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I feel a sharp burn behind my eyes at the thought, and I swallow hard. The last thing I want to do is burst into tears and embarrass myself, when Lorenzo has clearly asked me here to talk about business and nothing more.
“I visited the precinct.” Lorenzo leans back in his chair, his expression betraying nothing. “I spoke with Dawson—the police chief. I let him know that one of his cops is hassling someone working for me, and that I’d appreciate him having a word with the man. I didn’t have a name to give him?—”
“He didn’t tell me his name.” I bite my lip. “Sorry. Go on.”
“Right. So, I gave him the physical description that you gave me. To be honest, it sounds a lot like an officer that I ran into a few weeks ago, right after Altiere’s death, on my way out of the precinct. He gave me a bit of an attitude. I didn’t think anything of it then, but I have a feeling he’s one of those young, new cops who thinks he’s going to change the world, and has a hard-on for the mob organizations in this city specifically. He might have caught some whiff of you having something to do with us, and he’s seeing if he can exploit it.”
A cold curl of fear wraps around my spine, licking its way up my back. I press my lips together, trying not to show how nervous it makes me feel. If Lorenzo sees that I’m terrified of the idea of dealing with this man again, he won’t let me sell the drugs for him any longer. It won’t just be until the heat dies down, we’ll be finished entirely.
“I spoke with Dawson,” he repeats, continuing on as if he hasn’t noticed any reaction at all. “He said he’ll speak with the man—his name is Carl, by the way. Carl Adams.”
I almost laugh. I have to sink my teeth into my lower lip to stop it, for fear it will come out hysterical, a response to all of the stress and pressure that has been steadily fraying at my nerves for a year now. Carl Adams. It’s a plain, innocuous name. It feels difficult, in the light of day and in Lorenzo’s office, to understand how I could be so afraid of a man named Carl Adams.
“Dawson said he’ll remind him that there are certain—matters—in the city that are not to be followed up on. The Campano family businesses fall under that purview. So if he bothers you again, tell me, and I’ll tell Dawson. It will be handled. And—” Lorenzo reaches for a small business card near his computer. “If, for some reason, Officer Adams should get overenthusiastic, and bring you in to the station one day, call this number.” He pushes the card across to me. “It’s our family’s lawyer, the one we keep on retainer. When he shows up to assist you, it will be clear you’re someone under our protection, and not to be held or charged.’
I pick up the card with trembling fingers. When Lorenzo first offered me the job, it was easy to put the idea of any potential consequences out of my head. But Adams coming to the club, following me, Lorenzo pulling me off of the job for a week, and now this—looking at a lawyer’s business card held between my fingers…
My heart pounds a little too hard, and I feel a prickle of sweat on the back of my neck. It feels too real. “You said sometimes an example has to be made,” I whisper weakly. “Someone has to be thrown under the bus. How can you hand me this, then, and promise that it won’t be me?”
Lorenzo’s expression betrays nothing. I wish, desperately, that it would. That he would let me see something of himself, the way he did in the studio that afternoon, when he touched me gently and made me want to sink into the perceived safety of his arms.
“Because,” he says calmly. “I decide who is ‘thrown under the bus,’ if someone needs to be. And I promise you, Mila, that it won’t be you.”
I nod slowly, slipping the card into my purse. “So I’m going to be selling again? I work tonight at the club. I know Cherry has been asking me when I’ll have more.”
Lorenzo lets out a slow breath. “That’s up to you, Mila.” I notice that he hasn’t slipped back into calling me Miss Ilenya, at least—it seems the time for that is long past. “The heat, as it were, should have died down. Adams should leave you alone. But you don’t have to go back to doing this. You’ve had a taste of what it’s like, and what the risks can be. I’ve promised to shield you from some of those risks, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t have to deal with complications in the meantime. And if you simply don’t want to do it any longer—” He shrugs. “I would understand. This isn’t for everyone.”
“And if I don’t want to?” The question comes out as a whisper, my hands knotting together in my lap, and I know how very transparent I am right now. I know he can see the question in my eyes—if I don’t want to sell drugs for him any longer, will he take me up on my other offer? Will there be a chance of anything at all between us, when I need an arrangement of some kind—and if it’s not with him, it will have to be with someone else?
Lorenzo looks at me for a long moment. “Then we will part ways amicably, Miss Ilenya.”
The sharp sting of tears startles me. There it is. The formal use of my last name, the reminder of what we’re supposed to be to each other—nothing but employer and employee, albeit a very illegal one. That I work for him, and that he has declined every offer I’ve given him for an arrangement that involves greater intimacy. That every time things have crossed a line between us, it’s been because one of us slipped up.
I realize, sitting there, that I can’t bear the idea of going to someone else. I can’t stand the thought of going to the next gala that’s held for patrons of the ballet, and spending my night flirting and making shy eye contact with the rich men there until one of them takes an interest in me. Of ending up in someone else’s bed, with the arrangement I had with Alfio and offered Lorenzo, and wishing that it was Lorenzo touching me. Inside of me.
The thought makes my stomach turn and my heart wrench, and I know at that moment that I feel more for Lorenzo than I ever should have. That those few moments of tenderness in the studio, tangled up with the heated desire that I feel for him, did something to me.
Something that I can’t easily undo.
“I want to keep working for you.” I say it quickly; almost too quickly. Whatever this is between us, I don’t want it to end yet.
Lorenzo lets out a slow breath, his green gaze meeting mine evenly. If he feels any emotion at all, I can’t see it. “If that’s the case,” he says quietly, “then what happened last week can’t happen again.”
I don’t need to ask what he’s talking about, or what he means. I also can’t speak to answer. My throat feels as if it’s closing over, my chest tight. What happened in the studio felt like the beginning of something, and now this feels like the end. I’m not ready for that, not yet—even though I should have been all along.
“This has to be business only,” he continues, his voice blank and even. “This will get more dangerous if lines are blurred.”
Those lines have been erased, I want to blurt out. But of course, they haven’t been—not completely. It feels like it to me, when I haven’t had that kind of contact with someone I actually wanted in so long, when I’ve never felt desire or pleasure like I do with him. But there’s so much still that we haven’t done. Lines that we haven’t crossed—that Lorenzo seems intent on ensuring we stay on the other side of.
Him on one side, and me on the other.
I feel, uncomfortably, almost as if he’s lecturing me. Warning me not to seduce him again, when he was the one who kissed me first in the hallway. But the sting of it is softened by the memory of that kiss, and I feel a flush creep up my neck, my lips tingling. I wish, more than anything, that he would kiss me again.
That the cold, reserved man behind the desk would transform into the warm, tender version of Lorenzo that made me lose all my self-control with him. It was only a week ago, but the chilly atmosphere of our conversation now makes it feel as if it was a lifetime.
“Mila.” The seriousness of his tone brooks no argument, no chance for me to flirt and tease him into admitting that he doesn’t want this to be only business any more than I do. “I know you might think that was business—what happened. I offered you money to keep you afloat until the police matter could be handled, and you tried to offer your—services in return. But I tried to make it very clear that I didn’t see that as the exchange that happened between us. And what did happen can’t continue, if you’re going to do this job for me.”
The stiff way he says it almost makes me want to laugh. As if we’re talking about something other than me on my knees, his eyes wide with pleasure as he fought to keep himself from thrusting into my mouth while I sucked him. Him on his knees minutes later, learning the soft contours of my inner thighs before he tasted me for the first time. As if there were nothing intimate about the encounter at all, as if it wasn’t the hottest, most passionate thing that’s ever happened to me.
