The room had gone silent, and no one knew how to react. Some tried, but they couldn’t hide their respect for Damian. Pride and melancholy warred within me as people other than me recognized the type of man Damian was. One of honor, respect, and worth.
I gathered my voice and broke the silence. “The Rossi family may begin.”
The clack of typing sounded from the transcriber again as Rafaello began to speak. “The Rossi family declines to put forth an agenda in respect for Vincent Romano’s passing.”
I clenched my free fist beneath the table to tamper my emotions. The Rossi family had followed Damian’s lead and passed on an opportunity for leverage. Vincent—the same Vincent who had watched Disney flicks with me and taught me that it was okay to cry—had managed peace, even in his death.
I nodded to Marco Camerino, who cleared his throat. “The Camerino family declines to put forth an agenda in respect for Vincent Romano’s passing.”
Damian squeezed my hand beneath the table, and I knew he understood how much this meant to me. I kept my face neutral as I nodded to Ranieri Andretti. Tension rose in the room, which I didn’t bother dissolving.
He deserved it for killing Vincent, no matter the circumstances. It might have ended the Andretti-Romano war, but the expense had been far greater than any of us wanted to pay.
Sorrow built in Ranieri’s eyes, and he gave a soft sigh. “The Andretti family declines to put forth an agenda in respect for Vincent Romano’s passing.”
I turned to Gio Romano, who didn’t need my encouragement to speak. “The Romano family declines to put forth an agenda in respect for Vincent Romano’s passing.”
And there it was.
For the first time in the history of the syndicates, no one leveraged for power. I dismissed the meeting, and an odd sense of peace gushed into me as leaders exchanged handshakes and the head of the Romano family clapped Damian on the shoulder and drew him into a hug.
The room emptied until only Damian and I remained.
I flipped through the book, so I had something to do with my hands and eyes. “Thank you.”
“Ren,” he murmured.
I refused to look at him, but my heart sped up, too quick for the emotions that clogged me.
“Ren.”
“Mhm?” I kept my eyes on the book. Being a good liar had its perks, but today, my skills evaded me. I’d bet I looked plain stupid staring at a book while Damian watched beside me. I definitely felt stupid.
Damian reached out and slammed the book shut. “Look at me, Knight.”
I dragged my eyes to his face. “I’m not good at this.”
“Using your eyes?”
I rolled my eyes and stared straight ahead. I counted backward from ten to settle my heart, which beat too quickly thanks to him.
“Shit. This isn’t going how it’s supposed to go.” He kneeled next to me, reached for my face, and gently tipped it toward him until I stared back at him. He held an earnest expression on his face. Open. Honest.
Basically, the opposite of mine.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I may have swooned a little.
“I just want to thank you, Knight.” His hand still cupped my face, and his thumb brushed my cheek. “Accept my gratitude. There’s nothing hard about it.”
But there was, because accepting gratitude felt impossible beside the guilt I felt when it came to Damian. He had nothing to thank me for after I had run away from him and left him alone in that house with his dad. If anything, I should have apologized profusely to him. Another thing I could never bring myself to do.
I stared at Damian.
Silent.
His disappointed sigh struck me as he shook his head, then walked away.
The worst part was, I deserved his disappointment—and worse.
Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.
André Malraux
Functioning alcoholics.
Every mafioso was a functioning alcoholic.
At least, they might as well have been with how many excuses they found to drink over the course of the funeral processions. After the peace meeting, the accords needed to be signed in front of an audience of upper-level Camerino, Andretti, Rossi, De Luca, and Romano members, followed by a toast and a round of drinks at L’Oscurità.
I kept to myself after sprawling my signature across the accords album and taking the requisite shot. Another shot slid in front of me, and I took it, too. I liked having control. Growing up in a mafia environment encouraged me to find power anywhere I could, and that started with myself. So, the urge to get drunk and forget about Damian caught me off guard.
I couldn’t be the first to leave, so I found a corner table booth and cradled a single malt between my palms—one-hundred percent aware of how I looked and unable to gather an ounce of care.
“They say you’re a big, bad Vitali,” a soldier slurred as he slid his way into the booth beside me, probably ten shots past drunk. His dad was a capo, maybe. “I have something big and bad to show you.” He leaned into me, the scent of alcohol and jackass invading my personal bubble.
I raised my hand to push him off the bench, but a shadow approached the table, and he was unceremoniously yanked out of the booth and onto his ass.
The soldier looked up to Damian from the floor and scrambled to get up, stumbling along the way. When he finally settled on both legs, he stood level with Damian’s shoulder. “I’m a fucking Camerino. Do you know who my dad is?!”
“No, but I know who I am.”
“Who are you?”
The boredom in Damian’s icy tone layered tension in the air as he looked down at the soldier and spoke, “I’m Damiano De Luca,”—the soldier’s eyes widened, and I could practically see him sobering by the second—“and you’ll show me respect.”
The soldier’s mouth opened, and he floundered for something to say before accepting the lifeline one of his friends threw him when they called his name from a few tables down. Neither me nor Damian watched as he stumbled away from us.
Our gazes never wavered from one another. The silence between us throbbed, expanded, and engorged until I finally broke it.
“Damian.” I pulled a lock of hair away from my face and raised a brow. “This isn’t a werewolf romance, you aren’t my alpha, and you don’t get to mark territory you don’t own. I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.”
“That was hardly a battle, Princess.”
“And it was hardly your business, Damsel.”
He cut to the chase, “Eventually, this push and pull will get old, and you’ll find yourself wondering why you bothered putting up a front in the first place. Give in, Renata. You have so many walls up all the damn time, always so scared. Take a leap for once in your life.”
I raised my chin. “I take leaps.”
He looked unimpressed as he stood in front of me in the corner booth, his body providing privacy from lurking eyes. “Name one.”
My eyes narrowed, and I tilted to the side to fully face him, my legs dangling off the edge of the booth bench. “This.” My hand reached out, and I gripped onto his belt buckle.
“Princess…” His voice started as a warning but trailed off as I slid my fingers down and stroked him through his pants. “What are you doing?”
Good question.
Was I trying to prove something to myself or him?
Either way, I didn’t stop. He grew hard in my palm, and I wanted to feel him skin to skin, but I was all too aware of the crowd of people behind him. His hand stopped my movement, and he took a step back. I dropped my hand to my side and studied him.
He reached out and cupped my chin between his thumb and pointer finger. “This isn’t you.”
I pulled away from his touch. “So, first you want me to take a leap, and then you tell me that it’s not me when I do. Which is it, Damian, because even whiplash would struggle to keep up with you.”
“Stroking my cock in public is hot, but it’s not a leap. It’s a dis
traction, and I see past it. I see past you.”
I’d forgotten what it felt like to have Damian push my boundaries, to have him reach under my skin like only he could. In that moment, what I’d just walked into slapped me in the face. If I were being honest, I knew seeing Damian again would happen when Maman asked me to represent the Vitali. I could pretend that I did this for Maman, but the truth was, I chose to come. After leaving for ten years, I chose to see Damian again. I chose this.
Why in the world did I choose this?
Damian must not have liked what he saw on my face because he put more distance between us and said, “I’ll see you at the dinner tonight, Princess, and I hope you’ll surprise me.”
And maybe I hoped I would, too.
Deception may give us what we want for the present, but it will always take it away in the end.
Rachel Hawthorne
It felt wrong to celebrate after a death. I could handle the funeral on day one. I could understand the negotiations on day two. But celebrating Vincent’s death on day three rubbed me the wrong way.
“You’re celebrating his life, Renata.”
I hated myself for making Maman talk about this. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
Lucy waved at me, and I waved back, thankful that I’d chosen this moment to call Maman. The last thing I wanted to do was socialize. Asher Black, her husband and the Romano family’s former fixer, stood beside her, his arms wrapped fully around his wife from behind. Bastian, Ariana, Niccolaio Andretti, and a redhead stood with them. The six of them looked like the popular kids in a 90s flick—too untouchable to be approached.
I looked away.
Maman’s stern voice reached my ears. “You’re on the phone at a party intended for Vincent. That is what is not right.”
My eyes skimmed the ballroom. Situated in a hotel owned by Asher, the ballroom’s elegance matched the rest of the building. Crystal chandeliers. Pietra Firma marble flooring. Pearl accents. Still, I couldn’t appreciate the refined beauty. My stomach churned with emotions, and I tried to blame it on this event.
Of course, Maman saw past me.
“Renata Vitali, you are lying to me, and I do not appreciate it.” She let out a curse in French. “I try to understand you, but I cannot understand how you can love a boy and not try to be with him.”
I didn’t bother pointing out the parallels between my situation with Damian and her situation with Vincent. It would be cruel in light of Vince’s death. Regardless, I’d never call my mom out. She was strong but also fragile in moments, and it was the latter which encouraged me to let her be.
I ignored the fact that even my mom was calling me out on my lies and twisted the wedding ring around my finger, my movements absentminded. When I realized what I was doing, I settled for adjusting the deep V of my red floor-length evening gown. “I don’t love anyone besides you, Maman.”
I cursed karma because Damian chose that moment to walk into the room. I couldn’t look at his hands without remembering how they looked holding worn paperbacks over the hundreds of nights we’d spent reading together in his library. I couldn’t look at his lips without remembering the substance in our conversations and the fact that I had only ever shed my walls for him. I couldn’t look at his eyes without remembering how they stared into mine when I’d given him my virginity then left after he had told me he loved me. And I would never, ever retrieve the piece of me I’d given him in Devils Ridge.
“Renata?”
Damian’s eyes skimmed the room and connected with mine in an instant.
“Yeah, I’m still here.” Barely. “I just spaced out.”
He took a step toward me.
“Are you okay up there?”
I tracked his path to me, Maman’s words barely registering. I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “I’ll be fine.” My phone slipped a little in my clammy palm. “I just wanted to give you an update. The roundtable went well.”
Someone stopped to talk to Damian, and relief swept through me as his progress halted. But then the woman leaned too close to him and laughed at what he said. Her fingers rested on the lapels of his finely tailored suit, and I stilled.
You don’t own him, Renata.
He’s not yours.
Don’t make the same mistake twice.
Protect yourself.
“Renata? Renata!”
“Sorry. Someone was talking to me.”
Another lie for the books.
Maman cleared her throat. “What were the demands?”
I hesitated. “There were none.”
The conversation between Damian and the woman ended, and Damian turned back to me. Our eyes locked, and I stuttered a shaky breath out.
Maman gasped. “What do you mean?”
He was nearly here.
“I mean”—I took a deep breath—“no one requested anything in exchange for the peace period. They just… agreed to it out of respect for Vincent.” Silence filled the line. I couldn’t imagine what went through her mind as I spoke. “Maman?”
A few more steps now.
“That’s great.” She cleared her throat, and my heart tightened for her and chastised me for focusing on Damian when my mom needed me. “I’ll, uh… I’ll log the transcription into the archives when you drop them off.”
Damian stopped in front of me, and my eyes traveled from his shined shoes, to the way his tailored pants stretched across his thighs, to the perfect fit of his white button down, to his defined jawline, to his eyes, which stared at me with an arched brow.
He mouthed, “Stop checking me out.”
My jaw dropped a bit. I made a point of rolling my eyes and swiveled, so he faced my back, breaking the spell.
What had Maman and I been talking about? Right. Logging the transcription.
I cleared my throat. “Will it bring attention to Ariana De Luca?”
“No.” A ruffling played on Maman’s end. “I’ll make sure of it. And don’t think I don’t know that you’re only interested in Ariana because of her brother.”
I ignored the last half of her words. “Thank you.” My eyes cut to Damian’s as he walked around me to stand in my line of sight. “I have to go.”
“Remember to drop those walls, Renata.”
“Bye, Maman.” I ended the call and slid my phone into my clutch.
Damian crossed his arms. “What’d she say?”
“Nothing.”
In no scenario would I tell Damian that my mom all but begged me to drop the walls I had built around me. For him, no less.
“She’s my sister, Knight. Don’t I deserve to know what your mom said?”
Oh.
Right.
Of course, that was what he was talking about.
“She said there’d be no problems. Everything’s good.”
He nodded, taking my word just like that. His eyes skimmed the ballroom. “Does this remind you of prom?”
Prom, where I had shared my first kiss with him.
My eyes shifted to his lips.
His eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer. “Ren.” His voice was deep and guttural and touched me in places he didn’t belong.
I couldn’t understand why he still tried to talk to me. I was nothing but walls and a shady past. His efforts to talk to me defied logic, and I was sick of not understanding his motivations.
“Why are you talking to me, Damsel?” I shook my head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just want to know why you’re giving me your time. Our history isn’t pretty.”
“Why do you always focus on the bad stuff?”
“Look around, Damsel!” I nodded my head to the pictures of Vincent at the front of the ballroom. There were dozens more on easels throughout the room. “Bad stuff happens! People in this world don’t gather together because good things happen. We’re here because the bad things matter.”
“You had my back in the showdown between me, Ariana, and Bastian. You had my back in the roundtable negotiations. You have alw
ays had my back.”
If he kept going, his logic would break my shield, and I’d be vulnerable again, which could not happen. “I can’t talk to you about this. I have to mingle.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. No one wants to talk to me, and you’re out of the mafia game. No one expects you to make rounds of idle chit-chat. You showed your face. That’s all they want.”
“So, what are you suggesting?”
“Talk to me, Princess.”
“Knight,” I corrected automatically. “I’m not the princess. I’m the knight. And we are talking.”
“No, talk to me. Spend the night with me.”
“That’s presumptuous.”
“Not like that, and you know it. Spend the night talking to me.”
I looked around the ballroom, full of people I didn’t know or care about. Then, I looked at him. The only man I’d ever loved.
Damn him for chipping away at my walls.
“I can’t.”
“You can, but you won’t.”
“I don’t know why you’re pushing this!”
“Over the past three days, you stood up for me in front of a law enforcement agent and later in a room full of mafia bosses.” He leaned forward, and I could feel his breath on my ear as he spoke into it. It fanned across my skin. “You’re caring, brave, and badass. And by the end of this trip, you’ll be mine.”
I moved quickly when he backed up, startled by the way I’d leaned into his touch. I was seconds from leaving when I noticed he had my phone in his palm. He must have swiped it when he had leaned into me. Déjà vu hit me hard.
“Phone.” I held out my palm. “My phone, please.”
He typed something into my phone, and I racked my brain for anything damning he could find on it and came up empty. “You really should password protect this. You’re a Vitali, for Christ’s sake.”
“I’m a schoolteacher, not a Vitali.”
“As long as your last name is Vitali, you’re a Vitali.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you. Give me my phone back.”
“Done.” He slid my phone back into my palm. Our fingers touched, and he let his hand linger until I yanked mine back. A smirk lined his lips, and he gave me a mocking two-fingered salute. “See you tonight, Princess.”
Dark Romance Collection: A Sexy, Dark Bundle Page 10