“I’m not hungry.”
Marco gave her a once-over and Lila felt suddenly hot all over. Why did she have a feeling he was silently appraising her? He didn’t bother hiding the hunger in his eyes either. At the cemetery, he’d been polite, a complete gentleman, but that had been a mask. She knew that now.
Once Marco mentioned he knew about her debts, every bit of pretension had gone out the window. She wanted something from him, and men like Marco didn’t give out freebies. Marco would demand payment and she had a sneaking suspicion it was her he’d ask for.
“You need to eat,” was all Marco said. She blushed for no reason at all.
Marco grabbed an unoccupied seat in the corner, one that faced the door. Her father had the same habits, she remembered. They sat down. She nibbled on her muffin and took a sip of her coffee.
Despite the awkward situation, she let out a contented sigh, unable to help herself. The coffee was just that good. Marco curved his lips slightly upward, to what she guessed passed for a small smile.
“You love coffee. I remember,” he remarked. “Your lips tasted of it when you kissed me all those years ago.”
“You remembered that?” she asked, astonished. Marco must’ve kissed and taken plenty of women since then. Was he bringing that memory up out of nostalgia or for other darker reasons? Her father did his best to keep her out of the life, but Lila wasn’t naïve.
Marco wasn’t done. He went on, “I remember everything about you. The taste of your lips when we stood under that mistletoe, the heat of your body, the weight of your breasts when you pressed close. Everything.”
Lila set her cup down before she spilled any hot liquid on herself. No other man had ever spoken to her like this, so bluntly and to the point. She bet her cheeks and neck were red by now. God. Just that brutal, searing look and her tits started to perk up in her dress. She could imagine herself standing in front of him again, except they weren’t teenagers anymore.
Marco could grab her close, would take the lead. He’d crush his body against hers, plunder her mouth, and steal the very breath from her lungs. For those few, short, stolen moments under that mistletoe, Lila had drowned in him. Nothing else in the world had mattered and she wanted to feel that again.
She closed her eyes for a second, savoring that little daydream of hers. No matter how hard she tried, she could never forget Marco. Even when she was with John, all she ever thought about was the one man she told herself she hated.
Lila opened her eyes again to see Marco watching her like a hawk, no, a wolf. She had plenty of pride, just like her old man. Lila had been raised to be independent. That was why the moment she saw those checks in the mail, she tore them all up. This time, she needed to accept she couldn’t get out of this particular mess alone. It was time to set her pride aside.
“I need your help, Marco. I feel so lost and I don’t know who else I can turn to. Please. Tell me what I need to do.”
Chapter Two
Marco Severin could tell that asking for his help took plenty out of Lila. She sat so rigid in her chair. Her coffee, still half-full, had gone cold, so had the muffin. Never before had she looked so beautiful, so fuckable to him. He knew it was wrong, wanting this woman. Before Stefano died, he made Marco promise to look after his little girl—except Lila wasn’t so little anymore. She’d been a woman for a long time now.
“Say something. Please,” she added.
It wasn’t right taking advantage of Lila when she was like this—so vulnerable. Marco bet she seldom begged anyone for help, and to ask him? She hated him so much she never once cashed in any of the checks he wrote to her.
A good man, a knight, would offer her his help without expecting anything in return, but Marco was neither of those things. Decent had never an adjective used to describe him. He was the opposite of good. Lila would run screaming if she ever knew about the sins and foul deeds he’d committed in his lifetime.
“My help doesn’t come free,” he answered. The ice had broken between them in the car. Marco stopped hiding what he was. He’d never been a gentleman, anyway, and he was about to tell her what his help would cost.
“I understand,” she said, lowering her dark lashes.
They were the same color as her hair. Today, she wore her thick, lustrous chestnut hair bound tightly in a single braid. Marco didn’t like that. He preferred she wore it loose so he could tighten his fingers through those silken curls. He’d tug them down, expose the creamy expense of her slender throat. Then he’d set his teeth into her skin, mark her there like an animal would.
Marco could feel his dick painfully pressing up against the zipper of his trousers. Wanting this woman was dangerous. She didn’t even know how much of a threat she posed to him. Women were a distraction. That was all they were to him—then she came.
Five years went by and yet he’d never forgotten her. Marco had never been the same. He could never hold on to one woman. Each time he fucked someone else, all he pictured was Lila’s face and those lips.
Eleven years ago, she’d been the one who stole a kiss from him. No one had the guts to do that, then and now. Marco used to think she was just a good little girl, boring, nothing special until that night. That evening, he saw the daredevil in her and from then onward, he’d been hooked. Obsessed might be the better word.
It took him a second to realize she’d called out his name uncertainly.
“What exactly do you want from me, Lila?” he asked.
He took a sip of his coffee. The waitress had refilled his cup without him noticing. Every member of the staff and the customers present there knew who he was. No one would disturb him and Lila.
“Your help.” Lila stared at her barely eaten muffin. She took a bite, then another before meeting his gaze again. “You know about John, about Crane?”
“I do,” he answered.