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He’ll be more pissed if I upset a customer because I’m so rattled.
Lorenzo isn’t there when I slip out to the back alley, and I let out a breath of relief. It gives me a moment to compose myself. But in the end, it doesn’t matter—because when he comes around the building a minute later, I feel my pulse leap in my throat all over again.
“You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin,” he observes. His gaze stays fixed on my face, and I almost want to laugh. The only man who I actually find myself wanting to look at me the way so many other men do, ill-advised as it is, and he isn’t as susceptible. Or if he is, he’s much better at hiding it.
“Why are you here?” I’m not sure I want to tell him about the cop. I’m fairly sure that I should tell him about anything like that, especially if there’s even the faintest chance it could be connected to him, but what if he decides that means the risk is too high? I don’t know for sure that the man was anything other than a nosy cop looking to harass me for no reason other than that he could, but there’s always a possibility. Lorenzo might decide that any heat is too much heat, especially after only a week, and call off our deal. And then where will I be?
“I came to see how things were going.” His voice is low and smoky, effortlessly seductive, even when I know he’s not trying to. Based on our previous interactions, he’s probably trying to do the exact opposite of that. But it sends a flicker of heat through me all the same, my skin prickling. He’s an arm’s-length from me, and out here, no one would see us if he reached out and touched me.
“I’ve almost sold all of the pills.” I bite my lip. The words came out more defensively than I meant for them to, but my nerves feel shredded, and I suddenly wish I could just go home. My night is barely half over, but the exhaustion that sweeps over me threatens to buckle my knees.
Lorenzo frowns, stepping closer. My back is against the wall, and the way he stands in front of me, a hand apart now, brings to mind how easily he could close that distance. The heat spreads, and I remember what it felt like to have him pin me against the wall in that darkened hallway, his hand on my arm, the warm scent of his skin, and the citrus of his cologne surrounding me.
“I had no doubt you could manage it.” His gaze narrows, pinning me without his hands ever touching me. “Something is wrong, though. Don’t lie to me, Mila.”
There’s a faint warning in his tone. Of course, he would see through my jangling nerves. Of course, he would want me to tell him the truth—he can’t have someone working for him who he can’t trust. I feel a flicker of fear, when I think of what would happen to someone who lied to him.
The way he makes me feel makes it easy to forget how dangerous he is. And that, in and of itself, is dangerous.
“There was a cop here tonight.” I blurt it out in a whisper, looking up at him. “A man wanted a dance in the back room. He asked for my real name. When I refused, he said he could get it anyway, if he wanted to…since he worked for the LAPD.”
Lorenzo’s face darkens in an instant. “He threatened you?”
The heat that washes over me at the look on his face is entirely unexpected. Lorenzo looks furious—and for a moment, I want to believe that it’s on my behalf. That he’s angry that anyone would threaten me.
Don’t be an idiot. He’s angry because the heat from a cop hovering around me could threaten his business. It could put me in a position to have to choose between ratting him out and keeping his secrets, and he wants to be sure that I won’t do the former. It has nothing to do with me at all.
Why would it?
“It wasn’t a direct threat. But he—he—” I don’t know how to explain it to Lorenzo, the subtle ways that a man can threaten a woman without ever really saying it aloud. The hand on my hip, my ass, when he knew better than to touch me. The suggestion that he should jerk off while he watched me dance. The pointed way of telling me that he could get my name if he wanted to. None of it was a real threat, a point-blank suggestion that he would stalk me or hurt me or suspect me of something…but it was a threat all the same. And it feels like the sort of thing that, said out loud, sounds like an overreaction.
But I know, in the way that all women know when they’re in danger from a man, that it’s not.
“I feel like something is wrong,” I whisper, and it sounds exactly as unrealistic as I knew it would. “He—there was something off about him.”
Lorenzo’s face softens, and it catches me off-guard. I’d expected him to dismiss me, to be annoyed with my fears, even, but instead, he reaches out, brushing a loose piece of my blonde hair behind my ear. There’s an odd expression on his face when he does it, as if he surprised himself with the motion. “The LAPD is in our pocket,” he says gently. “I didn’t say anything before, because I didn’t want you to think you could be careless with what you’re doing. But the cops shouldn’t bother you, Mila. Even if you were to get caught, the Campano family donates handsomely to the police funds to ensure that a blind eye is turned to our—activities.”
A flicker of uncertainty twists my stomach. “So you’re saying that if I get caught, they’ll let me go?”
Lorenzo lets out a slow breath. “I can’t promise anything for certain. Sometimes allowances have to be made.” He seems to see the sudden fear in my face, because his expression softens further, and becomes something almost reassuring. “I would do everything I could to make sure nothing happened to you, Mila. We look out for the people who work for us.”
I swallow hard. “So you own the cops. And you’ll try to help me out of a bind. You don’t think this one has anything to do with what we—what I?—”
“Even if he does, he can harass and threaten all he likes, but his hands will be tied. I meet with the police chief regularly. The Campano family dealings are left alone.”
I nod, but the knot in my stomach doesn’t ease. Even if nothing can come of it, the idea of that man continuing to show up at the club, poking around, even digging into me and my family?—
It makes me feel sick.
Lorenzo reaches out, his fingers slipping under my chin, and he tilts my face up so that I’m looking at him. The touch seems to light every nerve in my body on fire, my lungs tightening, and I struggle not to let it show on my face. I don’t want him to see my fear, and more than anything, I don’t want to let him see my desire.
He’s already shown me that he won’t exploit it. But he’s rejected me once already, and I don’t want him to know that I still want him.
I’ve been humiliated enough by men that I don’t want. It would feel worse to be humiliated by one that I do.
“Mila.” His voice roughens, and it forces me to look up into his eyes. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
The look in his eyes is one of mingled fury and desire. It weakens my knees, sends a flood of heat down to my toes, makes me ache. He’s barely touching me at all, only his fingertips still on my chin, but I feel like I can’t breathe.
