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Make her mine.
I pull a hand from my pants pocket and glance down at the plastic baggy with tiny red tablets. The Cherry from our deal with the Peña Cartel. It’s only been in my possession for a few hours and I’m already distributing it—just much differently than was planned.
When the elevator reaches the top floor and the door parts, I hand over the baggy to one of the waitstaff. He leads me down the hall and announces she’s been seated and waiting for me on the rooftop.
I step into the chilly December night expecting a gorgeous Falynn in the designer dress I have picked out for her. Instead, she’s wearing a dress I remember well—it’s the same white, conservative dinner dress she wore the night I met her at Uncle Claro’s homecoming. My brother had brought her cross-country to attend the family gathering.
Shit hit the fan that night. Claro had made an inappropriate pass at her and Giovanni, being the love drunk fool he was, exploded in a rage on him.
Falynn had looked beautiful in the simple white dress, but it did not highlight her figure the way her outfits usually did.
Why else would she rewear such a dress tonight if not to put me off?
Her message is clear. She’s Giovanni’s, and she refuses to show any skin around me. Where the Givenchy gown was an intricately draped piece of fabric that showed off a woman’s delectable thighs and breasts, the white dinner dress only hints at a figure.
But it’s not the only way she’s defied me. Instead of her hair sleek and straight, she’s wearing her curls in spirals framing her face. The make up’s barely there, a touch of lip color and not much else.
She’s gone with the opposite of everything I have requested.
Princess doesn’t realize making things harder on herself will do her no favors in the long run.
I stride up to the candlelit table and take my seat without addressing her. If she’d played along, we could’ve engaged in the kind of dinner date she was surely having with my brother—we could’ve talked, and laughed, and whatever else real couples who like each other do.
It’d be another performance. An actor doing what he does best. I could’ve pretended to be nice, thus making her experience more comfortable.
But she’d rather choose the option that’s much less…civilized. So be it.
Our waiter approaches with our bottle of wine and menus. I take mine and wave off hers.
“We’ll have the zuppa di asparagi to start with,” I say after a moment of studying the selection. “For entrees, she will have the mushroom risotto. I will have the veal parmigiana.”
“Of course.” He dutifully nods, pouring our glasses before he leaves us again.
Falynn plucks her wineglass off the table and swallows a mouthful. “Thanks for ordering for me. Just what every gal wants—some asshole who controls everything she does.”
“I wouldn’t have to control what you eat if you wore what I wanted.”
“Because that’s so much better. I won’t be eating what you ordered. I don’t like mushrooms.”
I pin her with a cold, dark stare from across the table. “You still seem to be confused. Nothing about this is about what you want or like. That couldn’t be further from holding any importance, princess. Only what I want matters.”
“And what is that?”
“You.” I watch in twisted delight as unease flickers across her pretty face. Her brows connect and her nose wrinkles. She tries to hide her discomfort, but it’s too late. A rush of adrenaline surges through me, almost as good as any high from a drug.
Who could’ve predicted tormenting Falynn could make me feel so alive?
The fresh fear in her dark brown eyes does something to me. It makes me crave her more.
“I don’t want you,” she whispers seconds later. She sits sad and miserable, borderline pathetic in the chair across from me.
It’s all over her face and posture. Even in her quickly deflated tone.
She’s still grieving my brother. She wishes I were him.
Just like everyone else.
This brutal truth stings, but through the buzz that is my high, it doesn’t bring me down. Falynn can wish and hope and dream as much as her broken little heart desires. It’s not bringing my brother back. I’m here to stake my claim on her. She’ll just have to learn to adjust.
