“What if she chooses me?” Marcello asked.
“Then you will bow out gracefully. There will be other opportunities for you.” A moment of silence passed over them before Arlo said, “Alexandrea is a distraction Bash and Damian don’t need. But I said I would indulge the two of you. I owe you as much after everything you’ve given up for this family.”
What does Arlo owe them?
They spoke for a few more minutes about business, nothing that interested me, and then their footsteps approached the entryway.
Shit.
I ripped off my heels and bolted down the hallway in the opposite direction. They would have killed me if they knew I overheard their conversation. I stopped at the ballroom. At least from here, I could pretend I had just come downstairs. So I stepped into my heels, composed myself, and then walked toward them with my head held high.
Dressed in dark, tailored suits, the Salvatores were as intimidating as they were handsome, perfect in every way. Even Arlo was still attractive for his age. It wasn’t hard to see where Marcello and Luca got their good looks.
“Where do you think you’re going, Cherry?”
“To get art supplies,” I told Bastian.
Arlo moved around his sons in a hurry. Marcello winked as he blew past me, attached to his father’s side. At least he wasn’t ignoring me.
Luca looked at his brothers, avoiding my gaze. “I have a meeting in ten minutes.” He walked away, his hand raised in the air and his back facing me. “Call if anything urgent requires my attention.”
No hello or even a second of his time to acknowledge me. He was so damn confusing, the most infuriating of the four brothers. His insistence to push me away, to treat me like shit, only made me want him more. Maybe I was too fucked up, damaged from years of trauma. That was the only explanation for why I felt the way I did about the cruelest prince of them all.
Bastian gripped my bicep. “We’ll take you to the store.”
“No, that’s okay. Your dad’s driver is waiting for me.”
Bastian dragged me down the corridor by the arm. “We’ll make sure you get there safely.”
I wasn’t so sure about the safe part, but okay. Not like I had a choice. It was nice having a few days reprieve from them. But I knew better than to get too comfortable with their absence.
Without further complaint, I followed them outside. Bastian slid into the driver’s seat of a blue two-seater Porsche, forcing me to sit on Damian’s lap. He hooked his arm around my middle, his fingers splayed across my torso.
We drove off the property, the windows down and the wind blowing through our hair. I tried to sit up, and Damian increased the strength of his death grip. The psycho pinned me against his hard chest, his cock pressed into my ass. I felt him growing harder for me with each movement.
“Sit still, Pet,” he growled against the shell of my ear. Then he bit my earlobe, tugging on it like an animal. “Before I punish you.”
I didn’t want another spanking, so I straightened my back and laid on him like a corpse. Bastian glanced over at me, one eyebrow raised, then he cranked the radio. A rap beat blared through the speakers.
The guard opened the gate for us. Bastian floored the gas as we rode into The Hills, a subdivision of Devil’s Creek. The cheapest house in The Hills was five million dollars.
Ten minutes later, Bastian parked in front of Picasso’s Playground. He turned down the radio and reached across the center console to put his hand on my knee. “Don’t think about running.”
“You’re not staying with me?”
He shook his head. “Got shit to do, Cherry.”
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” he said in a dismissive tone. I pushed open the car door, and Bastian clutched my wrist. “We have cameras everywhere.” He pointed at a black SUV in the corner of the parking lot. “Your security detail is over there. They will drive you home.”
Home. It still sounded weird to call the Salvatore Estate anything other than a fancy prison on the sea.
“Got it.” I sighed. “No running.”
Bastian’s fingers dug into my left thigh, marking my skin. “When I get home, you better be in my bed.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved his hand away. “I don’t want to sleep with you.”