As Edoardo’s neck snapped around to glare at me, Drea gave me a look of astonished respect.
“Leandro, this isn’t our business,” Rafe warned.
Fury continued raging through me. Glaring at Rafe, I demanded, “Not our business? That’s your future wife he’s manhandling.”
“He’s still her father,” he argued.
Edoardo sneered at me. “Are the Nerettis so soft that they do not believe in teaching a woman her place?”
“Only cowards hit women,” I replied.
At the venomous look in Edoardo’s eyes, Rafe grabbed my arm. “Take a walk and cool off,” he growled.
After slinging out of his grasp, my gaze bounced to Drea’s again. To my surprise, she remained staring at me with an expression my future sister-in-law really shouldn’t have on her face.
I gave her a tight smile before stalking away. I might’ve been following Rafe’s instructions, but the truth was I was leaving for my own benefit.
I needed to put as much space as I possibly could between Drea and me.
CHAPTER FIVE: DREA
One minute I was playing football with my siblings and the next I ran into one of the best looking men I’d ever seen. Since the force of slamming into his rock-hard body knocked the breath from me, I first thought I might be hallucinating.
But then as I shifted across his thick thigh, I realized he was very much real. For a moment, all I could do was stare at him. His somewhat tousled black hair was the type that begged you to run your fingers through it. His dark eyes stared at me in disbelief.
Not only did he look good, he felt good. Like, he had the body of a Roman Gladiator. To straddle his wide thighs, my legs were spread almost obscenely far apart. While my hands were planted on his hard pecs.
And then it hit me.
Although this man looked a lot like the pictures I’d seen on the internet, he wasnotRaphael Neretti. My future husband had shoulder-length hair that he usually swept back on the sides. This man’s hair was cropped short.
In that moment of pure absurdity, I blurted out with amusement, “Way to fuck up my touchdown.”
The man stared up at me in confusion. “Excuse me?”
I grinned down at him. “I was just about to score.”
The smirk that curved on his lips caused heat to burn between my thighs. “My sincere apologies.”
“Andrea!”
And just like that, the spell was broken, and reality came crashing down on me in the form of Father berating me. Mortification and rage overwhelmed me at the way he was speaking to me in front of my future husband and brother-in-law.
But then he put his hands on me.
And just when I thought the day couldn’t get any crazier, Leandro, not Raphael, came to my defense.
He’d stood up to my father.
He’d told him to leave me alone.
He’d called him a coward for hitting me.
For the first time since Marco, my dormant heart began to beat again.
But it was for the wrong Neretti brother.
No, no, no. I couldn’t feel anything for Leandro. Even if I couldn’t feel for Raphael, I couldn’t be attracted to his brother. As Leandro retreated into the house, I tried stilling the erratic flutter of my heart.
