Page 16 of The Sexy Billionaire

“Go home. I promise I’ll sort it out. Allegra is right though, we can’t cancel the engagement party. It will damage our family’s reputation and that is going to hurt our parents. Papa’s heart won’t be able to take it. The media will have a field day with the news.”

“It’s not fair though,” Natalia adds.

“No, it’s not. And none of this is your fault, Gio. You’ve been thrown into the middle of a shitshow not of your making.”

He’s right. I let out a heavy sigh as I run my fingers through my hair. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do, to make sure Papà is okay.”

Luca nods before he turns and heads back into the party.

6

PAIGE

Ipress the buzzer to my brother’s apartment repeatedly until he finally answers.

“What the hell, Paige? What’s going … oh shit, why are you crying? What happened? Quick, come up. I’m going to fucking kill him, aren’t I?” he curses as he presses the button to let me into his complex. I shuffle into the foyer and head toward the lift, then press the button to his floor and slowly head on up. As soon as the doors open, he’s there.

“Paige, what happened?” he asks as he looks me over for any visual damage, but it’s all internal; that man ripped my heart out and threw it in the trash in the alley at the back of our restaurant. I drop my suitcases and wrap myself around him, and he does the same, hugging me tightly. He’s not normally this huggy with me.

“It’s going to be okay, I promise. Whatever he did, I’m going to make him pay,” he whispers into my ear.

“Don’t hurt him,” I mumble as I know Smith will make good on his threat toward Michael; he’ll probably get his brothers in blue to help him.

“Everything would be above board. I’m a cop,” he says, giving me a smirk as he grabs my suitcases and ushers me into his apartment. “Go take a seat and I’ll get you something strong to drink,” he says as he slides my suitcases to the side before ushering me toward the sofa. I curl myself up into a ball, hoping to wake from a terrible dream, that what I witnessed earlier didn’t happen.I can wake up now, universe. Enough is enough.

“Here, drink this,” Smith says, shoving an opened bottle of wine into my hand. I take a swig and let the fruity concoction settle me. “Do you want me to call in reinforcements? They might be better at all this. I mean, I’m good, but you know,” he asks.

“Yes, please.”

He gives me a nod as he pulls his phone from his pocket and starts calling my two besties, Callie and Savannah. I take another sip from the bottle; I don’t know if there is enough wine to erase how I feel, but I’m sure I can try.

“It’s an emergency. I think Michael fucked up. You need to drop everything and get here, and tell the other one,” I hear my brother say before hanging up. “The girls will be here soon,” he says, walking into the kitchen and grabbing himself a beer from the fridge before coming back and taking a seat on the sofa beside me. He cracks open the beer and takes a large swig before reclining back and placing his arm along the back of the sofa, not quite touching me. I can see he’s a little out of his element. “I love you, Paige. Whatever it is I’m here for you,” he says gruffly before throwing back half his drink.

“I know,” I say as I roll over and curl into his side. “Why do men suck?” I ask him.

He lets out a sigh. “Not all men, sis, just French dickheads.”

We both sit in silence, drinking our drinks.

Twenty minutes later, his door buzzes and relief falls across my brother’s face. Smith doesn’t do well with female emotions,or maybe it’s just mine he can’t handle. He walks over and buzzes in my girls. Moments later, I can hear talking and my two besties come rushing in.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Callie states angrily.

“Maybe don’t say that in front of an NYPD officer.” Savannah chuckles.

“I’ll make sure the crime scene is spotless,” my brother adds, giving Savannah a wink as he throws back the rest of his beer.

I’ve known Callie Campbell my entire life; we grew up together, both from the same town in Upstate New York. Her mom and my mom were teachers and our dads both worked on the police force together, so it was inevitable that we would be friends as we were always around each other. Her older brother, Lane, is best friends with mine. We bonded as we both hated that we had older brothers who annoyed the hell out of us.

Then we were introduced to Savannah King, this gorgeous, radiant, wild Australian girl, who had moved to New York with her family as they built their bar and nightclub empire. Her older brother, Owen, was friends with Smith and Lane and introduced us to Savannah as Callie and I were looking for an apartment to rent. I had moved back from Italy and Callie had moved down from upstate to go to law school in the city. Owen was worried about his younger sister living in her apartment by herself. He also didn’t like the fact that a lot of girls would try and befriend her so they could get closer to him and his cousins, who were famous in the city for being the party boys. So, he asked if we were interested, knowing we were not like some of the girls she had met; it was going to be free rent as they owned the apartment.Who could turn that down in the city?He wanted us to take her under our wing and keep an eye on her; little did we know what a full-time job that was going to be. When we met her at her multi-million-dollar apartment in Tribeca and she welcomed us in with a glass of champagnein one hand and vegemite toast in the other, her blonde hair pulled up in a messy bun, T-shirt and sweatpants with fluffy slippers, we knew she was our kind of people. We lived together for years, right up until I met Michael and Callie bought her own apartment.

“What happened?” Callie asks, taking a seat beside me on the sofa, grabbing the bottle of wine from my hand, and taking a large swig. I grab it off her and do the same, needing the alcohol to help me get through the story. And so I tell them how I came home from Italy and found my husband fucking the sous chef.

“I can make this fucker disappear,” my brother says angrily.

“I think you should take your brother up on it,” Callie adds with a smirk.

Smith paces up and down the room. I know he’s trying to calm himself down, so he doesn’t go off and do something that could land him in jail.

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