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I smiled slowly. Luciano was right. I never failed at anything in my life. Why should I start now?
I pushed my glass away.
“You’re right, Luch. She doesn’t stand a chance.”
A pretty little babe in the woods? There was no way she could resist me if I turned on the charm. But first, I needed to make her trust me.
We had gotten off on the wrong foot, sure. But now that she was here, and now that I had seen her, I wasn’t going to stop until I got what I wanted.
Into those cute little panties of hers.
In fact, I would make sure I knew what they looked like. It wouldn’t be hard. All I had to do was buy her some new things, which I had planned to do anyway.
We would be sure to make a detour to the lingerie department, that was all.
“Sparkling.”
“Water?” The waitress asked, looking confused.
I nodded, ignoring her as she walked away on impossibly high heels. The women in here were all attractive. But brittle. There was no freshness. No sweetness.
I didn’t even look at them. There was no point.
They weren’t her.
Chapter Ten
Theresa
I pushed the books onto the shelf one by one. Lining them up carefully so that they looked nice. This was it.
My first college desk. This was where I would read and work. This was the first step towards becoming a doctor.
I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck.
Dinner last night had been a disaster.
Not because Michael had been rude. It was a disaster because he had been so nice. Honestly I didn’t know what to make of it. I’d left feeling flattered, warm from the wine and good food, and more confused than ever about whether I needed to leave this house or not.
He’d asked all the right questions. Why I wanted to be a doctor. If I was ready for all the hard work and long hours. What my other interests were. About where I had grown up, living on the Margarelli estate, and finally about my family.
That was when I got quiet and started asking him about his family.
He opened up easily, which surprised me. The smile on his face when he talked about his brother and sister, and his cousins was infectious. But he too got quiet when I asked about his parents.
There was a story there. A secret. Just like I had secrets.
It had made me feel close to him. Empathetic. I saw a whole new side to the ‘monster’ who had been so unwelcoming and dictatorial.
Michael was more than one thing, it turned out. He was many things. It was surprising, but I liked what I had seen.
And that scared me more than anything.
A loud knock on the door snapped me out of my daydream.
“Yes?” I asked, walking towards the door.
“It’s Michael.”
I stopped in my tracks, flew to the mirror, and adjusted my hair. I muttered ‘stupid, stupid, stupid’ as I applied lip gloss.
I sighed and called out ‘coming!’
It was silly, but I felt like a silly school girl compared the women he was probably used to. Sophisticated city women were probably his thing. And yes, it was now glaringly obvious that I was developing a crush.
A very, very, dangerous, hopeless, impossible crush.
Damn it, I muttered to myself as I opened the door.
Oh my.
Michael stood there, looking impossibly handsome in yet another perfectly cut suit. Well, shirt and pants. He had forgone the jacket. I almost wished for the jacket, because the shirt left so much less to the imagination about his manly shape.
Broad, thick shoulders, arms bulging with muscles, but not too much. He worked out, that was obvious. But he wasn’t a meat head.
He was just… perfect.
Argh.
“Yes?”
“Are you ready?”
“Breakfast isn’t for twenty minutes.”
“No breakfast today. We’ll get something when we are out,” he said, holding up a travel mug. “I brought you coffee.”
“Where are we going?”
He smiled then, and the impact almost sent me to my knees.
“Don’t you remember?” I blinked, trying to ignore the effect of those shiny white teeth and the gorgeous crinkling happening at the corners of his dark, seductive eyes. “I am taking you shopping.”
Chapter Eleven
Michael
“Try this one,” I said, handing it to the waiting clerk. I didn’t want for Terri to answer. I was choosing almost everything she would try on. The shop girls were running back and forth to the dressing rooms.
It was just the first store, but my cute little houseguest was looking more than overwhelmed.
“It’s all so… expensive…” she said, looking helplessly at a tag.
“Don’t look at the prices. It doesn’t matter.”
“I have plenty of clothes,” she said, biting her lip. “This is completely unnecessary. I’m just a student.”
I latched onto that immediately.
“You are not just a student. You are a Margarelli.”
“I’m not, though, not really.”
“You are,” I insisted calmly. “You live under our roof and you are under our protection. My protection. And you should reflect that.”
