by Lisa Cardiff
Tony interlaced his fingers and inverted them, the cracking noise booming in the tight hallway of my house. “I don’t know, G. She told me she wanted to go out. Then she got mad that I was going with her, and she went to the bathroom. When she didn’t come out after twenty minutes, I knocked on the door. She didn’t answer, and I kicked it open.” He lifted and dropped one of his gorilla shoulders. “She was gone.”
“Obviously.” I glared at the still open window, the white shade flapping in the breeze. “What time did she go into the bathroom?”
“Around 9:30.”
I glanced at my watch. “That was an hour ago. She could be anywhere by now.”
He frowned. “She’s your fiancée. What’s the big fucking deal? She’ll be back. I think she’s got her panties in a bunch because you’ve been ignoring her.”
I clenched my teeth. “I’m not ignoring her. I’ve been busy. We have a lot of shit going on right now no thanks to you and your trigger happy finger.”
Dominick had lost his mind when Tommy Calvo turned up dead. As I suspected, the whole thing fell on my head despite the fact Tony had pulled the trigger. Of course, Carlo had been whispering in Dominick’s ear for the past three days, feeding him a pile of half-truths meant to take me down a notch.
He smirked. “Yeah, I’ve heard exactly how busy you’ve been with that new bartender at the club. Carlo told me she’s been glued to your dick for days.”
I rolled my shoulders, tamping down my anger. Tony needed to back the hell off. “I’m training her.”
“Right,” he scoffed, waggling his eyebrows like a circus clown. “Training her to suck your dick. I heard you took her back to—”
Hooking my fingers into the collar of his shirt, I yanked him closer to me. “What I do or don’t do is none of your business.” I pulled him fractionally closer to me, my nose not quite touching his. “Got it?”
I hadn’t done much of anything with the new bartender, Angela, and not for a lack of trying. She was exactly my type before I met Evangeline. Long blondish hair, curvy as sin, and a bubbly personality that promised straightforward, uncomplicated fun. I even dug the way her cute ass swayed from side to side when she strutted around the bar.
However, every time I tried to seal the deal, I couldn’t do it. My fucking fake fiancée popped in my head, and guilt twisted in my gut. I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to, and I didn’t—especially not to Tony.
Three nights ago, I invited Angela up to the apartment above the club for a drink. After a taking a few shots, she peeled off her dress and sprawled out the kitchen table. On autopilot, I wrapped her legs around my waist and crashed my lips against hers. And all I could think about was Evie.
It stopped me in my tracks for few seconds. Once I mentally shoved her image away, I spent two minutes groping, touching, and all around pretending, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel a thing. Not even a micro-twitch in my dick.
She tasted wrong. She smelled wrong. Her rock-hard hairsprayed hair felt wrong. Everything about her was wrong because she wasn’t Evie—the one woman who would never be mine. Disgusted with her and myself, I asked her to leave, and I’d been avoiding her like a communicable disease ever since.
Without question, the whole thing was stupid, and I hadn’t been thinking clearly. If word trickled back to Carmela that I touched Angela, no matter how fleeting, she’d likely rip my dick off.
The night in my office with Evie haunted me. Her scent. Her strawberry hair that looked like flames when the light hit it. Her long, toned legs. Her pouty lips.
And so much more.
All of it made me desperate to get Evie out of my head. Allowing our relationship to become intimate would be a huge misstep. I had been dodging my parents’ calls for days. They heard I was in a serious relationship, and my mom was over the moon. Generally, she never expressed much interest in my love life, which meant this thing with Evie could quickly spiral out of control, and I’d find myself exchanging vows with a woman I didn’t know anything about solely to keep my parents happy.
Tony raised his hand in surrender. “I’m not passing judgment. You can do whatever you want. I don’t understand why you’re so set on marrying this chick when you’re still playing the field.”
Feeling deflated, I shoved him away from me. “Yeah, well, I have my reasons.”
He looped his thumbs over his leather black belt with a shiny gold buckle. “I gotta admit your relationship doesn’t make sense. You’re still young, and it’s not like your old man is pushing you to get married.” He paused. “Or is he? I heard his treatment isn’t going well.”
I swallowed over the boulder-sized lump in my throat. My dad looked worse every day. He’d lost too much weight, and he spent most of his time in bed. While he claimed it was the chemo, I knew he didn’t have much time left.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “My dad doesn’t have anything to do with it. He’s got enough on his plate without worrying about my love life.”
“Yeah, I know.” He glanced to the side and cleared his throat. “I walked the block, and I didn’t see any trace of her.”
“Did you track her phone?”
He blinked. “Her phone?”
What an idiot. “Remember I installed that cell phone tracking app on her phone? As long as she doesn’t shut it off, we can tell where she is.”
He ruffled his hand through his hair. “I didn’t pay attention when you were explaining it. I didn’t get why you’d need to keep tabs on your fiancée. Most women don’t try to evade their soon-to-be husband.”
“Yeah, well, Evangeline isn’t most women, ya’ know?” I mumbled, padding down the hall to the study.
He snickered. “I see that now.”
I logged onto my laptop and pulled up the tracking program. A few taps on the keyboard and I had an address. I typed it into Google.
“She’s at the Marriott.” I pulled my car keys from my pocket. “I’ll be back within the hour.”
“What are you going to do? Break into her room and demand she comes back here with you?”
I shrugged. “If I have to.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “What’s really going on with this chick? You’ve barely given her a second thought all week. She looks like she sucked on a lemon every time I mention your name. You don’t sleep in the same bedroom. And now, she jumps out of the window and flees in the middle of the night. That’s not normal behavior for a couple in love.” He angled his head to the side. “Hell, that’s not normal behavior for a couple in like.”
“It’s complicated.” I scrubbed my hand down the side of my face, inhaling a deep breath through my nose, frustration coursing through me. Evie’s actions made it difficult to keep her safe. Tony’s suspicion didn’t bode well for my charade to keep Evie out of harm’s way. It was only a matter of time before everything blew up in my face.
“Complicated, how?”
My mind raced for a simple explanation for the treacherous game we were playing. The temptation to tell the truth weighed heavy in my thoughts. The minute I opened my mouth to confide in Tony, I stopped. If my father taught me anything over the years, it was that I couldn’t trust anyone, especially with my words and thoughts. According to him, they could become my worst enemy, and right now, I understood exactly what he meant. I made my bed, and I needed to keep my mouth shut and stay the course.
If I confessed to lying about my relationship with Evie, Dominick would lose it. Except now Evie wouldn’t be the only one with her ass on the line. Dominick would consider my lie a betrayal of the family, and in a matter of days, we’d both find ourselves on the Trassato hit list. My position, my dad, Dominick being my uncle—none of it would matter.
“We got in a fight. There’s nothing to tell.”
“A fight about what?”
“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. Since when do I have to answer to you?” I opened the front door. “Fatt’ i cazzi tuoi. Now get out of here. I don’t need yo
u anymore tonight.”
His dark brows snapped together. “I thought you still needed to take care of some stuff at the club.”
“Yeah, well, plans change.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “In fact, it’s the weekend. Go do whatever you need to do for a couple of days. I need some time alone with Evie.”
“Well, you watch yourself, got it? We don’t need any trouble with Carlo breathing down our necks.” He jerked up his chin and slapped my shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything, eh?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Evangeline
My eyes fluttered open, and I blinked a few times, struggling to adjust to the inky darkness of the room. After checking into the hotel, I stripped off my shoes and my jeans and climbed into the bed in a long-sleeve shirt. Worrying had kept me from sleeping soundly for days, so it didn’t surprise me when I feel asleep almost immediately.
I glanced at the clock.
12:58 a.m. and I was fully awake.
Sighing, I moved to switch on the lamp on the nightstand. Mid-reach, the shadows shifted, and I realized what had woken me. A man stood at the side of my bed.
My heart banged against my ribcage with enough force that I was surprised I didn’t hear a bone crack. A scream burst from my lips, but like lightning, a hand covered my mouth. I dug my fingernails into the man’s hands, thrashing, my hair curtaining my face.
“Jesus, Evie. Relax. It’s me.”
I froze, and my vision focused on the man looming over me, his features hidden in the shadows.
“Gian?” I whispered when he lifted his hand. “What are you doing here?”
He flipped on the light next to the bed. “What do you think I’m doing here?” he asked, his quiet response laced with enough displeasure to make my stomach to flip over.
I scrambled to sit up, my back pressed against the wooden headboard, clutching the starched white sheet to my chest. “I…I…” I swallowed over the emotion stuck in my throat. “I don’t know.”
Pacing along the side of the bed, he pointed his finger at me, his eyes heavy-lidded. “You think I should ignore the fact that my fiancée climbed out of my bathroom window and checked into a hotel across town? You think I should go on with my life and pretend you didn’t make me into some fucking joke and put both of us in danger with your half-assed plan to escape? You think that’s reasonable? You think that sounds like something I would do?”
I curled my fingers a little tighter around the sheet. “Fake fiancée,” I said through gritted teeth.
He halted. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything.” I tossed the sheet off my legs and jumped out of the bed. I wouldn’t get anywhere, cowering under the covers like a frightened child. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I planted my palm against the center of his chest, ignoring the wall of muscles underneath the pads of my fingers. “Nothing I do is your business. Not where I go. Not who I talk to. Hell, if I wanted to go out and fuck strangers at the bar night after night, you couldn’t say a damn thing because we have a fake relationship. You get that? Fake. Let me spell it for you in case you didn’t catch what I said: F. A. K. E.”
His hand clamped around the back of my neck, pulling me closer to him. I could see every tiny fleck of green and gold in his volatile eyes. “You’re wrong. As long as you’re under my protection, you will do everything I tell you. If I say jump, you jump. If I ask you to demonstrate a pirouette or whatever the hell you dancers do, you’ll do ten. And if you so much as look at another—”
My heart rate skyrocketed, and my vision dwindled to a pinprick. I couldn’t hear over the rage swirling inside of my head.
“No,” I said without thinking about the consequences of my answer. I knew better than to taunt this man.
His eyes darkened. “No?” The single word floated from his lips in slow motion. He released my hand, and I stumbled backward, the backs of my thighs colliding with the edge of the mattress. “Let me be clear. If you so much as feign interest in another man, I will destroy him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, my eyes flaring.
His temple ticked hard. “Exactly what you think it means. In my world, a man who can’t keep his fiancée in line loses respect. He isn’t a real fucking man.”
Smoke-like tendrils of defeat coiled around my chest, and I plopped down on the bed, burying my face in my hands. “Why are you doing this? I just want out. I don’t get it. I’ll sign a blood oath, pledge my first-born, or get lobotomy. Whatever you want. Name it, and end this farce.”
The bed dipped next to me, and we sat side-by-side in silence. My skin prickled with awareness. The suffocating weight of my predicament flooded the air, making me feel more claustrophobic than I’d ever divulge out loud. Although I wanted to ask him to go, I knew the request would be in vain.
He pried my hands away from my face and pinned them to my sides. “I’m trying to protect you, Evangeline, I really am. You need to stop fighting me every step of the way. Play by my rules for a little longer, and you’ll get your life back.”
I twisted my torso to face him. “I will?”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and the pads of his fingers tarried along the side of my neck. I could only describe the look in his eyes as torn and adoring. My pulse raced under his fingertips. “You will.”
I swayed toward him, and his arm circled my shoulders, pulling me next to him. “You promise?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, his warm breath ruffling the top of my hair. “You need to stop fighting me, though. Tony is already suspicious, and while I trust him with my life, he could say something to someone who wants to take me down.”
“Like who?”
“All you need to know is that the threat is real. These people kill first and ask questions later. What you saw that night at my club is nothing. They don’t give second chances.”
“You did,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know why I did it. I shouldn’t have. It’s probably going bite me in the ass.” He pinched his eyes closed for a second, and I missed the attention. The heat. Something warm and welcoming swirled inside of me whenever he focused on me. “Now we’re stuck.”
I brushed my hand down the side of his face, and his stubble pricked at my fingertips. “I know. I’m sorry. I just…” I didn’t know what to say. In retrospect, my actions were selfish. I’d snapped under the pressure that had been building long before I met him. “I hate being alone all the time.”
“What about Carmela?” he murmured, staring down at me through hooded lids.
I paused long enough to take a few stuttering breaths. “What about her?”
He ran a callused thumb across my lips, and my heart squeezed. Damn him. I didn’t want to feel anything around him. All week, I had tried without much success to wipe the memory of our kiss from my brain. Late at night, when I couldn’t sleep, my thoughts would inevitably circle back to him.
The feel of his hands against my skin, his taste, his scent.
And then I couldn’t sleep because I’d spend hours analyzing why I couldn’t stop thinking about him when he hadn’t shown me a flicker of interest in days. Until now…
His hand tightened on my shoulder, bringing my thoughts back to this moment.
“Why don’t you give her a call? I’m sure she’d be happy to hang out with you.”
I swallowed back the pain inching up the walls of my throat. I needed Carmela, more now than ever. I couldn’t do this without her. Over the last year, she’d had my back through every up and down. Now it looked as though I had used up all of her patience. “She’s pissed at me. She hates me. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
His brows crinkled together. “That doesn’t make sense. Of course she doesn’t hate you.”
I swiped the back of my hand across my eyes, attempting to erase the tears leaking out of the corner of my eyes. Stupid tears. Stupid me. Could I be any more pathetic?
“She really does. I
called her a couple of times this week, and I might as well have been talking to a wall. She’s pissed about us. She thinks I’ve been lying to her for months. She thinks I was cheating on Kevin with you.”
His lips thinned. “Did she say that?”
“No, but I know her. She thinks it.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
My hand curled into the lapel of his jacket. “What are you going to say?”
The corners of mouth lips twitched, and he braced his forehead against mine. “I’ll think of something.”
“Maybe we should—”
He cut me off by kissing me, except it wasn’t any old, forgettable kiss. His mouth consumed mine, stealing the words I needed to say. Stealing the thoughts I wanted to hide. He lingered, taking his time as if nothing mattered except his lips against mine.
I lit up one nerve ending at a time like a choreographed firework display.
Boom. Pop. Crash.
With every explosion, another chink in my armor dissolved. Armor I desperately needed to get out of this mess with my heart, soul, and career intact.
Unbidden, a moan slipped out of my mouth.
“You like that?” he said, his voice scratchy. His eyes were hypnotic, his lips curled up in invitation. He was intoxicating. Addictive.
He was going to be my downfall.
Motionless, I stared at him, acutely aware that we sat on a bed in a hotel room alone. Picturing him running those calloused hands all over me should have made me nauseous. For some reason, it didn’t. Images of twisted sheets, the hot slide of skin against skin, and his naked frame above me flashed through my mind.
My eyes popped wide with panic, and I scrambled to my feet, needing to sever the hold he had on me. He shot me a cocky grin that managed to simultaneously irritate me and make me want the wrong things. Things that would only muddle our situation. Things that would only send more mixed signals. Both of us knew the end game, and it wasn’t a happily-ever-after. I didn’t need to invest time in another tragic love story. Been there, done that. Got the visual of my ex screwing someone else tattooed on my brain.