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A faint smile, but it lights up his hazel eyes. He’s eighteen or nineteen from the look of him, with high cheekbones and rumpled hair. As he notices me gazing back, he smiles wider, and dimples appear in his cheeks.
“Damn, he’s cute as hell,” Rosaline murmurs, slowing her pace as she stares at the boy. “I wonder who he is.”
The moment we slow down, the boy pushes away from his car and strolls toward us. He comes to a stop right in front of me. “Hey. What’s your name?”
I can feel the three girls bristling at my sides. Not with jealousy that he’s talking to me, but with protectiveness.
“She’s spoken for,” Sophia immediately says.
The boy grins and pushes his fingers through his thick hair. “Spoken for? What is this, the Dark Ages?”
Considering how my marriage has been arranged, he’s not far off.
This boy is smiling at me like he expects us all to fall at his feet and worship his handsome face. But I’ve seen handsome. I’vekissedhandsome. As cute as this boy is, he’s got nothing on Salvatore Fiore, and even if he was the hottest boy on the planet, I don’t need the trouble of another massive ego connected to a charming smile laying waste to my life.
Besides, if this boy touched me Salvatore would probably have him killed.
I grasp Rosaline’s arm and start dragging her away. “Sorry, we have to go. We all have homework.”
“I’m Griffin,” the boy calls after me. “Have a lovely afternoon, ladies.”
Five minutes later, we’re walking along the street when a gray Maserati pulls up next to us. The top is down and a man in a suit, black shirt and sunglasses gazes at me, his handsome face a blank mask.
My stomach rebounds around inside me. Salvatore. Does he know that I’ve been talking to a boy? Howcouldhe know? An internal radar that goes off when a member of the opposite sex dares to talk to me?
Then he smiles and the sun glints off his white teeth and burnishes his tan throat. “Hey, baby.”
A ripple of surprise and delight goes through the girls I’m with. They absolutely adore Salvatore. Candace calls out, “Hello, Mr. Fiore. What a beautiful day it is.”
She’s not flirting, but I supposed she thinks it’s prudent to be friendly to her dad’s boss.
“Yes it is, Candace,” Salvatore replies, looking only at me. “I saw four beautiful girls while I was on the way to a meeting and I couldn’t help but stop and say hello. I’ve been busy lately, baby. I’m sorry.”
The news is full of a money laundering scandal that involves one of Salvatore’s CEOs. I suppose he’s been working to keep the man out of jail.
“Yes, I read all about it,” I reply, not smiling back.
“Your father’s been helping me smooth everything over. The mayor is such a generous man. I’ll talk to you later, Chiara. Bye, girls.”
My father. A wave of disgust goes through me. With one last smile for me, he steps on the gas and roars away. The girls gaze after him and then turn back to me.
“Damn, you’re an ice queen,” Rosaline tells me, but her tone is admiring. “If Mr. Fiore was my fiancé I would have jumped right into that car.”
“I wouldn’t have bothered to open the door,” Sophia jokes.
“You’re playing it right, though,” Candace tells me as we all keep walking. “A man like Salvatore loves to be teased. Holding him at arm’s length is only going to make him crazier about you.”
“Not always at arm’s length. It’s wise to let him stake his claim in public once or twice,” Rosaline points out with a smile, and I know she’s referring to the time Salvatore showed up at school and kissed me at the school gate.
Is that what I’m doing, making Salvatore crazier about me by being cold to him? I suppose it could be his fantasy, his untouchable bride who only melts for him in private. I don’t want to melt for Salvatore, so I’ll just have to be careful never to be alone with him.
I glance at the three girls. “Can I ask you guys something? Are you saving yourself for marriage?”
Candace immediately says yes, and that’s no surprise. Of the three of them, she’s the most uptight and ambitious, and she’s open with the fact that she wants a husband from high up in Salvatore’s organization. She even has a scrapbook with photos of every eligible bachelor under forty who works for Salvatore and earns more than two hundred thousand dollars a year. One of them was married last week, and she crossed out his picture with red pen, tears running down her face.
“I lost my V-card last summer,” Rosaline says with a shrug. “I want to get good at sex before I meet my future husband. Besides, sex is fun.”
“Right now, I’m keeping it,” Sophia says, “but when I get a proper boyfriend I’ll give it away so damn fast.”
