I am the most honest man you’ll ever meet.
Dante’s words unwound from my memory and laid out before me beside Mama’s, and I had to admit they both had a point.
There was no pretense. Even when Yara and I had encouraged him to act the gentleman, to dress like the saint he would never be, Dante remained true to himself.
In fact, it was admirable and enviable in equal terms.
I’d often wished I felt comfortable being myself, when the truth was, I wasn’t even sure who that true self was.
“This, I like,” Mama reiterated, bumping me softly with her hip as she blew a lock of hair from her face. “This, I think, you will like, too.”
“Mama,” I warned with a groan. “I hope you aren’t trying to matchmake. Dante is, well, all fire and impulse. I’m ice and control. He is a criminal, and I’m…” I failed to find the word to describe myself.
I wasn’t a hero, and I wasn’t a villain.
I was just a woman trying to navigate life.
A twenty-seven-year-old who felt newborn after the dissolution of my life with Daniel. For the first time ever, I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore or how to get it.
Mama shrugged one shoulder. “You do as you like; you always have. I just wanted to say I like him. He is very different from your papa. From Christopher, too.” She hesitated when I stiffened at the mention of his name. “I will never live well with myself, lottatrice mia, that I did not shield you from the man who was really a snake. But it is a mother’s wish to see her daughter happy in love, and this I still wish for you.”
Acid ate at my heart, a corroded battery. I pressed my hand over it as if that would help.
“I hope so, too,” I whispered quietly as if I might spook the dream if I spoke too loudly. “But there is no happily-ever-after with a man like Dante, Mama. I know you know this. La mafia is a living nightmare.”
Mama hummed again noncommittedly. We worked silently for a bit, the scent of cocoa powder and the Amaretto-soaked ladyfingers perfuming the air around us. I wanted to open my heart up to my mother and have her sort out the broken fragments that remained of my soul, but I was afraid of what she might find there.
Because the truth was, I was intrigued by Dante in a way I’d never been with another soul. He was such a contradiction in terms, a puzzle that my lawyer’s mind couldn’t help but want to piece together.
Thoughts of him haunted me as I finished helping Mama and collected the trays of tiramisu, schlepping them back to my apartment to put in the fridge while I finished some work from home.
Silence echoed all around me as I worked, and even though it made me feel morose, I didn’t play music to comfort myself. Instead, I worked until seven thirty in the evening, only stopping because of a knock on the door. The house was dark. I’d forgotten to turn the lights on as I worked into the night.
I sighed as I checked the peephole on the door, then let out a little squeal when I saw Beau standing outside holding a huge box and a plastic bag I knew would be filled with Japanese food. I opened the door and immediately stepped forward to take him in my arms, box and bag of food and all.
Beau Bailey laughed as he tried to hug me back with his hands full. “My darling, I missed you too.”
I pulled back to smile at my handsome friend, noting the wrinkles in his otherwise gorgeous Armani suit. Pushing a lock of errant brown hair back over his forehead, I smiled at him genuinely. “Did you come straight from the airport?”
“I dropped my luggage at home, but basically,” he agreed, gently bustling me back into my foyer then kicking the door shut before he handed me the bag of Japanese food. “I missed you, and I needed to decompress with my favorite girl before I went home to my empty apartment.”
“I know the feeling.” I gave his hand a squeeze as we walked together into my kitchen and set about our ritual of getting out wine and plates for dinner. It reminded me briefly of Dante storming my house to bring me Japanese food just days before. How ridiculously at home he’d made himself in my space.
“What’s that, then?” Beau asked as he uncorked a bottle of red from my collection.
“What?”
“That look,” he insisted with a jerk of his chin. “That almost smile.”
I waved my hand, dismissing him with a gesture that I’d tried for years to curb. It was the one Italian idiosyncrasy I couldn’t seem to kick. I always spoke with my hands more than I meant to.
“Nothing.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed, setting down the bottle before pouring the wine in order to waggle his brows at me. “It’s definitely something.”
This was one of the reasons I loved Beau. He wasn’t perturbed by my coldness or my reserve. He respected them just as much as he strove to abolish them. He loved to tease me, to make me laugh.
He reminded me that sometimes, life didn’t have to be such a competitive sport.
Still, I changed the subject. “I’ll have to eat and run, handsome. One of my clients has practically ordered me to show up at a party he’s throwing.”
“Should you be eating?” he asked, hesitating as he pulled my favorite, tuna tataki, from the bag.
“You know I don’t eat Italian food if I can help it,” I said as I snatched the tuna from him with a feral look.
He laughed at me, and God, it felt good to have him home, to have him laugh with me and love me. I hadn’t realized how lonely I was without him for the past month while he’d been in England shooting with St. Aubyn fashion house.
“Do you have to go? I thought we could watch Vampire Diaries,” he suggested seductively. “Damon is totally getting to Elena.”
“He is,” I agreed. The teenage vampire show was one in a long line of television shows Beau and I had binge-watched together. We were both busy professionals with tragic personal lives, so we spent a lot of time drinking wine, bitching together, and living our romantic fantasies vicariously through fictional characters. “But if I don’t show up, I have no doubt he’ll send someone for me.”
Beau’s expressive brows rose nearly into his hairline. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“This being Don Salvatore?” he surmised. “Infamous mafia capo and one of the sexiest men ever to breathe air?”
I shook my head at him, but my lips twitched despite myself. “He’s okay.”
“Okay?” Beau turned me to face him with both hands on my shoulders, his face extremely serious. “Lena, honey, do you need to get your eyes checked?”
I burst out laughing and pushed him away. “You are so dramatic.”
“Only about important matters,” he sniffed, resuming his duty of pouring our wine and taking the glasses over to my travertine table. “And handsome men are non-trivial.”
“He’s an asshole,” I promised him, then winced slightly because I wasn’t really sure if that was true.
He was bossy.
Arrogant.
Annoying as hell.
But he wasn’t exactly an asshole.
“Language, Lena,” Beau said on a laugh, teasing me for swearing. “Well, he definitely provokes a response in you. Even that is something. I was beginning to think you’d never thaw.”
A twinge of hurt accompanied his words, and before I could mask it, Beau was reaching out to squeeze my hand. “Not a bad thing, darling. You’ve been through a lot.”
I squeezed his hand back and smiled, hoping it wasn’t shaky. “Trust me, I’d love to spend the night with you instead.”
“Oh!” Beau gestured with his chopsticks at the large box he left on the counter. “There was a package on your front step.”
I frowned, popping some tuna into my mouth before I got up to investigate. The red box was embossed with the gold logo for Valentino. I looked up at Beau with wide eyes, one hand automatically covering my mouth as it dropped open in shock. Returning my eyes to the box, I carefully lifted the lid and pulled back the voluminous layers of tissue paper.
Beneath it lay a pool of deep red silk.
I loved fashion.
And no matter my attempts to contradict it, I was an Italian.
Valentino was one of the country’s most covetous brands and inside this luxurious box lay something I knew in my bones was tailored exactly to me.
My fingers trembled slightly as I lifted the heavy, cool silk up and out of the box to hold against my body. It was the same color as my fingernails, as my favorite lipstick, just a few beautiful shades brighter than my own deep red hair.
“My God,” Beau breathed, knowing exactly how exquisite the dress was because he was a fashion photographer. “Elena, that’s vintage Valentino.”
I didn’t have the words to respond. Instead, in a fit of uncharacteristic immodesty, I gently settled the dress on top of the box and undressed. Beau didn’t bat an eyelash until I was lifting the sumptuous fabric up to my body and then, he only gasped slightly before getting up to help me fasten it closed.
I couldn’t stop petting the silk that skimmed perfectly over my hips as I stepped away from Beau then turned to face him.
“Well?” I breathed, completely seduced by the garment.
“You look sensational,” he promised. “If I wasn’t a gay man, I would get to my knees right now.”
My laugh was slightly breathless as I lifted the excess fabric off the ground and tiptoed to the full-length mirror by my hall closet.
Oh.
I’d worked hard on my self-image over the years even though it often seemed like a fruitless, uphill battle. When you had a sister who was a supermodel, a brother who was an actor, and another sister who had stolen the only two men you’d ever dated, it was difficult to appreciate your own beauty. Dr. Marsden taught me self-affirmations, meditation, and acts of kindness that helped, marginally, but I’d never felt the way I did standing in my hallway in that dress.
I felt transformed.
Like Cinderella in her ball gown, it seemed to me I was a totally different person, the woman I’d always aspired to me.
The bold red wasn’t a color I would have ever picked myself, but it made my pale olive skin pop beautifully and contrasted wonderfully with my cool gray eyes. My hair seemed darker, a red as deep as fine Italian wine. The fabric skimmed my long, lean planes and nipped in at my waist and breasts, plumping the slight mass of the latter until I had natural cleavage.
I looked dangerous, dramatic, and powerful.
Confident.
Only the right kind of man would dare to approach a woman wearing such a dress, and I found the idea of that wonderfully appealing.
“Lena, there are shoes,” Beau called, drawing my gaze to see him pull towering black spike heels from the nest of tissue. “And a card.”
With one last look at the stranger in the mirror, I went over to pluck the envelope from his fingers. I dug my red nail under the edge and ripped it open.
Wear it tonight.
–– Capo
A noise somewhere between a laugh and groan emerged from my mouth as I read the short card three times in quick succession.
“Dante?” Beau asked, leaning over my shoulder to peer at the spiky script.
“Mmm,” I agreed, staring at the card as if it would reveal the secrets of the man who wrote it.
“He likes you,” Beau decided.
I let out a little scoff, but I couldn’t deny it confused me. “At the most, I would say I intrigue him. The way one predator intrigues another.”
Beau considered me for a second. “It sounds as though you might have met your match.”
I fought the urge to snort because it wasn’t ladylike, but as Beau ushered me into my bathroom to freshen up my makeup, I wondered with a tangled sense of dread and wonder if perhaps he was right.
DANTE
The party was in full swing by the time Elena Lombardi deigned to show up. I was leading a toast for the Feast of San Gennaro when the air in the room seemed to shift, the particles rearranging themselves to make room for a bold new presence.
I continued my toast, but I could feel her eyes on my skin like an electric prod.
“Aiz’ aiz’ aiz’, acal’, acal’, acal’, accost’, accost’, accost’, a salut’ vost’,” I cried as I led the group around me to lift their glasses up, down, together, and then to their mouths for a robust sip.
It was over the rim of my wineglass that I finally swept my eyes across the packed room and narrowed in on Elena.
I sucked in a breath, nearly choking on my wine as my gaze widened at the sight of her.
Ah, to think I’d thought she had lacked the inherent sensuality of her sister Cosima.
I was more than happy to be proved so spectacularly wrong.
Ammazza, she was glorious.
Even in the seductive dress, she was still a vision of elegance, hair held off her neck in some kind of hairstyle that had the odd thick curl brushing the creamy skin of her neck and cheeks, only a simple gold chain at the column of that long throat. I’d only ever seen her in feminine but extremely conservative suits and blouses for work and once in a tuxedo dress when Osteria Lombardi had been bombed by Noel in an attempt to kill Alexander, Cosima, and myself.
Never like this.
Apparently unaware of the gaze of dozens of lusty men and envious women pinned to her, she handed off the boxes of tiramisu to a server and began to wind through the bodies on her way to the kitchen. She looked like some heathen goddess of sex and war, conquering the room with her allure with every step she took toward me.
Toward me.
Something primal in my gut tightened and went white-hot. With any other woman, I would have given in to instinct and surged forward to claim that red hair with my fist and that red mouth with my own. I would have steered her toward the nearest room with a door and fucked her against it, rending that red dress in two so it stained the floor like spilled blood, leaving her naked for my ravishing.
Fuck.
My cock jumped and hardened in my suit pants.
It was irrational and ridiculously stupid to become attracted to one of my lawyers, my best friend’s sister, a woman I was certain wouldn’t know sexual passion if it slapped her in the arse.
So, instead of offering one of the dozen compliments that lingered on my tongue like the taste of my Chianti, I pinned her with a haughty look and drawled, “Bene. You wore the dress.”
Instantly, her carefully controlled expression dissolved in the vinegar of my words. “I wasn’t aware I had a choice.”
“There is always a choice,” I said with a tsk, condescending to her just to see the way a flush would spill down her cheeks to pool at the top of her exposed chest. “You made the right one.”
“You flatter yourself if you think it had anything to do with pleasing you,” she countered easily, so quick and cold, her words landed like flurries on my skin. She idly smoothed a hand down her flat stomach to the slight flare of one hip. “The dress pleased me. It was too exquisite not to wear.”
“Of course,” I agreed, secretly pleased because I’d chosen it myself from a selection Bambi had shown me earlier that afternoon.
We were speaking loudly to be heard over the ambient noise of the party around us, and I used it as an excuse to lash forward and grab her hand before she could protest, tugging her closer so she stumbled in those high heels and right against my body.
It was a move I was coming to deeply enjoy.
She scowled up at me, trying to push off my chest with little success as I kept her pinned close with my hands on her silk-covered hips.
“Take your heathen hands off me,” she snapped. “People are watching.”
“I bought the dress,” I argued calmly, my fingers splaying over her slight hips and loving the feel of her long, delicate bones. “It’s only right I should enjoy it.”
“I’ll take it off immediately if you’re so obsessed with it.” Her eyes, a dark gray mottled with bright silver patches and black striations, were frozen with disdain.
It shouldn’t have turned me on. Her vitri
ol, her constant battle against my will.
I was a man used to getting his own way, and I preferred it that way.
But there was something hypnotic about her, a cold pull like the magnetism of the arctic poles.
Despite myself, I wanted to see if the infamous ice queen would melt under my tongue.
“Do it,” I dared her, bending down to sneer softly in her face. “Give us all a show.”
“I’d rather be naked in front of everyone than have your hands on me for a second longer than necessary,” she practically spat.
“Be my guest,” I purred, already imagining her long, thin body stripped of the luxurious cloth, even more beautiful bared to my eyes. “In fact…” I moved one hand off her hip, banded the other over her low back to keep her immobile, and tucked my raised forefinger under the thin strap of her gown, drawing it slowly down her shoulder.
It was small.
Barely a movement so much as a vibration.
But I felt her shiver against me a moment before she jerked away, stamping her heel on my foot. I released her with a growl that dissolved into loud laughter as I stared at her panting and glaring at me in that dress the color of sin.
“It’s not funny, Dante,” she hissed as those around us turned to watch me laugh at her. A stain of embarrassment marred her cheeks. “Stop it.”
I held a hand up to stall her as my laughter rolled into chuckles and then softened into a broad smile I felt tight in my cheeks. “It’s not a crime to have a bit of fun, Elena.”
She pursed those perfectly formed bow-shaped lips at me like a school marm in a sexy dress. “I could lose my license for having the type of ‘fun’ you consider appropriate.”
My amusement fled, and I took a hard step toward her, glad she didn’t flinch the way she usually did when I approached her like that. It was a small victory, but I’d take what I could in the battle against Elena’s hatred of me and everything I represented. “You and I may have different ideas of morality, but I’m sure I do not have to tell you about the concept of omertà. Silence between brothers is a holy thing.”
“And I’m your brother?” she asked dryly, hands going to her hips to strike a pose full of sass and fire.
When Heroes Fall Page 10