Page 56 of Tide of Treason
He’d been on a steady bender of texts all week, spinning himself out because I’d stopped answering. The pattern never changed. Radio silence from me, then the spiral. What really gnawed at him, though, what scoured at all that perfect Roman skin, was seeing me with Dante at taster night.
Lucius’s eyes flicked to the phone. Back to his cereal. He was too pretty in the morning, and it irritated me deeply. He didn’t ask whose name pulsed on the display; the silence itself rendered the verdict. In his head I was still sleeping with Niccolò.
I’d stopped months ago. The moment Niccolò started expecting loyalty from me was the moment I knew he was past saving. Still, there were some things Lucius didn’t need to know. He was married to my baby sister, for God’s sake. If heknew the truth, he’d win. He already had so much. My hotel. My body. My attention, which, before him, had never lasted longer than it took to get bored. The only shield between me and complete devastation was the thin illusion that his indifference equaled safety.
Also, I didn’t want to know how many women had crossed the boundaries of that sham union, how many had slipped into his bed, his hands, his mouth. Because if I did, I’d spiral. And if I spiraled, I’d kill him. Not in the metaphorical way, either. I’d slit his throat and tuck the sheets around.
There was a version of myself that used to be better than this. I’m not sure when she died. Maybe somewhere between Nonno’s funeral and my first kiss, probably at the intersection of grief and puberty. If you squinted hard enough, you could still see her ghost walking the halls of Il Cigno, brushing her fingers across silk wallpaper and whispering how fucking pathetic I’d become.
Lucius broke the silence with four quiet words. “You live above me.”
I nodded. “Penthouse triplex. Top floor’s mine. I own the restaurant downstairs, too.”
A slow chew. A swallow. The rasp of his jaw tightening. “You’re everywhere, huh?”
“Well, I do try. I find property investment is the only way to keep a man in my line of sight. Next step is a tracking collar, but you seem a bit more of a bite-and-bolt type.” I stabbed the fork back into the ziti. “Do you want a keycard?”
His lashes swept up. “To my own apartment?”
“No. To mine.”
Something cold flickered in his eyes. “Do you offer a keycard to every man you fuck only once?”
Well . . . when he put it like that, I suddenly felt like the villain in my own Russian folktale. The one who’d seduced the hero and handed him a velvet collar disguised as a keycard, then forgot to mention the bear trap in the entryway. But this was New York, not Moscow, and the only ice here was swirling in my veins and his cereal bowl.
Ugh.
I stood so fast the stool scraped against the tile, the sound shrill and rude and entirely appropriate. Grabbing my bag from the stool, I slung it over my shoulder.
“So?” he prompted, low and indifferent. It made my teeth itch.
“So what?”
Lucius upended the cereal box, poured another avalanche straight into his mouth. “You gon’ give me an answer?”
“To which one?” Frost rimmed every syllable. “You talk so much, it’s hard to keep track.”
Patience thinning, his gaze canted to the ceiling. “The keycard,principessa.”
“No. Usually they get a T-shirt, a Gatorade, and cab fare.” Not that any of them deserved even that.
His cheek curved. “No cab for me?”
“No Gatorade, either.”
Crunch.
“Cold,” he pronounced.
I slammed the door harder than necessary on my way out.
It didn’t help.
The walk up to the top floor was a march through enemy territory. I wasn’t stupid enough to take the elevator; he could follow me there. Trap me. Steal more pieces I couldn’t afford to give. I climbed the private stairs, all the while nursing the sharp, awful awareness that there was only one man on earth who could drive me this insane.
I let my bag thud to the marble and nudged the door with one careless heel. It swung shut on the chaos outside, sealing me in a hush so cold it felt opulent, the kind of silence only money—or sin—could buy. It flowed down the corridor, collecting in the corners. Steam billowed in the bathroom within minutes, fat white serpents coiling around gilt fixtures, frosting the mirror until even my reflection gave up on me. I stood beneath the spray, scalding heat strafing skin already buzzed with nerves, palms flat to the marble. Lower. Hotter. I spat in one, slid two fingers inside my pussy, though nothing rinsed off the reel behind my eyelids.
His mouth fitting the dip between my breasts.
