Page 7 of The Boss's Temptation

He follows his men out. The rest of the men in the room follow. I look up at Don Micheal Genovese. Now we’re alone. It’s just me and the older, powerful, handsome, and terrifying man who owns me.

3

Micheal

The car is utterly silent.We drive through the city and then onto the highway back to my estate. I cut my teeth on these city streets. But now that I’m at the top, I prefer to spend as little time here as possible. I like my silence. I like my solitude.

But that solitude is gone. Now, I’ve got… well, her. And this current silence isn’t the kind I crave. I turn to steel a glance at her. Inside, I groan deeply. Fuck, she’s beautiful. I mean stunningly, innocently beautiful. Soft skin. Deep blue eyes, and stunning red hair that tumbles down over one shoulder. She’s young, too. Far, far younger than me, that’s for sure.

Christ, how oldisshe? I frown slightly. She looks older than Bellamy, my daughter. I silently thank God for that. This is a mess as it is. If she were younger than Bellamy, it would be a travesty. An embarrassment, even.

I understand how Salvestro, Bernardo, and the other higher-ups back in Sicily think. They’re old school. They’re still living in an ancient time where this was done. It is not done here. But I can’t say shit. So here I am, being “gifted” a bride. You’d think I was a King of an ancient land. Not effectively the CEO of a modern business empire.

This deal doesn’t sit well with me at all. It makes me feel dirty. It makes me feel like a sex offender, even being in the car with her. I mean how goddamn young is she? My jaw clenches. It makes me feel older, in a lecherous way. It makes me feel like Don Bernardo. The man is pushing eighty-five, and he’s on his fourth wife. This one is about twenty-eight. True love, I’m sure, I think sardonically.

But men like that, from an older generation? They see an arrangement like that as a mark of pride. To a man like Bernardo, a fourth trophy wife a third his age is like buying a new Maserati. It’s like acquiring a new summer home on the Riviera, or a yacht.

The thought makes my jaw clench even tighter. No, this deal doesnotsit well with me. It’s made worse ten-fold by it coming from Anton.

I’ve always had a distaste for the Russians and their way of doing business. That includes the women they traffic and the drugs they sell. The Scaliami family has never dealt in women. But when I was crowned king of operations stateside for the Scaliami family, I put a stop to the drugs. I made it clear to Salvestro and Bernardo that if they wanted me in charge, we’d be out of the drug game. Given what I brought to the table, they agreed.

But now, here we are. I’m making deals like this shit with the likes of Anton Korolyov. I have a goddamn Russian bride who looks half my age. I frown and turn to look at her in the quiet, dark backseat of the car. Christ, she does speak English, doesn’t she?

My eyes drink her in. She looks scared. She’s huddled to one side of the backseat. Her hand are clenched tight on the lap of her cream dress. Her legs are ridged, knees together. Her eyes look out the window at the passing night as the city fades behind us. The glimmer of streetlights sends shimmers down her long red hair.

Fuck, she’s mesmerizingly gorgeous. It makes me frown. Not because I don’t like looking at her. I do, and I like the thoughts that looking at her bring to my head. But I don’t like that I like it. I shouldn’t like it.

Katrina turns her head. She gasps when she sees me staring at her, startled by me. But I don’t look away. Neither does she. She just peers into my eyes. It’s like she wants to say something but doesn’t have the words.

“Do you speak English?”

She blushes. She smiles a shy, quiet smile and nods. “Yes,” she says in perfect English with only the faintest hint of an accent. “I’ve been here since I was seven.”

“Which was how many years ago, exactly?” I growl.

Her blush deepens, and I know she understands what I’m asking her.

“Sixteen years ago.”

I groan inside. Christ, she’s twenty-three. Good God, I’m twenty fucking years older than her.

“You’re really Anton’s niece?”

She nods.

“Bad luck.”

She smiles shyly, understanding the joke. I grin to myself. Well, there’s some common ground. At least it seems we can both agree that her uncle is a piece of shit. I turn back to my own window. She looks out of hers. The car drives through the night in silence, back to my estate. My eyes keep steeling glances at her thighs beneath the edge of the dress. When I try to look away from that, it’s the rest of her I’m drinking in.

Eventually, we pull through the front gates. Katrina’s jaw drops a little. A hint of smile plays across my jaw. I like that she’s impressed.

“This is your house?” she whispers.

“It is.”

“You live here alone?”

Alone with two cooks, three maids, a butler, two drivers, a head of security and about fifteen armed men. But very much alone.

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