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There was a sound from nearby. Somebody clearing his throat, maybe.
“Agreed,” Rafe said. “A guy tried to upset our Anna, she’d take him out.”
There it was. That same sound again. The four Orsinis looked up. A guy was standing next to their booth. He was big, like them. Dark haired, like them. Dressed in an expensive suit and handmade shoes, also like them, but his tie was crooked, his hair looked as if he’d combed it with his fingers and there was a glitter in his eyes that they all recognized as Trouble, definitely Trouble, and with a capital T.
The brothers looked at each other. What the hell is this? those looks said and, as one, they rose to their feet.
“Service is at the bar, pal,” Falco said.
The guy nodded. Did that throat-clearing thing again.
“Listen,” Rafe said, “you got a problem with the place or the food—”
“I am Draco Valenti,” Draco blurted. “And she’s not your Anna, she is mine.”
Silence. A heavy, awful silence. Then Nick jerked his chin toward the door that led to The Bar’s private office, and the five men marched to it, Draco surrounded by men he figured could grind him into dust if they decided that he was the problem, not the solution.
He could fight back. He was pretty sure he was as tough as they were, but there were four of them, one of him, and besides …
Besides, he had hurt his Anna. Their sister.
All things considered, if they wanted to beat the crap out of him, he wouldn’t try to stop them.
A hand shoved him, none too gently, into a small, inexpensively furnished room. Desk. Phone. Chairs. And framed photos on the walls. Photos of these four. And of four smiling women. Babies. A toddler. A woman who had to be the mother of the clan. A slim, beautiful young woman with dark hair.
And Anna. His Anna, smiling and happy and lovely and—and God, how he missed her, yearned for her, needed her—
“So?”
Draco turned around. The Orsinis stood lined up, shoulder to shoulder, arms folded, jaws set. He was a fan of American football and he had a totally irrelevant thought.
He’d seen offensive linemen who looked less threatening than these guys.
“What do you mean, she’s your Anna?”
He had no idea which of them had spoken the first time, which had spoken now. The only thing he did know was that now was not the time for introductions.
“You want it straight?” he said. “No bull?”
“Straight,” one of them growled. “From the beginning.”
So Draco told them.
Everything. Okay. Not everything. Not about what had happened on the flight to Rome, or what had happened in her hotel, or, Cristo, not what had happened in his bed.
But all the rest … He told them.
How he’d thought this was just going to be a weekend fling. One of them started forward when he said that, but the guy beside him muttered, “Cool it,” and the other guy stood still the way a tiger might stand still before it made a kill.
Draco told them more.
He said that weekend fling hadn’t been enough, how he’d convinced Anna to stay another week. How incredible the week had been, and how he’d suddenly realized he didn’t want her to leave him when it ended.
Now came the hardest part.
He told them of the scheme he’d hatched. All of it. The job offer. The apartment. That what he wanted was to make Anna his mistress.
One of the Orsinis swung at him. He stood there and took the blow, straight to his jaw.
