“Ah,” he says, nothing more. It’s a kind of sarcastic, almost-condescending answer. I feel my cheeks burning. That subtle sneer is teasing at the corner of his lips like it always does when he looks at me. My thighs clench together involuntarily under the hem of this ridiculous golden cocktail dress that he insisted I wear.
“Ah?”
“Here is good.”
“Uh … right.” I gnaw at my lower lip, glance at my plate, then force myself to wrench my gaze back up to meet his again.
I can’t show weakness. That was the first lesson my dad taught me when he took me camping in the Adirondacks the summer after fifth grade.“If you run into a wild animal and you show fear, they’ll know it,”he said.“They can smell the fear on you. That’s the only time you’re in danger.”
Welp, so much for that.
I’m exuding fear like it’s the hottest new perfume. Try as I might, I can’t wrestle it back down. The truth is that I’m very afraid, and Leo has given me no reason not to be. He will pounce at any moment. He’s come close already, but I was lucky enough before to get away with just a little nibble. I’m terrified that if he strikes again, I won’t be quite so fortunate this time around.
“What are my new, um, living arrangements?” I ask. I’m desperate to give voice to the dynamic between us. Maybe, if we’re exchanging words, I’ll have a chance of redirecting the conversation somewhere that feels less sinister, less threatening to my physical well-being. Not to mention less arousing to the sick, twisted urge in me that wants Leo to come take what he so clearly wants.
He looks at me levelly for a while before answering. “You’ll be staying up here with us from now on. The room I showed you to earlier is yours now. You will have clothes, towels, food, all that. If you are well-behaved, you will keep it. If you try to run, you will be returned to the cell downstairs.” He says all that lazily, like he doesn’t give a damn about the outcome. He’s so coolly detached from everything. The anger that is raging inside Dante and Vito hasn’t even touched Leo. It’s strange to see men who are so similar and yet so different at the same time.
“Okay,” I say. “I won’t run.”
He laughs. “Do what you want, princess. I am merely telling you the consequences of your choices.”
I shudder. Something about the way he says the word “consequences” sends a shiver down my spine. Like this is all merely a game, and something as arbitrary as the roll of a dice could decide what happens to me next.
I shuffle uncomfortably in my seat. This dress is too short, too revealing. I can feel the cool castle air drifting between my thighs.
“Would you like a tour?” Leo asks me a moment later.
I’m holding my hands together to keep them from trembling noticeably. “Oh. Uh, sure. A tour sounds, um … nice.”
“Then come. Let us tour.” He pushes away from the table and strides away, just as fast as he did before. I follow him, leaving the now-empty dinner table in our wake.
* * *
Leo isn’t much of a tour guide. For the last half hour, as we’ve wound down countless labyrinthine hallways, he has said little aside from “This way” or “Here.” I can’t exactly ditch him though, because there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that I’ll be able to find my way back. This castle is a maze of winding, twisting corridors that branch and coalesce in seemingly random patterns. It’s a treasure trove of musty tapestries, ornate jewelry, and—glaring down at me from every single wall—portrait after portrait of Bianci ancestors. The whole thing is downright spooky. I keep expecting to see the eyes moving in one of the oil paintings, like an episode of Scooby Doo.
“Wait!” I call ahead as Leo rounds a corner thirty yards ahead of me. His footsteps are fading away, so I put a little pep in my step and hustle after him. My stilettos clack against the flagstones. I miss Vito’s strong arm supporting me.
After a full dinner, I’m stronger than I was earlier today, but all the wine I drank is making my head feel stuffed full of cotton. All I can think is,“Don’t get lost.”
So, needless to say, I have a full head of steam when I chase Leo around the corner, and—whoompf—collide full-on with his chest.
Just like his brothers, he is built solidly, even though he doesn’t look like it. As slender as he appears in his navy tuxedo, he is all muscle. I would have bounced off like I’d run into Superman himself, were it not for his hands reaching out to snare my elbow and keep me from tumbling ass over elbows.
I stabilize myself and blink a few times to orient the dizziness in my head.
But Leo doesn’t let go of me. His blue eyes are unyielding as they stare straight into mine.
“Th—thanks,” I stammer awkwardly. I curse at myself in my head for sounding like such a bumbling idiot. I have that dumb, lovestruck, girlycan’t-talk-itis, as Anastasia used to call it.
“It is my pleasure, darling,” he murmurs. As with a lot of the things he says, there’s an undertone to the word “pleasure.” It’s kind of menacing and kind of seductive, and the wine surging through my system is not helpful in any way as I try to figure out which of those two things is worse.
“Menacing” would be bad, obviously, because I’m hopelessly lost deep in the guts of enemy territory. Leo could slice my throat open right here and no one would ever find my body.
But I think that “seductive” is the more frightening of the two, for several reasons—not the least of which is because part of me wants that very, very badly.
It’s his smell. His eyes. His hands. His cruel, uncaring sneer. It’s all of that and none of it at once. I can’t deny that my body craves his touch. I want to make him smile at me. I have since the moment I first laid eyes on him.
“I’m not your darling,” I protest, but it’s weak and ineffectual. He knows it; I know it; hell, even the freaking portrait of Great-Granddaddy Billy-Bob Bianci hanging on the wall to my left knows it. So Leo doesn’t have to say anything in response. He just smiles.