Page 33 of Playing the Sicilian's Game of Revenge

Existential crisis? Ridiculous! This was the purview of pampered, feckless fools. His revenge being about ego, after what that man had done to his mother? An insult of the highest order.

He did not need to react to every insult, though. He choked down the rest of his meal, and then they left the restaurant. He maintained his silence, but she chattered on as they walked out. He hoped it gave the illusion of a happy couple, but he wasn’t sure his expression would fool anyone.

He was determined to get his temper under control on the walk back to the office building, have a foolish, love drunk smile on his face by the time they entered the building, but his temper only seemed to be stoked higher by the sunny day, by her cheerful, inconsequential chatter, the way everywhere he looked there seemed to be a couple holding hands, taking ridiculous selfies, kissing.

He wanted to destroy the image of every last one of them. Instead, he had to walk into their office building, and not snap at anyone who greeted them or spoke to them. He had to get into an elevator with her, the sweet smell of her perfume scenting the air like a drug that threatened to make him forget everything.

When the elevator stopped on her floor, she made a move to say goodbye, but he stopped her.

He got off the elevator with her. “We have something to discuss,” he said under his breath. He thought of leading her to her office with a hand on her back, but something about the silky fabric of her shirt made him think of her skin under his hands, and if he touched her now...

She had her rules, but she had broken his rules by poking at him. She deserved a little turnabout. He would prove to her that she was not in control. She was never in control.

She swept into her office, and he closed her door, him still inside. She turned to face him, all challenge and some inner amused knowing that angered him to no end.

He did not move. For ticking minutes he stayed where he was, looked down at her, and finally watched her swallow in response. She still held on to her bravado from their lunch, but he saw wariness creep into her expression as he took a step toward her and then another.

But with that wariness was the spark of something else. She did not back away. She did not ward him off. She lifted her chin as he approached, as he crowded her. As he took her in his arms.

He said nothing. Words would not get his point across. Words would prove nothing. Kissing her and walking away unmoved would prove it all.

So he crashed his mouth to hers, damn all her ridiculous rules, and devoured. She did not push him away. Her hands slid up his chest, and then her arms banded around his neck. It was proving everything he wanted. She was weak for him.

But proving things and winning points seemed to dissolve as he tasted her again, as she pressed her soft body to his. It had been so long. He felt like a man in the desert, and she was the water he’d been seeking.

Her warmth, the soft give of her mouth, the way she threw herself into a kiss like nothing else could ever matter, and he got just as lost. All that coiled anger and tense frustration leaking out of him. So that the kiss was no longer weapons drawn, a gauntlet thrown, war.

It was peace. It was soft, swirling relief. She melted into him, and he held her as gently as he had after her panic attack. Her hands slid down his back and up again like she was offering comfort. And he found it, there in her mouth, by combing his fingers through her soft hair. She eased all those barbs inside of him so that he only wanted to stay here, exactly here.

Dimly, he heard the sound of his cell ringing and felt the vibrating in his pocket. He might have been content to ignore it if enjoyment had been the point of this endeavor, but he’d lost the point.

He’d lost.

He wrenched his mouth away from her, disgusted by the weakness he’d just discovered in himself. He had been punishing her, but he had failed.

Her eyes were dewy, her lips swollen from him, her hair mussed. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, so perfect in his arms he ached there in his chest. Like a heart could be fooled into believing in love after knowing how it ended.

No. He would never be fooled. He would never love. Life was nothing but a blip, and in that blip he was in control. Never something as useless as a heart.

“You may think you have the upper hand, bedda. But you want me, and it makes you weak. You will always be fooled by me because you want me to love you, but I do not love. I will not love. I do not know what weakness fools humans into thinking love means a damn, but it is as ephemeral as life.”

Her eyes were bright, but her expression did not look devastated the way he wanted it to. And he still held her.

“Yet we live our lives anyway, Teo,” she said softly, her arms still around his neck. “Ephemeral or not.”

He removed her arms, stepped away from her. Shut it down. Iced it out. He did not look at her when he spoke, determined it was because she was beneath him, not because it hurt too much.

“If you mention my mother ever again, I will end this. Here and now. I will end it in the most embarrassing manner I can fathom. And I will get my revenge on Dante without you.”

“But you’ll have gotten your revenge on him, which means I’ll still win too.”

“Trust that if you do not do what I say, I will make sure you never win.” He jerked her door open, but before he could take his leave, she spoke very softly.

“I thought you didn’t care, Teo. These are very big emotions for a man so derisive of them.”

He turned, faced her down this time. The anger so ripe inside of him he knew it was only that. He leaned down, got his face very close to hers so that she would understand the fury she’d unleashed. So no one out there in the hall would hear him speak to her this way. “This is strike one, Saverina. You do not want to get to strike three.” And with that, he turned and left. He told himself it was a power move, but deep down...

He wondered.

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