“Miss Rossi?”
“She’s with me,” I said, dismissing him.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah. The lady needs some privacy, man. Watch the door for us, and you can take over when she comes back inside.”
Without another word… he did.
They all knew better than to piss me off.
The door shut, and I turned back to face her. There were cameras in here, I knew, that would catch our every move, but that was okay. I wouldn’t touch her, even though it was the epicenter of every fantasy I ever had.
I grabbed my tee from the hood of the car and yanked it on. She stared at me, unabashed, and swallowed.
“You’ve… filled out, Santo,” she said in wonder.
I looked down at where the tee stretched across my arms but lay flat against my abs.
“Helps a guy get laid,” I said, and I wasn’t joking.
She gave me a sad smile. “Of course it does,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t know.”
I sat across from her, only feet away, and thought about that. It was the first time I actually had. God, but I could be a selfish son of a bitch sometimes.
I’d forgotten their father’s expectation of virginity until marriage. The women of the Rossi family were expected to marry to benefit the family, and no one would accept a woman who was blemished.
Widow was the one exception, I found out later, but we didn’t know that then. Kids didn’t need to think of shit like that. It was like thinking of taxes, or mortgages, or death.
I couldn’t imagine being in college, as stunningly gorgeous as her, and not be able to do… well, damn near anything.
“You can’t… you ever even been kissed?” I asked her. I felt the rising response of my dick at the thought of kissing those full lips of hers. The way her back would feel pressed against my palm, the scent of her hair when I brushed it away…
She flushed pink. “Maybe,” she said, then looked away. “But it was nothing memorable.”
Goddamn, I’d give her a kiss she’d never forget.
I cleared my throat and changed the subject. I didn’t need to do a damn thing that would encourage my dick or my thoughts to get any of us killed.
“That why you’re crying?” I asked, giving her a half smile. “Shitty first kiss?”
She gave me a wan smile and rolled her eyes. “Not because of the guy that kissed me. Like I said, it was… forgettable.” She actually cringed.
“Who?” I asked, unable to mask my sudden anger at this revelation. I watched as her eyes went from slightly amused to guarded, as if she just remembered I was a sworn-in member of the Rossi family.
“As if I’d tell you,” she said, shaking her head. “No way.”
She knew I’d kick their ass. No one was supposed to touch a Rossi girl.
I’d find out.
It would take me a few weeks, but I’d find out and still give the thorough ass-kicking they’d earned for breaking the rules, for touching her.
Her brothers would kill me if I were the one…
“Then why are you crying?”
She looked away and bit her lip. It wasn’t uncommon for Rosa to be upset about something, but it wasn’t often she cried. Like all of us, she learned to mask her emotions and follow the rules.
Life was simpler that way.
“Papa found out I had a friend, and he—”
Goddamn Narciso. Always the fucking dictator.
I held up my finger to her, and she paused.
I tried to remember if the cameras in here had audio. Just to be safe, I stood and turned on the fan, pretended to check something under the hood. The deafening noise would hide the audio.
She frowned at me. I leaned in close. “It’s too fuckin’ loud,” I told her. “Will drown out our words if there’s audio in here.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Good thinking.”
Damn, that made me beam. I schooled my face and shrugged it off. I felt the flicker of warmth that only came from Rosa’s praise.
“So your Papa found out you had a friend…”
“Yeah. And she’s Irish, like Irish-American, and really poor.”
Dammit. Narciso hated non-Italians and poor people. Douchebag.
I winced.
She laughed mirthlessly. “You know then.”
“Yeah. What’d he do?”
“All the way from Italy, he told my guards not to let me see her anymore or talk to her anymore. Forbade it. Told me if he caught me near her again, he’d put me in boarding school.”
Always the Rossi family threat but damn if we didn’t all think they’d actually do it one day.
“He called her scum,” she whispered. “And she’s the sweetest girl I know. She’s wholesome.”
I knew what that felt like, craving the company of someone who was better than you.
I nodded. “Jesus, I’m sorry. God, that’s unfair.”
The only friends I had were right here. I hated people at school. They probably hated me back, but at least they feared me, and that was good enough for me.