Page 25 of Runaway in the Mafia
The door slammed shut on his side.
He called me a whore. I should have kicked him where it hurt and taken off right then and there. But then he apologised. I’d never had a man apologise to me. Not when he forced me, nor when he beat me. I couldn’t even remember Papa or my brothers apologising.Ever.But he had.
He either regretted it or he was mad about something else. Because he was mad. There was a tiny vein thumping on his forehead angrily. His jaw was tensed. Tight. Like he was gritting his teeth. He looked anything but happy to take me home. Which left me wondering why he was, because I’d certainly not asked him to.
But he’d been the one to turn up outside my office. Obstructing my plans of calling home. If anything, I should have been the one pissed off. At least this time, he was in black. From top to toe. Black shirt and black shoes. Even his damn tie was black today, like it was reflecting his dark intentions. It did nothing to take a notch off his good looks.
Desire pooled inside me. Made my skin flush. My breathing heavy. Sitting inside a metal encasement clad in leather only amplified it.
He handled the machine beautifully. Smooth and easy. With an elegance that could only come with talent and confidence. A quick, instinctive thought rushed through me. Was this the way he handled a woman?Stop it. What’s with all these intrusive thoughts, Ahana?
He shifted gears, and my eyes dropped down to his hands clenched around the gear stick. Naked forearms with a dusting of hair and thin black ink saying something in Sicilian. A pulse beat somewhere it shouldn’t. I crossed my legs and squeezed my hands into fists.
This was a crime. I shouldn’t want him. He had put something in me I shouldn’t feel. Lust. Red ardent desire. For a man I wasn’t legally tied to. Maybe Rajesh was right? I was a whore. But saying it in my mind didn’t help me pull my gaze from him. So I whispered it to myself.Whore.
“What’d you say?”
My gaze pulled up from his arm to his face. Rage stared back at me. There was a thick lump in my dry throat. I swallowed it nervously. “Nothing.”
“I thought you said—”
“I asked what it says…” his gaze on the road scowled. “On your arm.”
Disgust rolled off him as he flicked a gaze to his arm.“Sono esattamente come mio padre.”
I cocked my brow to the shake of his head. He let out a soft laugh before he added, “I forget you don’t understand Italian. It says I am everything my father was.”
“That’s sweet.”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“My father was the devil reincarnated.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t—”
“He was.” The tilt to his lips was sad, his gaze full of pain as it slid to me for a second before he pulled it back to the road.
It was like a thick curtain was pulled aside, and I glimpsed a different man. Behind the facade of anger, I found pain. So deep that the roots went beyond six feet. It followed him like a dark shadow. Had sunk into his soul. He might have once fought against it. But he had never won. Didn’t want to win. He wanted to suffer to make up for whatever he thought he had to. His father had left so much despair behind him that he felt the need to cement it with black ink. Carry it around like armour and cloak it like a coat. One he wore day in and out, and even when he slept. This wasn’t rage. This was penance for the crime of another.
“Huh?”
I found his gaze on me and realised he’d said something.
“How about your father?”
My hand clutched my locket.I shouldn’t tell him anything.This man would use it against me. Dig deep and find the sink holes within it. But I couldn’t help myself. “He’s amazing.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded vigorously. I could talk for hours about Papa. “I really think I lucked out with him.”
A soft smile tilted his lips before the back of his hand graced my cheek. “I’m glad you have him. You deserve him.”
His hand fell away, but his words remained.You deserve himrolled in the air around me, making the car warm and fuzzy. I held it close to my heart and carried it right up to the moment the engine fell silent and the soft hum underneath my bum stilled.
This man. He wasn’t bad.At all.
