She sighs dramatically, but he doesn’t seem to care.
“No, Lena. Not today.”
With a labored sigh, she pushes up from the table, walks to him, and gives him a hug from behind. “Missed your overbearing, bossy ways,” she says on a sigh. “Wasn’t the same here without you. Take care of her, Lando. She’s special.”
Special? What makes her think that? I open my mouth to protest when he responds.
“I know.”
Okay, so that’s not fair. I’m supposed to be finding a way to escape, not allowing him to endear himself to me. Great.
CHAPTER 13
“Love thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.” ~ Twelfth Night, Shakespeare
Orlando
I throw myself into work, getting accustomed to everything that waited for me when I was away. But I hate the minutes and hours that pass when I’m away from Elise.
She is the one I never knew I needed, and now that she’s mine, I can’t be without her. I crave her like an addict craves his next hit, every thought consumed with thoughts of her when we’re not together.
“You fucking lovebird,” Santo says a few days after we’ve returned to The Castle. Elise has occupied herself with my sisters and mother, quickly adapting to life at The Castle. She’s a natural with Natalia, too.
When I’m here, I like her near me, close enough to reach. When I’m not, she’s got guards that flank her every side.
Santo caught me smiling like a lovesick fool just thinking about her earlier.
“Fuck off, Santo.”
He rubs his hand along the stubble on his chin.
“You’re falling for her.”
I tap the stack of papers I was reviewing and slide them into a manila folder. Property rights to another restaurant space we’re buying in Boston, and I’m the one that oversees real estate.
“Of course I’m fucking falling for her. We’re married.” He shakes his head and takes a smoke out. “You light that up in here, I’ll shove it up your ass,” I warn him.
He chews the end of the smoke and leans back in his chair.
Santo is the only made man in the inner circle not related by blood, the only one my mother ever let my father fully corrupt. He taught us many things, but Santo he took under his wing. Santo got the full effect of my father’s true depravity.
It shows.
“She may be your wife, but you can’t go fucking soft on her,” he says with a grimace. “Jesus, man, I thought the big house toughened you up. Seems it didn’t have the effect on you I thought it would.”
I lean back in my chair, the one I had custom-built to accommodate my frame. It swivels back. I steeple my fingers and look at him. “Maybe I like a woman to come home to, brother. Doesn’t mean I’ve gone soft.” Whereas Romeo has always viewed women as a duty, as it was his job to marry first, and Mario sees women as his playthings, Santo sees women in a very different light. The day a woman thaws his icy, sadistic heart pigs will fucking fly.
His lips turn downward in a sardonic smile. “Women are useful for two fucking things and you know it.”
“Yeah?” God, I’ve missed this asshole. He’s ruthless as fuck but there’s no one I’d want at my back in a fight more than Santo. Loyal to the damn core, he’d lay down his life for any one of us. “Let’s hear it.”
He rolls his eyes. “As if you don’t know.”
“I wanna hear what you think.”
“Fucking and feeding. She can suck my cock and give me her hot, tight cunt, after she brings me dinner and pours me a cold drink.”
I can’t help but snort. “What, you don’t want her to rub your feet by an open fire and call you ‘My Lord’?”
He shrugs. “That’s a given.”
“Jesus.”
Someone knocks at the door as I tap out a message to Elise. She has a burner phone, a child-safety version that’s only used to text me. She can’t text anyone else, and can’t access the internet. I won’t give her access to her own phone, not yet.
Me: You ready for dinner tonight?
Elise: Wait, that’s tonight?
Of all the goddamn… I blow out an angry breath and text her again.
Me: You mean to tell me after all the to-do finding something to wear and getting your hair cut and giving me shit about manners at a high-end restaurant and you fucking forgot it’s tonight?
I glance at the clock and groan. We leave in thirty minutes.
My phone buzzes with another text, but it’s a picture message. I tap it and see Elise sitting primly by the window seat in my—our—room. She’s wearing a stunning ivory dress with a plunging neckline, just low-cut enough to be salacious without showing too much skin. Enough to make any man jealous of me for the woman I’ve got on my arm tonight.