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I can't believe he noticed that. Or that I let him. He might have a teensy-tiny point about my lack of caution with him.
"No one else knows them," I say defensively.
"I know them."
"You watched me type them in?" He must have to know they are the same.
I'm appalled at myself. I never let anyone close enough to see me enter the code. Not even the employees that have been with me since the beginning. But he didn't merely see me enter it and notice the two doors have the same code. He remembers that code.
I'll have to change it when I get back. On both doors.
"Yes."
"That's rude."
"Most criminals are not polite," he grits out.
All belligerence, I ask. "Are you a criminal?"
"That is not the point." He glares down at me.
"I didn't think so," I say with narrowed eyes. "The point seems to be you trying to make me feel like I'm not very smart."
"What the hell are you talking about?" His glacial blue eyes spear me with ire.
"This was a mistake.Uscire." Realizing he's not going to understand me telling him to get out in Italian, I say, "You need to go."
Why did I think I could build something with a one-night stand?
He's right. I treated him like I could trust him without any reason to do so. I blame it on lust. That's better than thinking of myself as desperately lonely.
I hate that word.Desperate. I am not desperate and I'm not lonely. I'm not.
I have my friends…well, my employees.
My brain stops there. Because there is no one else. Not a single person would miss me if I were gone. Not really. When I ran from the Detroit Cosa Nostra, I left behind family and friends.
And I haven't replaced any of them in five years.
I didn't want to. Letting people in puts me at risk of being found out. Which is a paranoid way to look at relationships, but I was raised in the mafia. Paranoia keeps you alive.
Only it didn't keep Tino breathing. Or his dad, or the dozens of other made men that died that day when the Irish mob and the bratva joined forces to take over Cosa Nostra territory.
"I'm not going anywhere." Atlas runs his hand along my arms, the back of his fingers brushing my breasts.
I should jerk away from his touch, but I stand there, staring up at him. What is wrong with me?
A second ago, I was furious with him. Now, I want to know where else those fingers of his are going to go.
He pulls me closer to him until my chest presses against his warm body. "You are safe with me."
"I believe you, but I shouldn't." I really, really shouldn't.
I am an intelligent and usually cautious woman. But with this man, I throw caution to the wind and run almost entirely on instinct.
"You should because it is true. I will protect you,ílios mou. I need you to protect yourself when you are not with me."
"I do. I'm only like this with you." And I hate admitting it. Even to myself. "None of my employees know the code to get upstairs at the club."
