Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
We arrive at the elegant restaurant twenty minutes later. Bastian escorts me to the front doors, and I notice a crowd has collected—journalists, I realize, as cameras begin to flash.
“What is this about?” I ask him.
“Big show for your brother,” he says with what onlookers would see as a smile, but what I know is a sneer.
“My brother?”
Every table in the restaurant is full, and every single head turns at our entrance. Conversation momentarily stops.
“I guess he misses you,” Bastian says as he slips the wrap from my shoulders and sets his hand on my lower back.
I stiffen instantly, the touch of his skin hot against mine. The look he gives me tells me he feels it too.
“Let’s go.”
I glance up at him, and he down at me. His expression is hard. Resting asshole face.
“Ms. Russo, I’m so sorry for your loss,” a man says as he stands when we pass his table.
“Thank you,” I say to him, although I don’t know him.
“Your father and I had some business together. I’m sure we’ll—”
“Excuse us,” Bastian says, not even bothering with a fake smile. We weave around the tables, all eyes on us, and at the very back, I see Amadeo.
He stands, along with the men beside him. The woman at their table remains seated. One of the men looks to be in his late fifties or early sixties, and something about him is slightly familiar. The other is younger, maybe forty. The older one takes me in as we approach, and I feel his gaze slide over me like a cold, clammy hand. I shudder, slowing my step. Bastian must feel it because he presses his hand to my back, urging me forward.
“That’s our uncle Sonny. It’s the effect he has on everyone,” Bastian says.
I glance up at Bastian trying to get a read on him. But he sets his mouth in a line and gestures toward the table.
The man to the other side of Amadeo looks me over too, but it’s different with him. He’s not slimy. He smiles and nods in greeting, but I need to remember it’s a façade. If he’s a friend of Amadeo or Bastian, then his hands are not clean.
My mind wanders to the report Amadeo showed me, the comment about our company’s finances and how my brother has used them. But no. That can’t be right. My father would have known if anything was going on.
“Brother,” Bastian says once we get to Amadeo. I look at them standing there together. Two dangerous men. Two dangerous men made all the more attractive for the matching scars across their faces. And I am drawn to them both no matter how much I may want to resist or deny it.
But they’re both monsters. I just need to remember that.
Amadeo is wearing a suit similar to the one Bastian is wearing, black on black, dark hair combed back, a permanent five-o’clock shadow along the hard line of his jaw.
“You look lovely. Gold is your color,” Amadeo says as he appraises me, gaze moving slowly over me, so slowly it makes my nipples harden and the hair on my arms stand on end. “Thank you, brother,” he says. A look passes between them, some silent communication.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Bastian mutters and hands me off.
We both watch him settle himself on a stool at the bar across the room. He’s facing us, and even from this distance, I see his eyes bore into me.
I look away from him to scan the room. The conversation picks up, although I see curious glances. Amadeo draws me to his side and traces the line of my spine with the back of his hand, raising goose bumps in his wake.
“The diamonds suit you,” he says.
“You were very generous this afternoon.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice.” He leans close, and to the room, it looks as though he’s kissing my cheek. “And I meant what I said. I look forward to seeing just them on your naked skin.”
I swallow, unsure if it’s his words, his breath brushing my neck, or the fingers that play along my lower back that set butterflies loose in my stomach.
I won’t fuck them. I will not fuck them. Like a mantra, I repeat the words.
“Remember our agreement,” he whispers.
My face feels hot as he pulls away, eyes dark with a different kind of storm than earlier. And I see all the eyes on us. The anticipation.
Convince them.
I look up at him. He’s waiting for me. Waiting to see what I’ll do. I raise my left hand to his cheek, the diamond in full view. I lay it on his face. It’s the scarred side.
Cameras flash, and a woman gasps as light bounces off the flawless diamond surrounded by the smaller ladies-in-waiting. I lick my lips and take a breath in as my heart thuds against my chest. And I tell myself I’m doing this to be convincing. Not because I want to. I tell myself I’m doing it because I have to as I rise up on tiptoe and, looking into his eyes, I kiss him. I set my lips against his, and I kiss him.