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His dark eyes were stuck to mine with an intensity difficult to match. He was all shadows and violence, a deadly predator in a designer suit, and I was the little lost girl, out of her depth. Just like always.
I inclined my head at him, proud of how little I faltered under his searing gaze. “Don’t worry. Like you said, I’m too smart to delude myself about you. You’re just like Giacomo and all the rest. I don’t expect anything more from you.”
His gaze grew sharper and darker at my words. That muscle was ticking in his jaw again, the only sign he’d heard my barbed words.
I summoned a smirk from the pit of reckless anger and disappointment in my belly. “Do your worst. I won’t be surprised. I don’t care.”
Those final words sent something else through Antonio’s dark gaze. Something that reminded me of the night we’d met. It made me think, for a shining second, that there might be something else in my dark world other than cunning manipulations and sly tricks.
Then he blinked, and it was gone. In its place was a challenge, blazing at me with artic force. He chuckled, but it was a grim sound, sending unwanted gooseflesh dimpling up my arms. “Oh, tesora, you’re going to regret that. I guarantee it.”
His deep voice wrapped around my lonely, jaded heart and threatened to squeeze it. I expected to be afraid of that promise, but there was nothing left inside me. I’d lived my life walking on a knife’s edge, and now, I was dangling precariously over the edge, about to fall.
Thank goodness. Finally.The voice inside me was warm and comforting.
The car cut through the streets. Antonio released me from his imprisoning gaze and looked ahead. I watched the streets pass us by as my anger formed a coal in my heart. In the right hands, anger didn’t have to weaken. It could strengthen too. After all, I was just the hard-packed dirt between two immovable, dangerous men. Too much pressure and I crumble away or become unbreakable. A diamond, ready to glitter in the darkness.
CHAPTER4
Antonio
Two months ago
“Now on to the science part of the night, and for those who thought you were doing well, I’m sorry.”
Laughter met the announcer’s schtick as he launched into a new round of questions. Damn New York hipster pubs and their trivia nights. Damn the people in the bar who were dumb as hell, and especially damn my eldest brother and the news that had sent me here tonight.
The first Luciano baby had been safely delivered tonight. Vincenzo, my elder brother and head of the Luciano family, and his wife Suna were already building their own family and his legacy. I was in a bar in Brooklyn, trying to forget who I was. The bar was the most unlike me kind of place I could imagine.
“In science terms, what is an eon?” The announcer asked, and I couldn’t help but snort at the inane question.
“What? Don’t tell me that you know the answer,” a soft voice remarked.
I didn’t want to be disturbed tonight, not when I’d slipped my bodyguards so I could throw myself a proper pity party. But something in the soft tone caught my attention. I tapped the napkin on the bar top, where I’d been writing down my answers.
“Who doesn’t?” I asked and knocked back the rest of my drink. I’d planned on getting blind drunk, and so far, it was taking much longer than I’d hoped. My body was plenty drunk, but my mind was stuck on Vincenzo and Suna’s happy news, and no amount of alcohol could stop the comparisonitis that dragged me down.
This was reckless. I had a job to do tomorrow. It wasn’t hugely important, though, and I could do my thing with a hangover. No big deal. It wasn’t like I felt great the rest of the time.
“How many constellations are in the night’s sky?”
I coughed, a half laugh, half groan.
“So, you know this one too? Give a girl a hand,” the voice continued. I finally gave in to the temptation to see who had decided to strike up a conversation with the most miserable bastard in the room.
Christ. It was like being throat-punched. She was stunning. Golden skin and long, inky hair. Blue eyes that looked just like the Mediterranean.
“Eighty-eight.” My voice was a croak.
She smiled and jotted down my answer before turning a speculative gaze at me. “You don’t look like a science buff.”
“You don’t need to be a buff to know elementary school science,” I muttered, turning on my stool to better take her in.
I might be drunk, but my body wasn’t immune to the effect of an exceedingly beautiful woman. Especially tonight, when thoughts of my brother’s happy marriage to his admittedly amazing wife were laying heavily on my lonely shoulders. How long since I’d been with someone? Lost myself in hot skin and rumpled sheets? Months, at least. I’d become focused on work and little else since Vincenzo had brought Suna home, and my younger brother Rafe had married a pretty little ballerina he’d all but kidnapped.
“Well, now I feel dumb,” the woman said.
She was young, real young, yet there was an air of experience about her. Like she’d seen it all and done it all and was over it. I knew that expression. I often wore it myself, but there was something unsettling about seeing it in someone so young.
