Page 4 of King Of Order

Lean, tall, and muscled, his rippling, sinewed arms strained his dark suit jacket.

His hair, full, lush, and inky, swept over his broad brow, and his brutish nose flared, sculpted with an aquiline cut.

I tagged the hint of a chiseled jaw under his neat beard and luscious lips.

When he sliced his eyes at me, I jolted.

Pale aqua, reminiscent of the dreamlike sea I’d visited once.

Gazing into those enigmatic eyes brought an old memory into sharp focus: diving into a sea of pure, silver-blue, and dazzling water.

I wanted to plunge into them, to get immersed in their azure sensuality, surrounded by the longest dark lashes that many women would die for.

I slow-blinked when he smirked.

The air between us thickened as he took another drag of the cheroot, his head tilted back on my chair, and smoke curled toward the ceiling.

Those eyes, pale and piercing, stayed on me, sharp and alert.

Never missed a detail, scanning me from head to toe with the cool detachment of a predator surveying its prey.

My hand tightened around my pepper spray as I questioned whether I’d find any truth to his statement.

Even as his cologne, an initial burst of evocative citrus, aquatic notes, and musk invaded my nostrils and flooded me with an instant, aching wetness.

‘Seen enough, Chiara?’

My hands trembled, but something about his voice—his cocky, confident growl—rooted me in place.

This was not just any break-in.

It was something else altogether.

Chapter 2

CHIARA

‘Chi sei?’

I demanded his identity even as I glared at him.

I hoped my frigid mask served him with as much frost as possible.

‘Came back for your keys?’

He lifted the set from the table and dangled them in his hands, playing with them as he studied me.

His bold statement and his sidestep of my demand got my hackles up even more.

His command of English mirrored my own, with a lilt that told of British schooling, like mine.

Intriguing. Still, che palle. Who the fuck did he think he was waltzing into my workspace unbidden?

‘Who the hell are you?’

His lips curled. ‘I’m the man who found it fucking easy to enter your office and even simpler to work your locks at homeearlier today. I watered your lily in the living room, by the way. She was wilting.’

I choked, spluttered, and surged into the room, heels clicking, hips swinging, taking the fight to him.

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