I rode up the elevator alone, leaving the guards on the main level as I tried to steel myself against seeing Leda again. She was just a woman, for fuck’s sake, my prisoner.
And here I was, letting her stay in my penthouse, sleep in my bed, and treating her like she was my girlfriend.
I slumped against the elevator wall, and thrust my hand through my hair. This shit had to stop. She was affecting me in ways I couldn’t control, ways that could get me killed if I wasn’t careful.
Leda could become the weakness that Adrian or any other enemies could hold over my head. A Don’s greatest weakness was the people that he cared about. Men who wouldn’t break under the worst kind of torture came undone at the thought of their loved ones being hurt.
That wasn’t in my cards. That couldn’t be in my cards.
When the doors opened, I slid a mask of indifference over my face as I walked in. The smells of garlic and basil hit me almost immediately. Leda was standing at the stove. And fuck me if my cock didn’t rise to attention at the sight of her wearing my clothes, her long hair tied in a simple braid down her back. Music played from a distant speaker, and she was tapping her bare foot to the beat.
I could’ve almost pretended like I was coming home.
For a moment, I watched her, feeling the odd sensation in my chest of what it would be like with Leda as something more permanent in my life. She was a Mafia Don’s daughter, so my world wasn’t entirely alien to her. It wouldn’t totally crush her.
It hadn’t yet.
She was tough, far tougher than I ever gave her credit for. And that was what I was so taken by.
But to let her in—completely in—would be disastrous. I wasn’t the type of man she needed. I wasn’t the type of man she should take care of.
I wasn’t the type of man she deserved. She was too good and wholesome. I was the complete opposite.
She called me a monster in my nightmare. And she was right.
I was never meant to have anyone care for me. Least of all someone as good as her.
Leda turned suddenly, and instead of the wariness that had been in her eyes before, there was a brightness that sent my heart slamming.
“Hey!” she said cheerfully, coming toward me. “You’re home. I didn’t hear you come in. I hope you don’t mind, but I had this thought to cook us a meal tonight. It’s my grandmother’s recipe.”
I just stood there, unable to speak, inside me was a war between my brain and my heart. Between what I wanted and what I needed. The two directions tugged at me. It felt like the walls were closing in, like I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
I couldn’t be with her. I would never deserve her. She had no idea just what she let into her fucking bed.
Her expression was happy, happy to see me, the fucking guy that ruined her life by purchasing her and forcing her to be with him. It would have been better off had she hated me all along.
Then it would be easier to do what needed to be done right at this moment. Leda wouldn’t understand. She’d think that I was just protecting myself from loving her, when the truth was that I was trying to protect her from loving someone like me.
So, I made a decision, one that was already hurting me before I let the words out. “You are a prisoner here, Leda,” I growled. “Not some fucking guest.”
Her steps slowed to a stop and her smile slipped, causing the damn ache in my chest to increase. “I just thought—”
I stepped closer, forcing myself to put on the mask that I had worn so often before meeting her, the one that would keep me from being hurt by anyone.
“You thought wrong,” I said, my heart breaking as I watched hurt and confusion flicker over her lovely face. “I don’t want your fucking food.”
This had to be the right thing to do. It had to be.
Then why did I feel like a total asshole for doing it?
I fucked over a lot of people in my day as Don, and even more people as the enforcer that Cosimo had molded me into, but never had it felt this shitty.
I finally felt like the monster that was stole the princess and then broke her fucking heart.
And for the first time in my life, I hated myself in a way that I never thought possible.
Chapter 48