That pissed Jordan off enough to get to his feet, too, and give him his sweetest smile. “Neither did Raffaele, and yet.” Raffaele Ferrara had been straight as an arrow until Nate; everyone knew it.
Damiano paused and gave him a considering look. “That’s true,” he said, looking almost… intrigued. He gave Jordan a scrutinizing look from head to toe. Jordan felt like a strange specimen in a zoo.
“Stop smoking in my face,” he said bitingly, trying to hide his discomfort. Jordan had never had low self-esteem. He knew he was handsome, the type of handsome that made people do a double take and turn back to look at him when he passed them. He looked a lot younger than his thirty-two years, his skin smooth and nearly flawless, no visible wrinkles thanks to his skincare routine. Frankly, he was more handsome than Nate.
But right now, under this man’s scrutiny, he felt about as ugly as the proverbial duckling. He’d never felt so self-conscious about his looks in his life.
“You’re different from what I expected,” Damiano said at last, removing the cigarette from his lips.
Jordan’s heart skipped a beat. “In what way?”
The other man glanced at Ferrara before looking back at him. “A lot less meek. Raffaele is the type of self-centered asshole who doesn’t tolerate back-talk—I’m surprised he puts up with you.”
“You haven’t seen him in a decade. How do you know what he’s like now?”
Damiano let out a soft snort. “People don’t really change. Or rather, ‘nice’ people can change for the worse, but assholes? Never.”
“You’re very cynical,” Jordan said, roaming his gaze over that hard, emotionless face. It repelled him as much as it fascinated him.
“Just pragmatic,” Damiano said, shrugging. “Everyone has the capacity to be an asshole, given the right incentive, but assholes never become nice guys, not truly. Or are you under a delusion that Raffaele is a nice man?”
Jordan nearly laughed. “I know he isn’t,” he said, choosing his words carefully and trying to adopt the soft, smitten expression he’d seen on Nate’s face when he spoke of Ferrara. “But I don’t need him to be a nice guy to love him.”
Something shifted in Damiano’s eyes. “Oh, really?” he said with a twisted sneer on his lips. “Are you actually claiming to love him?”
Lifting his chin, Jordan held his gaze. “Yes. So what?”
Damiano laughed, white teeth flashing against his tan skin. He leaned in and said into Jordan’s ear, his voice a low, intimate murmur, “If you really loved him, you wouldn’t look at me like you want to choke on my cock.”
Jordan spluttered in indignation, but before he could say anything, Damiano walked out of the room.
Chapter 6
Jordan normally wasn’t easily ruffled. In fact, most people working under him thought he was cold and emotionless—he’d actually overheard his subordinates call him an emotionless asshole with a stick up his ass. It was an image Jordan had cultivated himself. It was an image he was proud of.
But right now he was as far from emotionless as he could get. He seethed every time he looked at Damiano during lunch. Luckily, they were seated pretty far from each other, or Jordan probably wouldn’t have been able to eat at all. His appetite was gone every time he glanced toward the end of the table—at the head of the table. Why was that dick seated at the head of the table, exactly? It was absolutely sickening the way everyone bent over backward trying not to piss him off. Even Ferrara, who normally had an ego big enough for two, was quiet and wary as he watched his stepbrother with unreadable dark eyes.
It was a small consolation that at least no one seemed to like the asshole. They respected Damiano, most of them clearly feared him, but there wasn’t a single person in the room who looked at him kindly. If Damiano hadn’t been such a self-important ass, Jordan would have felt sorry for him. But as things stood, he totally understood why no one liked him. Who would like that presumptuous, arrogant—
“If you keep staring at Damiano, Raffaele might get the wrong idea.”
Yanking his gaze away, Jordan shifted it to the petite young woman seated to his right: Lucrezia, Ferrara’s younger cousin.
Lucrezia was smiling crookedly, the way people smiled when they weren’t sure what to think.
“I wasn’t staring,” Jordan said, grabbing his coffee. It was cold. He had been distracted.
Her expression skeptical, Lucrezia raised her fine dark eyebrows. “Between you and me,” she murmured just for Jordan’s ears. “I used to stare at Damiano, too, when I was a teenager—he isn’t actually blood-related to me, you know.” She winced, looking a little embarrassed. “He was deliciously forbidden: a relative but not, with a tragic backstory and dashing good looks.” She snorted. “I was a stupid little girl. I know better now.”