Page 13 of Ruined By the Enemy
“No, I’m fine. I can handle it.” My steps slow before coming to a halt when I hear her slurred words. Looking over my shoulder, I see Sophie pushing the driver off, even as she takes one wobbly step forward.
She’s drunk?I shake my head in surprise.
He rushes to her side again, offering to help, but she dismisses him as she waves her hands around. “I promise, I’m fine.” Her eyes lock on me, and she points. “Just ask him. He tried to get me drunk because he thought I’d say something to implicate myself.”
I frown as she clicks her tongue loudly in disapproval. “Isn’t it funny? The great Domenico Moretti, wary of a lowly attorney like me?”
Lowly?My eyebrows shoot up as I turn properly.
She wags her finger. “You’re no genius. You’re not brilliant either. You’re just a manipulative, stuck-up man who thinks he’s better than everybody else.”
“And you’re a lightweight,” I murmur as I cross the hotel entrance. My steps are paced and calculated, giving her space to catch up and gather what’s left of her pride.
The driver avoids my gaze, head bowed under the weight of the scene he’s just witnessed.
“You can park the car and leave,” I say without looking at him.
He nods quickly and retreats.
I reach for Sophie’s wrist, intending only to guide her out of the way, but I misjudge how far gone she really is. She slips.
Not dramatically—just enough to lose her balance, just enough to stumble forward… and against me. Her warm, unsteady breathing fills my personal space with a rush, and I feel my pulse skip.
“You’re a brute,” she breathes, her curled fist landing against my chest. It barely registers—a soft thud, more frustration than force. But it’s not the hit that knocks the air out of me.
It’s her.
This close, her body pressed against mine, I can feel the shape of her through the soft fabric of her flared top and the snug skirt that refuses to offer me mercy. Her sweet, maddening scent settles in my lungs like smoke I can’t cough out.
“Terrible, terrible man,” she mutters, lifting her hand again.
My fingers close around her wrist before she makes contact, an automatic, instinctive move I regret a second too late.
Her eyes flash with anger as she jerks against my grip. “Let me go!”
She pushes, not with her hands but with every ounce of strength she can summon. It’s clumsy, drunken, and absolutely useless.
All it does is curve her body tighter against mine.
And now she’s right there—flush, breathing hard, caught between fury and something else she probably doesn’t want to name. I hold still, jaw locked, telling myself not to move. Not to look down or acknowledge what’s happening between us, because I can feel the blood rushing from every corner of my body tooneplace.
If she were lucid, she’d feel the way my pants twitch and the bulge that stirs beneath them.
She’d feel that I’m narrowly holding on to self-control.
“Let me go.”
My grip doesn’t loosen, and I don’t move. Not yet. Because, as much as I should hate it, or push her away, a greedy part of me wants to indulge in the warmth that seeps through her body into mine.
Then Sophie tilts her head, her green eyes like seafoam. The color of waves washing up on a yellow sandy beach under a clear blue sky, urging you to follow the current back out.
Her lips part, the pink on them almost wiped off, but no words come out.
I feel a sharp stirring below my belt, digging into the seam of my pants. My hand around her wrist tightens as I hear myself struggle to breathe.
“I’ve parked the car, sir. What time should I—?”
The presence of the driver breaks the spell, and I look away, clearing my throat quietly. “Six a.m.,” I tell him, stepping away from Sophie. “We’ll be down by six a.m.”
