by Chelle Bliss
“You boys want shit to get messy?” I asked them, knowing I couldn’t take them all on my own, but not caring about that fact. Instead, I loosened my tie, readying myself. “Not real happy about getting busted and bruised, but fuck it. I haven’t had a good tussle in weeks.”
I dropped my jacket, tossing it onto the duffle next to the wall, and popped my neck just before Cara took hold of my arm, turning me to face her. “Like I said, chooch. They don’t speak English.” Her olive complexion brightened, those high cheekbones accentuated by a deep pink color.
“Fine,” I told her, pulling out of her reach. I didn’t bother commenting on the insult she’d flung at me. It was a habit she hadn’t gotten rid of, but she could call me a jackass all she wanted. That wouldn’t stop me from leaving. “Tell them to get out of my way.”
“I need to talk to you.” She curled her arms tightly. Her toned bicep flexed before she took two steps back when I grabbed my duffle and jacket, stuffing my loose tie into my pocket. Her mouth was tight, as though it took her more composure than she had not to scream because I wasn’t immediately falling at my knees in front of her. Those black eyes of hers widened, lashes blinking fast as she watched me. I hated that she was still so beautiful. Even with the frown breaking from her twitching mouth, those thick, pink lips smoothing together, and the shift of her attention from my face to the room around us, she still was fucking beautiful.
“We can’t…” She waved a hand around the bathroom, nose curling as she spotted the empty urinals and stalls with no toilets inside them. “I’ll take you to your hotel. We’ll talk there.”
One thing I learned about Cara Carelli in the brief months we’d been married: you don’t argue. Not about the small shit anyway. You gave her what she wanted and then got the hell away from her. She’d come back and want something else, but it was that first request that meant the most to her.
She wanted the upper hand.
She wanted the game to start in her favor.
She wanted you to know she could get anything she wanted from you, no matter how stupid the request.
This would be the only one I’d give her.
Her gaze was like a lick of fire as she watched me shrug on my jacket. Each movement she seemed to memorize, but I didn’t watch her, not when I straightened my collar or fastened the open buttons on my shirt. That stare was something I remembered. It was something that burned like a snake bite pushing venom into my veins. It was something you had to ignore, or it would set your entire body ablaze. I gave up loving that burn a long time ago, but the scars would likely never heal.
I didn’t bother acknowledging her goons as I gripped my duffle and nodded toward the door, waiting for Cara. Seemed like I was always waiting on Cara.
She managed a nod, an action that took her a second to accomplish; an action that made her look unsure and nervous.
I gave her one look, catching the way the sharp glint in her eyes lessened and how her face relaxed. She was shooting for friendly, or at least, not bitchy. That was the closest any Carelli got to friendliness. Cara wanted something. She wanted me to give it to her. I inhaled, wishing for a do-over.
Wishing like hell my path had never crossed Cara’s.
A jerk of my head and I nodded toward the door, ignoring the way her mouth twitched, like she was happy I wasn’t putting up a fight. “Lead the way.”
3
Kiel
There were two cars, both S-Class Mercedes, black, and not remotely subtle. One dipped with the combined weight of the two meatheads when they ambled inside. Cara sat next to me in a Benz that matched the one in front of us. At least she hadn’t used the limos. That would have gotten us more attention than the quick escape we were able to make from the airport with those grunting assholes clearing a path for us.
She didn’t ask where I was staying. Didn’t say much at all as we pulled away from the airport and the stone-faced driver navigating the ridiculous sedan slipped into traffic, following the lead of the car ahead of us. Cara didn’t speak, and I damn sure wouldn’t. But I couldn’t ignore the sweet, seductive whiff of her perfume filling the cab of the car. Chanel. Rich. Tempting. A scent that had distracted me the first time I met her. The first time I’d hassled her into giving me a lead on the story I was chasing.
Outside the window, New York went by in a blur of sound and light. So much was familiar to me. So much of it made me feel like a stranger to the city I’d called home. I’d been a kid the last time I was here. I’d been a kid in love with a girl who was no good for me.
The same girl who turned her back on me and let her father send me packing, running for home like a dog with a limp. But some things hadn’t changed, like the slip of the sun sinking into the river and the dance of light that reminded me of the clear, inky black night back home in Seattle. Here, you couldn’t make out the stars, not like you could back home, but the skyscrapers and buildings peppered all over the city created its own kind of universe. In the center of it was that smell and the woman next to me. I told myself I hated both, and maybe, deep down, I did. But something inside me stirred and warmed when Cara shifted in her seat, leaning to her side as she did. She wore a fitted dress and three-inch heels that made those toned calves of hers flex when she stretched her feet.
I closed my eyes, trying to ignore that intense feeling that rattled my insides. It was lust, pure and simple. Cara wasn’t some typical mafia princess. She fit no stereotype. She was smart, she was ruthless, and my God, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
Kane had done well for himself. Kit was fucking stunning. Talented. Smart. But Cara was the kind of woman that made a man wish he were alone with her in the world. No woman’s looks could compare to the slope of her small nose and the perpetual twist of her thick lips. She wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t cute. Cara was radiant, all woman, and she looked the part. She had grace. She had confidence and could lift a man up with a smile and crush him with the hint of a frown.
Little Goddess. She’d hated it when I called her that, but it was a fitting description. One I tried like hell to keep to myself.
I didn’t look. Didn’t acknowledge the way she leaned against her elbow, gaze moving over my profile, then down to my shoulders and chest. She was inspecting, and while she did, that sweet, fuck me scent came at me thicker and richer, more tempting than warm, sweet cookies from the oven.
Fuck me if I didn’t want a bite.
“You look good, Kiel.”
“Good” was drawn out, like Cara wasn’t sure she wanted the syllables to leave her mouth, and I glanced at her, keeping silent as I threw a look her way and cocked my eyebrow up.
She exhaled, head shaking. “What? I can’t compliment you?”
She wanted to keep my attention, that much I knew. Cara liked to hold center court, especially when she bothered to address you. She hated being ignored, so when I directed my focus back on the window and the city zooming by, the small grumble she released didn’t surprise me.
“The last time I saw you, you looked straight in my face and told the cops I was the asshole who’d stalked you for six months.” I stretched out my legs, resting an elbow on the door. “A stalker you married—”
“Kiel…”
“And fucked on the trunk of your father’s limo not two hours before.”
She didn’t gasp or shoot a look at the driver, something that surprised me. That meant she didn’t care what the man thought. That meant he wasn’t her father’s man.
Interesting.
“You let me come in your mouth, remember?”
That time she reacted, sitting up straight in her seat, but I knew my stroll down memory lane—and how public I made it—was pissing her off.
“It got in your hair and ended up all down your neck and—”
“Fuck’s sake, Kiel, enough.” Cara’s shout was loud, sharp enough that it came out as a piercing echo against the windows. That small slip of composure had her face reddening, and I grinned, not hiding the s
mall chuckle that rumbled in my throat.
Cara ignored me, leaning a little to catch the driver’s attention. She gave him directions, something spoken in perfect Italian. I only recognized some of the words—park and wait—before the man pulled up in front of the hotel. My hotel. The hotel I knew my new job wouldn’t have set me up in.
I whistled, the sound low. A little impressed as I stretched to the right, looking out of Cara’s window and up at the building with the wavy awning lit up like New Year’s Eve.
“Wow.” She watched me as I sat back, ignoring her goons as they stood on either side of the car waiting, I assumed, for her signal. “Does your papa know you’re dropping a grand a night on me?” She glared, nostrils flaring, and I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Fuck, Cara, you orchestrated all this shit?” When she didn’t answer, I dropped my hand and glared at her. “Was that interview I did all bullshit? Is the fucking job even real?”
“It could be,” she promised, watching me. Waiting, I guessed, to see what other insults I had for her. When none came, she fastened the top button on her jacket and sat up, slipping off the seat belt. “Let’s go inside, and we’ll have a conversation. I’m not asking for a lot, Kiel, and I think you’ll like what I have to say.”
“That,” I started as she tapped the window with a knuckle, “is very fucking unlikely.”
4
Kiel
The hotel was luxurious. I’d passed by it at least a dozen times on my way to the park when I was at school. It had been a pipe dream I’d admitted to Cara once. Stay there like a baller, like I’d just won a Pulitzer and every editor of every major magazine in the country wanted to work with me. We’d stay here and look down on the city below from the twenty-fifth floor. Our own kingdom beneath our feet.
But as I followed Cara inside, watched those tempting hips sway in front of me, I reminded myself that sometimes dreams stayed dreams for a reason. I didn’t need a Pulitzer. I didn’t want to be anyone’s damn king, and the hotel wasn’t as impressive as it had been when I was a senior in college, interning at New York Magazine.
For starters, nice as it was, the place was a monochromatic wet dream. Variations of dark, light, grayish, and pale beige covered the lobby from floor to ceiling. What wasn’t beige or close to it was marble, with hints of beige or dark wood, with tones of beige or its cousin, greige. Occasionally, there’d be the sparkle and glitter of light overhead, but it didn’t bring any color to the space or kill the color-blind sensation I got as Cara marched us to my room.
A maid waited for us at the door, holding it open as we entered. Cara walked straight to the expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the suite and closed the curtains. The movement hid the manufactured stars made up from the buildings surrounding us that scattered light around the city. The panels didn’t close completely, and a sliver of light fell across the room, casting Cara in brightness. She looked good standing there, silhouetted against the light, her curves exaggerated in shadows, her full breasts moving as she exhaled. But Cara wasn’t some sweet pinup goddess promising release and surrender. She was a manipulative, greedy bitch who drew prey to her with the sway of her hips and the cock-aching slip of her tongue along her criminally full lips.
Son of a bitch.
“If you need anything at all—” the maid started, grin stretching when I winked at her.
“Thank you,” Cara interrupted, nodding to the door so the maid would kill the flirting and leave.
The room was no room at all. It damn well shouldn’t be for a grand a night. There was a small entry that led into a large living area. I threw down my bag and slipped off my jacket, checking out the full kitchen and wet bar. I glanced down a small walkway and into the bedroom. It was equipped with a king-sized bed and a sixty-inch tv mounted to the wall next to the windows.
“Gotta hand it to you,” I started, rolling up my sleeves as I walked back into the living room, “You pulled out all the stops.”
She turned then, stepping away from the window as I fell into a large chair next to the sofa. Cara moved around the room like she owned it. Posture straight, gait slow, without the slightest shake or shudder to her movements. I couldn’t help watching her, appreciating the long lines of her legs and the plump curve of her ass.
“Not everything I do has an agenda,” she admitted, walking to the wet bar to pull out two tumblers. She lifted one to me, eyebrows up, and when I didn’t refuse the silent request, she went about fixing me a drink.
She remembered, that much I could tell. Amaretto liqueur. Scotch whisky. Cara thought she was funny, dredging up the past, making a “Godfather” because I used to do it for her. It had been a joke about her father and the dirty business he did.
“To old times,” she said, offering me the glass as she held hers in her free hand. When I didn’t take it, Cara tilted her head, blowing out a slow breath before she amended. She frowned, as though she’d just remembered something that irritated her. “To you almost fucking my slutty cousin Antonia at the airport.” She didn’t like the way I laughed at her, or how I still hadn’t taken the glass to toast with her. “Fine, then. To whatever the hell you want to toast to. That better?”
I didn’t answer, but I took the tumbler and closed my eyes when that bitter almond flavor hit my tongue. “So,” I said, nodding to the ottoman in front of me. “What the hell do you want?”
Cara sat, resting her elbows on her knees, legs crossed at the ankles. She cupped the tumbler between her fingers and looked into the glass, like she hadn’t figured out if she wanted to try staring at me or straight ahead.
“I can offer you half a million and a permanent position at The Daily.”
This turned out to be one of those rare, fuck-me moments that had me stunned stupid. Cara shifted her gaze, breath held, chin uplifted as she watched me, but she didn’t speak.
When she kept on watching me, not delivering the punch line, I slammed back my drink and deposited the empty tumbler on the end table to my right.
“The hell did you say?”
Cara sat up, lifting the tumbler toward her mouth, then seemed to change her mind about drinking, setting it on the floor next to her heels. “You heard me.”
“Jesus, Cara, what the hell do you want? Really.”
“The details aren’t important enough to—”
“Nah. It doesn’t work like that.” I scrubbed my head as she went on watching me. “You don’t get to kidnap me from the airport, throw a bunch of money at me, put me up in a luxury hotel, and then be all vague about why you want me here.”
“Maybe I missed you.”
“Try again,” I said, not missing a beat.
She exhaled. Her bottom lip moved from the sigh and she lowered her shoulders, seeming to give up the non-disclosures. “Vinnie Marino is a forty-five-year-old expat from Sovano. My father thinks that tying his family in Tuscany to ours here will open up the doors for certain…imports. I don’t happen to share my father’s enthusiasm for how to get those doors open.”
I leaned back, relaxing against the leather chair and watching Cara closely. She had tells, but not many. I’d managed to pick up on them while we were together. I didn’t see even one of them as she spoke. No rapid blinks. No shoulder stretching or tapping her heel against the floor. Whatever Cara wanted made her desperate enough not to lie. That was deep shit for her.
“He wants you to marry this guy?”
“Yes,” she said on an exhale, picking up her tumbler and downing half the drink.
“And that has what to do with me?”
She held the glass in front of her mouth, eyes sharp as she stared at me. I thought there might be something there, a quick blink that had me turning my head and focusing on her expression. Cara continued to drink, downing the rest of the Godfather before she set the glass down again, rubbing her fingers together. She took her time, seeming to consider her answer, calculate her response. That was new and unlike how she’d been when I knew her.
“Well,” she started, adjusting herself on the ottoman. “We’re still married. It’s illegal for me to marry anyone.”
My laugh was loud, sharp. I couldn’t find it in me to care how rude it sounded. “Hand over the papers. I won’t even ask for alimony.”
“I…don’t want to divorce you.”
It felt like the air had gone out of the room. It was just then, with Cara’s admission and the slip of calm that moved from her as she flexed her fingers into a fist, I realized how desperate she was.
I’d left New York bloodied and bruised, intending never to tie myself to a woman again. The Carellis had scared the hell out of me. I’d never wanted to fuck with any of them again. Didn’t much care about still being tied legally to them. It just wasn’t worth the hassle of going through with a divorce. Besides, her father didn’t even know we were married. God knew what a shitstorm that would’ve caused if divorce papers had shown up with Cara’s name on them.
But Cara, staring at me the way she did, looking annoyed and a little hopeful, had me wondering what angle she was playing here. “Why the hell not?”
“Because as long as I’m married to you, I cannot marry Vinnie.”
This time when I laughed, it was on purpose, the sound biting and intentionally obnoxious. “Again, what’s that got to do with me?”
“Kiel…please…”
I ignored her plea, still laughing as I grabbed my tumbler and stood in front of the sink at the wet bar. I swished water in the glass and filled it with two thick ice cubes and three fingers of bourbon. Fuck the memory lane drinks.
“He’s bald,” Cara said behind me as I downed my drink. Her voice was relaxed, but she still sounded irritated.
“Tell him to wear a hat.” I shrugged, topping up my glass before I sat back down on the leather chair, knees apart with the tumbler resting on my thigh.