by Penelope Sky
“So, free babysitters?”
“Yes,” he said with a chuckle. “But good babysitters. Vanessa and I turned out alright.”
“She turned out alright. You…I’m not so sure about.”
He rolled his eyes. “Asshole.”
“Yeah, I know.” I refilled our glasses. “I miss this.”
“I know,” he said as he looked into his glass. “We used to see each other all the time. Now, we hardly talk.”
“That should all change now that I’m living here. We’re only a few miles apart.”
“True. It better change.” He took a drink before he pulled out his phone to check the screen. When he didn’t see anything, he slid it back into his pocket. “Paranoid that I’m gonna miss a call from her.”
“If she knows you’re here, she would just call me next. Chill.”
He chuckled. “When you have a pregnant wife, I’ll tell you to chill.”
Footsteps sounded behind us, and then Mia entered the room. In a red sundress that she bought at the store yesterday, she was beautiful. Blending in perfectly with the hot summer in Tuscany, she looked ready to bask beside the pool. She flinched slightly when she realized I had company. An instant of panic came over her face before she recovered, like she wasn’t sure what to do. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I’m Mia.” She walked up to my cousin and extended her hand. “You must be Carter’s cousin Conway.”
After Conway looked at her, he turned his expression on me, that knowing smile on his lips. Then he turned back to her and shook her hand. “Yes, I’m Conway. And it’s lovely to meet you, Mia. Carter has told me a lot about you. That dress is beautiful, by the way.”
“Thanks,” she said, a soft smile coming onto her lips at his compliment.
I tried not to care that he was being charming with my woman, but it was difficult. Conway was a good-looking Barsetti just the way I was. I didn’t want Mia to find him attractive, not that I should care.
“Carter told me you’re his new roommate,” Conway said. “If he’s being an asshole to you, just give me a call and I’ll straighten him out. He’s a bit stubborn sometimes.”
“A bit?” she teased. “He’s more than a bit.”
Conway laughed. “I like her, Carter. Any woman who talks shit about you is okay in my book.”
She turned to me and placed her hand on my arm. “He may be stubborn, but he’s also very sweet, selfless, and kind. He’s been extremely generous to me, and I could never repay him for what he’s done for me.” She gave me a quick squeeze before she dropped her embrace. “Can I get you guys anything? Make dinner for the two of you?”
The touch was so simple, but it sent chills all the way down my spine. I wanted to yank her back toward me and kiss her. I wanted to lift her onto the kitchen island and pound into her right then and there. She teased me, but she also showed her affection at the same time. She was loyal to me, showing me that I was the only man on her mind.
“No, thank you,” Conway said. “I just stopped by to say hello. I should get back to my wife.”
“She’s having your baby soon, right?” Mia asked.
“Yes,” Conway said with a smile. “It’s good to know Carter talks about me.”
“I don’t,” I countered. “I just talk about your wife.”
He chuckled. “Can’t say I blame you. She’s pretty great.”
“Still not sure how you got her,” I said. “Oh wait, that’s right. You bought her.”
“You wanna die, asshole?” Conway couldn’t keep a straight face, the trace of a smile on his lips. We hadn’t joked around with each other in forever, and now the insults were rolling out one by one.
“We don’t have time for that. Your wife is about to go into labor.”
“You’re lucky for that.” He finished his drink and left the glass on the counter. “By the way, you should talk to your father soon. Once the baby comes, there won’t be much time for that sort of thing.”
“That’s a good point.”
“And if he’s pissed at you, the baby will soften him up.” He clapped my shoulder as he left the kitchen. “It was nice to meet you, Mia.”
“You too, Conway.” She gave him a wave as he walked out.
When he left the house and shut the door behind him, I turned back to Mia.
She smiled in a guilty way. “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have come down here if I knew you had company.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I came around the kitchen island toward her. “You live here, Mia. You can do whatever you want.”
My specific choice of words made her flinch. The carefree smile on her face immediately faded away when she digested the words I spoke. I didn’t think twice about them, but she was still sensitive about her newfound freedom. “Can do whatever I want…”
“Because you can do whatever you want, sweetheart.”
Her eyes shifted away from my face, and she inhaled a deep breath. “I know this doesn’t make any sense, but I always feel bad when I realize how much I have now. I compare it to how it was before, and the memory catches me off-balance.”
I wasn’t a therapist or someone who was capable of understanding such intense emotions. I wished I could help her, but I just couldn’t. “I can only imagine.”
She lifted her gaze to look at me again, and when she didn’t have anything else to say on the subject, she mentioned Conway. “Your cousin is nice.”
“So is his lingerie.” It was worth every penny because it made her slutty and classy at the same time. A beautiful woman like her deserved to be covered in diamonds and lace.
“Are all the Barsettis extremely successful?”
I shrugged. “Seems that way.”
“Must be something in the water.”
“Or something in the blood.” My hand cupped her cheek, and my thumb brushed across her bottom lip. I’d never been threatened by Conway when we picked up women. He was just as handsome as I was, and even a little more famous. But the idea of Mia finding him attractive made me a little jealous. I wanted to be the center of her focus, wanted her eyes to be obedient to my worship.
She chuckled. “Guess so. That’s exciting that you’ll have a second cousin.”
“I feel like they’ll be more of a niece or nephew. Conway has always been a brother to me.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Do you have any siblings?” I’d never asked before.
“No, I don’t. Just me,” she said with a sigh. “When I see the closeness you share, it makes me wish I had the same thing.”
I never took for granted how lucky I was, to have an expansive family that was always loyal to each other. I never felt alone in the world, not even when I was five hours away in a different city. “You do. With Luca.”
A soft smile appeared on her mouth. “Yes, with Luca. I’ve always wanted to give him a sibling. But now I need to let that dream go.”
“I don’t see why that dream isn’t possible.”
“It’s very complicated to reverse the procedure.”
“But not impossible,” I said. “And even if it were, there are other ways to have children. Don’t let Egor stomp on your dream to grow your family. You’ll make it happen.” Encouraging her didn’t make a lot of sense since she was my prisoner. I told her other men weren’t allowed in her life. There was only room for one man between her legs. Since I wasn’t looking for a wife or a family, I couldn’t be what she needed. Since I couldn’t give her what she wanted, this arrangement had an expiration date. I couldn’t keep her forever, and I knew that. Perhaps I’d get tired of her in a year or two, and I could release her back into the wild.
“You’re right, Carter. You always know what to say.” Her hand moved to my arm again, and she squeezed it.
I loved it when she touched me. The movement was kind, but it meant more to me. She comforted me, reminded me that I was the man she held deep affection for. And I was the man who chased her fears away. Now that Conway wasn’t here, my hands wen
t to her hips, and I backed her up into the counter. My lips pressed against hers, and I kissed her slowly, our lips moving together with precise gentleness. Every kiss was purposeful, full of warm breaths and quiet moans. My hands were in her hair, and her hands were glued to my chest. I cradled the back of her head so I could deepen the embrace, devour her with my mouth and tongue. I’d kissed her many times, but that didn’t satisfy my hunger. I’d just fucked her mercilessly the night before, and now I was touching her tenderly, like she was my wife rather than my slave. She did strange things to me, turned me into two very different men. Sometimes I was evil, and sometimes I was kind.
The windows were open and the sunlight shone through, but that didn’t stop me from undoing my jeans and pushing them down with my boxers. I yanked my shirt over my head and tossed it onto the tile before I moved to her pants next. Her jeans and panties were gone before I lifted her onto the counter.
Her arms hooked around my neck, and she folded herself against my body, moving into position so I could have her right then and there. Her fingers dug into my hair, and she gave an abrupt moan when she felt my cock slide in hard. “Carter…I love it when you take me like this.”
I rested my face against hers as I enjoyed the sweetness of her pussy. “Like what, sweetheart?” I wasn’t tying her up and making her submit. We were just two lovers in the heat of the moment. It all started with a simple touch to my arm, an act of possession in front of my cousin.
“Like nothing can stop you from having me.”
My father called me. “Hey, your uncle told me Conway stopped by yesterday. Said you had a fancy place.”
“Yeah.” I sat at the dining table with my laptop in front of me. My second cup of coffee was at my side. I’d finished breakfast a few hours ago, and now it was some time past noon. “He stopped by for a few minutes before he returned to Sapphire.”
“Since you’re taking visitors, how about your mother and I stop by for lunch?”
Normally, I would love that idea. But with Mia around, I didn’t think that would be a good idea. I wanted to speak to my father in private about the situation. “Uh, you know…how about just you?”
He paused for a long time, sensing something was off. “Why just me?”
“Because…I need to talk to you about something.”
It was a silence of disappointment.
I could feel his anger over the phone.
“What the fuck did you do, Carter Barsetti?”
“Just come over, alright? Leave Mom behind, for now.”
“Your mother misses you, Carter.”
“I know…but I don’t want to talk to her about this right now.” My mother would be far more disappointed in me than my father would. I couldn’t handle that. I hated being shunned by her. I hated it when I gave her a broken heart. “It needs to just be you.”
“I’m coming.” He hung up.
I set my phone down and waited, knowing I would be able to feel my father’s wrath before he even arrived at the door.
Mia walked inside, looking cute in a pink apron. “Everything alright, Carter?”
Normally, I would fuck her on the dining table to get my mind off the situation, but since the war was coming to my front doorstep, that wasn’t an option. “My father is coming by right now. I have to tell him about you.”
“Oh…I see. Should I stay out of the way, then?”
“I think that would be best.”
She moved her hand to my shoulder and rubbed the muscle. “Let me know if you need anything.”
I grabbed her hand and brought it to my lips, pressing a kiss to the curve of her palm. “I will, sweetheart.” I released her hand and watched her walk away. My father must have been close by since he arrived five minutes later.
Even his knock sounded angry.
I walked to the front of the house and opened the door, revealing my angry father on the doorstep. His tanned skin was tight across his face and arms, showing chiseled muscles and the hard lines of his jaw. Even though they were a different color, his eyes were just like mine, and his dark hair and Italian features were like mine too. I had slightly softer features, my mother’s legacy. But I possessed his height and his musculature. “Come in.” I stepped out of the way so he could walk into the entryway.
He didn’t make a comment about the house or the grounds. He marched inside, his hostility obvious in the movements of his body. “What is it, Carter? I had to lie to your mother, and I hate doing that.”
“I didn’t ask you to lie to her.”
His eyes flashed with annoyance. “How else would I get over here without bringing her? All she can talk about is the new baby and your place. She’s so excited that you live here now, and she wants to come see you.”
“And I want to see her too.” I led the way into the kitchen, that way our voices wouldn’t echo off the vaulted ceilings and the wooden staircases. “But I have to get this out of the way first.”
“Get what out of the way?” He followed behind me and stopped at the kitchen island. “Your uncle just cleaned up the Skull Kings mess. This better not be another mess to clean up, alright? We’ve got a new Barsetti on the way. We can’t fuck it up for them.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “And no, there’s not another mess.” I truly believed I’d tricked Egor into thinking that corpse belonged to Mia. With his temperament, he would have made an attack by now. There was no way he still had the body because it would have decomposed. He must have dropped it in the ocean over a week ago.
He looked visibly relieved. “Then what is it, son?”
I looked into my father’s face, seeing the way he relaxed when he assumed the situation wasn’t that bad. I didn’t know how to break the truth to him, to tell him I disobeyed him because of a large pile of money. He would be disappointed in me. I knew he would be. I could take responsibility for my mistakes, but watching my father disapprove of my decisions hurt.
I didn’t know where to begin, how to start, so I just blurted things out. “About two months ago, I got a strange phone call from a man named Egor—”
“Oh, this isn’t good…” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Asked me to bid on his sister at the Underground. I told him I wasn’t in the business anymore.”
“Good. Because you shouldn’t be.”
I dropped my gaze for an instant. “Every time I said no, he offered more money. When there was a hundred and fifty million dollars on the table, I caved. I thought this man was admirable for not giving up on his sister. If Carmen were in a bad situation—”
“She would never be in a bad situation because I raised her better than that.”
“Anyway…I went to the Underground and bought her.”
My father’s eyes narrowed, bursts of fire igniting in his gaze. His jaw tightened noticeably as he pressed his lips tightly together. Even the muscles of his arms flexed. His wrath was about to unleash as a bolt of lightning. “Jesus Christ…”
“When I brought her back to the house, she wasn’t like the other women I bought. She was daring, brave, and a bit crazy. She jumped out of my car when I driving sixty kilometers an hour, and she came at me with a knife.”
“Looks like her father raised her right…”
“After talking with Egor, I realized he wasn’t really her brother. It became obvious that he was her former master…that he tortured her and raped her for years. Now he wanted her back, and he was willing to do anything to make that happen.”
Both of his hands tightened into fists. “This story just gets worse and worse…”
“I was supposed to make the trade four weeks after I bought her. I kept my distance from her and didn’t get attached to her. But it was inevitable that she gained my respect. And before I made the trade, she told me something I couldn’t shake off. She told me she had a young son…”
My father didn’t show any pity. “This is why the Skull Kings came after Conway. All this shit was your fault.”
I took the
insult like a man. “Conway and I aren’t sure, but we think so.”
He gripped his skull and started to pace in the kitchen. “You risked all of us for some woman?”
“I didn’t know any of this was going to happen. And for the record, Conway didn’t know anything, not until after I bought her.”
“So that just makes it worse,” he hissed. “My son is the reason all of this bullshit happened. My brother walked into the lion’s den and could have been killed, Carter. I talk shit about your uncle all the time, but make no mistake, I couldn’t live without him.” He got in my face, his hand pushing against my chest. “That man is everything to me. He’s my brother—he’s my blood.” He threw his arms down. “And I could have lost him because of your stupidity.”
I bowed my head, ashamed. “I know…I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” he snapped. “I told you not to go back there, and you did it anyway.”
“I know…”
“You’re practically a billionaire, Carter. Why the fuck did you need more money?”
“Because I’m weak, alright? I’d gotten away with it for years. I thought I could do it one more time.”
He shook his head and started to pace, furious. “Then what the hell happened? Did you give her back?”
I didn’t want to give my answer. “No.”
He halted and gave me a fiery look. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Griffin helped me. I told Egor she killed herself by catching on fire. We found a corpse to replace her, made him believe it was her, and then it ended. I moved out here to have more privacy so he wouldn’t spot her somewhere.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“He believed it, Father. It’s been weeks, and I haven’t heard from him. He’s temperamental, so he would have done something by now.”
He gripped his skull again. “I should beat the shit out of you right now.”