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Her surprisingly sassy mouth tonight.
It had all gone to shit the second I’d followed her out into the courtyard.
Luis was right. I was screwed. So fucking screwed.
Two years ago, it had been easy to ignore the longing in her eyes, the way her gaze followed me whenever I walked into a room. She was a kid. My boss’s little sister. Once the daughter of my family’s most hated enemy.
But things were different now.
She wasn’t a kid anymore, she hadn’t been for a while. And although I’d fought it, fought the way my body responded every time she walked into the room, the tightly spun lines of my restraint were beginning to fray.
It hadn’t helped watching her dance with Bella and their friends. That fucking goofy beanpole that kept trying to hit on her. Alessia was polite, trying to avoid hurting the guy’s feelings no doubt, but it had only made my jealousy levels rise to the point where I had to physically stop myself from storming over there and telling him to keep his fucking hands to himself.
I needed to get a grip.
Needed to think about something—anything—other than the fact that she was sitting in the back of the SUV in that dress made of sin and silk, refusing to even look in my direction.
Women.
This is exactly why I didn’t get involved past tangling in the sheets when the need arose. Women complicated things. In this life, they were a distraction—a weakness—I didn’t want or need.
But Alessia… fuck, she was like the sun in a world that was too often dark.
And now I’d let myself get close, too fucking close, I couldn’t undo it.
Jay glanced over and raised a brow as if to say, ‘you good.’ I answered with a curt nod, scanning the road ahead and behind us, for any signs of trouble.
The sooner we got the girls home, the better. After Nicco and Antonio’s warning earlier, I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were about to go to shit. But maybe that was because I felt restless. Disarmed by the fact I’d almost crossed a line tonight.
A line I’d vowed never to cross.
Alessia wasn’t mine.
She was never going to be mine.
No matter how much I wanted her.
* * *
Michele Bellatoni’shouse came into view and relief flowed through me. Alessia was quiet in the back, Bella asleep on her shoulder.
Our eyes caught in the rearview mirror only this time, I didn’t look away.
I couldn’t.
Alessia seemed… different.
A quiet storm raged in her thin gaze as if tonight hadn’t only opened my eyes but hers as well. And from the death stare she was giving me, she was clearly pissed at whatever she’d discovered.
Jay pulled into the driveway and parked beside Michele’s car. He and his wife Marcella had left the party earlier, but I didn’t doubt he would be up and waiting inside to see that his daughter and niece made it safely home.
“I’ll get the door. You get Bella,” Jay said, and I nodded.
It wasn’t the first time we’d carried Bella home drunk and asleep. She was quite the party girl. A fact that Michele said had started turning him gray long before his time.
Gently, I eased Bella out of the car and into my arms. Alessia climbed out behind us, saying nothing. Jay went ahead, almost at the door when the screech of tires pierced the night.
“Shit, shit,” he withdrew his pistol and jogged toward me and the girls.
