Naz & Roz (Cross + Catherine Book 5)

by Bethany-Kris

  It was only a passing comment from Luca that finally made Naz start listening a little closer to his friend’s rant.

  “And she’s not even supposed to be dating right now, for fuck’s sake,” Luca bitched, grabbing his own bottle from the fridge. “And, because there’s more, I know how you are with females, Naz. You jump from one to the next, and you don’t stay with any for very goddamn long. My sister isn’t like some chick you pick up at the club—you can’t be messing with her like those women.”

  “Go back a second,” Naz said.

  Luca shot him a look. “What? Are you going to fucking deny you don’t even actually date when it comes to women, you just bust a nut, and move the hell on? Try to deny it.”

  Nah, he wasn’t going to deny that at all.

  “First of all,” Naz said, giving his friend a raised brow, “you know my life is chaotic, and busy. I don’t have time to be giving a shit about making sure the same woman wakes up in my bed every day, or that a woman even wakes up in my bed, for that matter. I don’t bring them here. Second, I don’t fill those females’ heads full of bullshit, either. They know exactly what they’re getting when it comes to me. I don’t pretend it’s something else, Luca. So, fuck off with the judgment, huh? Let’s not act like you’re a fucking saint, asshole.”

  “I didn’t say I was, but there you go.” Luca waved at him with a dismissive gesture. “You said it, man. That is what you like to do—you’re not looking for more. Roz can’t be like that for you. Don’t use my sister, got it?”

  “Just …” Naz shook his head. “Fucking relax, Luca. I like her. It’s not about the rest. I walked her home, and kissed her goodnight. By far the most innocent shit I have ever done with a girl, all right? Chill the hell out.”

  Luca cleared his throat, and eyed Naz in that way again that made him feel like a bug under a microscope. Too many people in his life did that shit. Like they didn’t know what to make of him, and they were trying to figure him out.

  “What?” Naz snapped.

  Luca shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Really, nothing? Because you just ranted and bitched for ten minutes, and now it’s nothing, Luca?”

  “Swear you’re not fucking around with her just to fuck around?”

  Naz sighed, and glanced up at the ceiling. He had a good mind to tell his friend to mind his fucking business like he would any other time, but Naz understood why Luca was being a sensitive little ass right then. It wasn’t any other girl. It was his sister.

  Naz wasn’t fucking with Roz, though.

  Not like that, anyway.

  “Swear it,” Naz said, “it’s not like that.”

  “All right,” his friend murmured.

  “Now go back—why the fuck can’t she date?”

  “Because her whole life is basically controlled and dictated by furthering herself as a pianist, Naz?”

  He simply stared at his friend and waited for Luca to explain more. Because that shit right there made no sense. He didn’t see why Roz couldn’t further her career, but also have a goddamn life. He did exactly that as a man trying to get his button for the mafia, running guns on the weekend, and a genius that constantly needed to feed his need for knowledge.

  Surely, letting Roz have a bit of fun—she wasn’t even eighteen yet—wasn’t going to do anything bad for her career or focus.

  Or would it?

  Naz had no idea.

  Luca made a noise in the back of his throat. “Her mentor sent her here for a while to relax and prep for the upcoming audition in Australia. He’s an asshole, but he’s the best one to teach her. Or, that’s what everybody else says.”

  Naz’s gaze narrowed. “That plays in to the no dating thing how—”

  “His rules. That’s one of them.”

  He tipped the water bottle up as the phone in his pocket buzzed, and took another sip of water. Pulling the phone out, Naz grinned at the name lighting up his screen.

  Roz.

  She decided to text him, apparently. Nothing particularly earth-shattering or whatever, but still. A text was a text, and the night wasn’t even over yet.

  Hey, it read.

  “Sucks for her mentor, then,” Naz said. “Because I think that rule is shot to hell after tonight.”

  Luca just laughed, and shook his head. “You’re so good at stirring shit.”

  He really was.

  That’s not what this was, though.

  SEVEN

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  “Get up, Roz, your laptop keeps chiming. It’s probably—”

  “Fucking Kyle,” Roz grumbled under her breath. Then, she added louder, “Ignore it.”

  “Roz, he’s not going to stop.”

  Oh, she knew that. But he might. And she was totally willing to take that chance. All she needed to do was ignore him long enough, and maybe he would stop trying to get ahold of her this early. He’d already called and texted her phone until the inbox was full. She’d not answered any of those this morning, either.

  A call to her laptop could work the same damn way.

  She yanked the blanket higher over her head, and rolled over for extra good measure. She wanted to stay in bed, close her eyes, and go back to dreamland where her mind was filled with thoughts of a dark-haired, brown-eyed man. Naz was a far better thing to think about first thing in the morning instead of her fucking mentor who just wanted to drive her up the wall.

  He’d been the one to send her here, after all. He was the one who thought spending a couple of months with her parents and away from the suffocating restraints of the school would do her some good before graduation and the big audition.

  Technically, Roz already had her graduation in the bag. All her credits were in—her finals for the most important classes were written. The last ones she had to finish when she went back were add-ons, and not even important in the grand scheme of things. She took them because she needed something to fill the time between two o’clock in the afternoon, and four when she went in for three hours of practice.

  “Roz, it’s chiming again, so—”

  “Ugh, I’m coming,” she muttered, throwing off the blankets. Behind the door, she could hear her mother laughing quietly.

  Kyle wasn’t going to stop until Roz got up, answered his call, and handled whatever he wanted for the day. She was supposed to be focusing on herself, on composing and practicing. Anything but him, the school, and everything there. This trip home was intended to clear her head, and get her in the right headspace for the audition.

  Except that couldn’t happen at all because Kyle wouldn’t quit calling every single day. Usually, that’s exactly how he started her morning was by calling her. Asking questions. Too many questions, maybe. How long had she practiced the day before? Had she finished that last stanza? Corrected the intro like he wanted? Had she been able to pick up the pace near the middle of the composition, and had it maintained its strength?

  All the goddamn questions.

  Always about music, too.

  Like Roz didn’t know what she was doing, or something. She damn well did know what she was doing, but it went even beyond that. She needed to be confident in this piece she planned on playing for the audition in Australia. How could she do that when even her mentor wouldn’t back the hell off long enough to let her enjoy what she was creating?

  Just deal with him, her mind said, and get back to your happy place.

  Yes, her happy place.

  In bed.

  Dreaming about Nazio.

  Roz grabbed her blinking phone—Kyle’s name was right on the front screen showing the last texts and calls she’d missed—before she padded to the door. Swinging it open, she found her mother had already disappeared down the hallway.

  She’d set her laptop up in the living room the night before to let it charge, and hope that if Kyle did call, her parents would just ignore it. She’d hoped for too much.

  Rox ignored the murmurings coming from the kitchen as she headed inside the living
room. Plopping down on the couch, she grabbed the laptop with one hand, and raked her fingers through her loose hair with the other to push the wild waves out of her face. She didn’t even get the chance to call Kyle back through Skype before his next call was already ringing through.

  Jesus.

  That man needed to relax.

  Roz hit the answer button, and forced something resembling a smile onto her face. The second her blond, blue-eyed mentor that was edging closer to forty every day appeared on the screen, she said, “Morning.”

  Politely, too.

  How Roz managed that, she would never know.

  “There you are,” Kyle said, sighing heavily. “You had me worried.”

  Yeah, she was sure. But not really.

  “You can see me. I’m fine.”

  “Good thing. Wouldn’t want the next lead pianist for the Cordana Company to stop before she really got started, now would we?”

  Kyle Mathus had come into the school Roz attended with the intention to mentor a cello prodigy. All she remembered was being in her favorite music room, and playing a piece she had finished after working on it for over a year. After looking up from the piano, there Kyle stood on the other side of it.

  He’d been a pianist for one of the world’s largest and most successful companies. He’d played with orchestras all over the world. And then an accident irreparably damaged the tendons and nerves on one side of his left hand. He chose to mentor younger prodigies after that incident.

  Roz was his third.

  All his other students had gone on to be amazing things. They did amazing things. And his life—on paper—as a pianist was everything she thought she wanted to be. She was also seventeen—almost eighteen—and couldn’t remember a time these last few years where she didn’t look at this man’s face at least once a day.

  She couldn’t just be a young woman when she was also this man’s student. She had to be all the things he told her to be instead.

  “Did you shut your phone off, or what?” Kyle asked, dragging Roz back to the conversation.

  “Did it keep ringing, or just go right to inbox?”

  The man’s brow dipped. “What?”

  “What did my phone do when you called—ring and ring, or go to inbox right away?”

  “Rang and rang,” he said.

  “Then, I didn’t shut it off.”

  Kyle frowned. “So, I am to believe that means you were purposely ignoring me.”

  “Or trying to sleep.”

  “You don’t need more sleep, Roz. Not when you’re going to bed at nine every night, and waking up at eight.”

  Yes, because even her sleep schedule was determined by this man when something as important as the Australia audition was coming up. She was pretty sure if she suggested he take over prepping meal plans for her, he would go ahead with that, too.

  It was crazy.

  “You need to prepare,” Kyle continued on, repeating the same shit he said each time they talked. It wasn’t new shit, and Roz was already starting to daze before he even really got going with his tirade. “As much and as often as you can manage. With and without people watching. At different times each day. Did you record your final session of the day yesterday for me to hear it?”

  Shit.

  She had meant to—it was the one thing she did like to do for Kyle. Even if she didn’t take all of his suggestions when it came to changing her piece for the audition, he had a good ear. Better than good, really. He could hear her missteps when even she couldn’t pick them out. He could hear—even through a recording—where she might have hit the keys a little harder than was necessary. He did make her music better.

  He did.

  And that was the whole reason why, despite a lot of the nonsense, Roz was grateful for Kyle. He was making her a better pianist.

  She wanted to be the best.

  He was giving her that.

  “Can I assume by your face that your answer on the recording is a no?” Kyle asked.

  Roz gave the man on the screen an apologetic smile. “I had a thing yesterday that I forgot about. A family friend had an engagement party. I was working on the piece, and meant to record the final run through … but someone interrupted, and I forgot by the time I got back.”

  Kyle raised a brow. “Are they?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Interrupting you often. Distracting you, Rosalynn. You know why you’re there. This is supposed to be—”

  “My parents are great,” she interjected fast, wanting to put that to bed before Kyle got that on his mind. The man had a habit of running with nonsense when he got something in his head that he believed to be true. “I just forgot I had other obligations yesterday, and didn’t get home until late.”

  Actually, she had gotten home at a fairly decent time. Sure, the sky had been dark, but if she had cared enough to sit down at the piano once she was home, she absolutely could have recorded her doing a run through of her piece for Kyle. But her mind had been on something else entirely.

  Naz.

  Certainly not in the right place to play.

  At least … not with the piano.

  Kyle sighed in that way of his again. “Do be sure to record it today. Do not let anyone take your focus away right now. Live and—”

  “Breathe the music,” she finished for him. “I know.”

  The buzzing of her phone in her lap made her glance down to see who the caller was. The name flashing on the screen caused Kyle’s voice coming through the laptop to be nothing more than a buzzing noise in the back of her mind.

  Better things are here.

  Nazio.

  Roz grabbed the phone, and glanced up at the screen. “Talk later, okay?”

  She didn’t even know what Kyle had been saying. It didn’t even matter. The man’s furrowed brow almost made her laugh.

  “Wait, what—”

  “Later,” Roz said, reaching to close the laptop before he could protest. Once the laptop was closed, she answered her phone with a grin. “Naz, hey.”

  His voice was a dark, rich tenor coming through the speaker. A low note of music that danced over her skin with nothing more than two words.

  “Morning, beautiful,” he said.

  Roz’s heart jumped, and her smile grew wider. “That’s … quite a greeting.”

  “Yeah, but true.”

  This guy was something else.

  “And I just wanted to say that,” he added. “You busy tomorrow morning?”

  She should have said yes, she would be busy. That she had to practice, and get her head back in the game. Focus, focus, focus. It should be her mantra.

  Instead, she said, “Not busy at all.”

  “Great,” Naz said, “I know a place.”

  EIGHT

  Naz scrubbed a hand over his face, and blinked up at the ceiling of his bedroom. He reached out to find the phone he’d left sitting on the nightstand the night before. His mind was only on one thing. He wanted to call Roz, and make sure she was still up for going out with him that morning.

  “I forgot how lazy you can be in the mornings when you want to be,” came a familiar voice from Naz’s bedroom doorway.

  If he hadn’t been fully awake before, he sure as fuck was now.

  Naz straightened in the bed like a rod had been driven into his spine, and forced him up. It sent the blanket around his body pooling at his waist. The man grinning in the doorway of the bedroom was lucky Naz had even bothered to throw on a pair of boxer-briefs the night before. Usually, he’d hit the bed fresh out of a fucking shower because he was too damn tired for anything else after running all day.

  So was the life of a made man being mentored. Their life was not their own. It was now owned and controlled by whoever the fuck had a button in Cosa Nostra. Someone called, Naz answered. Someone needed something, then he had to go out and fucking get it for them.

  Naz didn’t mind a lot of the times. A made man was what he always wanted to be. Like his father, and his grandfathers
. This life was as natural to him as breathing. It was bred into his very blood. He would be the fourth generation of Donati blood to be made—how the hell was he supposed to even consider something else?

  “How did you get in my fucking place?” Naz demanded.

  His father’s lips quirked up at the edge, and Cross cocked a brow. There was no need for Naz to wonder where his attitude and arrogance came from when he had this man standing right across from him. From his looks to his mannerisms, and far too much in between … he was just like his father.

  Twins, his mother would say.

  Not entirely.

  But damn close.

  “Really,” Cross murmured, giving his son that look, “you wonder how I got in here?”

  “Without me knowing, yes.”

  Naz knew his father could pick a lock like nobody else. Cross just needed a few minutes, and some inspiration to get a door open. That didn’t negate the fact Naz had his entire apartment wired to let him know if someone had gotten in while he slept.

  Another benefit of being a genius, he supposed. All that work with electronics came in handy more often than it didn’t.

  “Nothing tripped when I got the door open, son,” Cross said.

  Naz’s brow furrowed, and he did grab a hold of his phone, then. A quick check of an app he’d personally developed, tested, and installed for his security system told him that yeah, he hadn’t even turned the final checks on the night before to set everything.

  Well, fuck.

  “Distracted?” his father asked.

  Naz glanced sideways, and willed his father to shut up and stop asking questions. He didn’t need an error like this pointed out to him at the moment. He had far too many other things on his mind, and he really couldn’t afford to be off his game in life.

  That only spelled bad things.

  “Tired,” Naz offered instead.

  Cross nodded like he was considering that. “Zeke did have you running all over New York and back yesterday, didn’t he?”