, at least in theory, since I’d never had any kind of relationship before to test it out.

Luca didn’t keep me waiting, pulling up in a sleek black sports car as soon as I reached the crossroads. He gave me a wolf whistle as his eyes raked over me in the nicest thing I’dbrought with me, since I couldn’t wear the dress Max had bought me again. The simple green sundress that skimmed my knees and showed off my newly tanned shoulders seemed to meet his approval, and I smiled as I got in the car.

He zoomed off before I even had my seatbelt fastened, and I had to refrain from clutching the door handle as he took the winding road at top speed.

“I’m sure glad you don’t belong to Max, since I’ve been thinking about you nonstop since last night.”

I tore my eyes off the road, whizzing by to glance at him. “I don’t belong to anyone,” I said, irritated. Then, flustered when, he turned to give me one of the soulful looks I’d been swooning over on the big screen since I was in middle school.

“Maybe you’ll change your mind by the end of the night.”

Did he want me to belong to him? I swallowed hard, barely able to keep up with the conversation on our way into the city. We pulled up at a swanky restaurant, and he tossed his keys to a valet. He then smoothly came around to my side to open my door for me. He hadn’t done that when he picked me up, but now we were surrounded by people waiting around outside the place. I kept my head down, sick at the thought of ending up on a gossip site as some faceless nobody for people to pick apart.

Thankfully, we were inside in an instant, but I had no time to relax because we were led to a completely private room. I was overcome with shyness, losing all the vacation fantasyland boldness I’d been gliding by on the last few days.

Luca waved away the waiter, saying the chef knew what he liked. He turned to me. “Trust me?” he asked. “It’s going to be delicious.”

I was sure it would be, and thankfully, I had never had the luxury of being a picky eater, but what if I was allergic to something? I’d seen in old movies where the man ordered for his date, which was supposed to be chivalrous, but it seemed a bit controlling to me.

“Okay,” I said, perversely wanting to turn to the waiter and ask for grilled chicken to see what Luca would say.

Then, as soon as the waiter was gone, Luca captured my attention with some anecdotes from his last film set. I was being feisty for nothing, and when the appetizer arrived, it was a shrimp dish that was to die for. Of course, I should have trusted a worldly man like Luca to pick delicious food.

“Tell me you’ve thought about modeling,” he said as the appetizers were removed and replaced with a salad with some thinly cut fish on top.

“Never, not even once,” I said. I waited for him to ask what I wanted to do instead, or what I was studying, but he launched into a tale about his early days and having to take modeling jobs in Milan when the acting work wasn’t materializing.

It was interesting, but I knew about it from past interviews, and as the evening progressed, I started noticing he hadn’t really asked anything else about me, or when he did ask something, it was always as a springboard to start a new story about himself. He didn’t make me laugh like Max did, and if I was honest, he was a little overbearing and… boring.

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