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His dark eyes narrow, so similar to that soulless look of his cousin. He doesn’t repeat his question and waits for my reply as though antagonizing him further is not in my best interest.
I survey him. “Surely you read the tabloids. He’s in the paper every other day with a beautiful woman on his arm. I’m not the little woman who plans to sit back at home while their man is out chasing everything in a skirt.” I shrug. “I got enough of that when I was little. It’s not happening to me.”
His eyes harden into dark pools. “Let me tell you something about Lorenzo. He hasn’t ever been a one-woman man. Hell, I bet he’s never even invited someone up to his room for a nightcap.”
“My point exactly.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “But you? He brings you to his penthouse and keeps you here. Against every protocol in the book that we live by. No one without clearance in any of our cars, our homes are the rules, but yet, he tosses all that aside without worry about consequence for you. You want to know why?”
I shrug. “Again, you’re asking the wrong person. I write stories. He wants stories. That’s all I’ve got.”
He stalks toward me. “You mean something to him, yet you leave him in the middle of dinner causing us to all leave our crews and come find you. That’s trouble to me. And if you ask me, he’s better off without it. He deserves loyalty.”
I glare at the dark-haired beast who resembles Lorenzo but looks so much harder. “No one asked you. If he wanted me to stay, then he shouldn’t have left me in the penthouse and went to the sex club downstairs. Like I said, I’m not going to be that woman.”
He nods. “Yeah, Sergio told me all about it, but did you even listen to Lorenzo’s side of the story? When he told you that he was down there to find our cousin? That the girl he was supposedly hugging was someone that he played with twice in about a two-month period? That she’s a sweet girl who just got the wrong idea about Lorenzo’s intentions? He felt bad, let her down easy.”
He stalks forward, closing the remaining distance between us. “For you. Everything he’s done since he met you—breaking the rules we live by, bringing you into our protection, allowing you to see things that shouldn’t be seen by outsiders, and making sure Tiarra and everyone downstairs knew he was taken. It was for you. And you just left. Like I said, trouble we don’t need.”
Everything that he says keeps swirls in my mind. “Lorenzo didn’t say a word in his defense except that it wasn’t what I thought.”
“That’s saying a lot for Lorenzo. The fact that you don’t trust him after everything he’s put on the line with the family speaks volumes about you.”
My mouth gapes. “Listen here. I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ve heard just about enough. I don’t intend to discuss my love life with you anymore, or anyone else in his family. This is between me and him.”
His eyes bore through me. “It was between you and him until you made it family business, causing us all to shift our focus from what’s important and go traipsing after you.”
“I told him not to come! Even to respect my wishes and not follow me!” I retort.
“Yeah, and that right there should let you know just what you mean to the man. Lorenzo doesn’t chase anyone. You do what he wants you to do and then for his sake, leave. He deserves someone who trusts him like he apparently trusts you,” he says, turning and walking out the door before closing it with a hard click.
I’m left standing in the middle of the dining room, whirling with everything he’s said about Lorenzo. I absently peel a banana from the fruit bowl, too tired to do anything else but go back to bed. All that Lorenzo said to me, all that I heard in the restaurant last night, all comingled with everything that he’s asked me to do, that his family does, that my father does keeps swirling in my head.
And Lorenzo got the brunt of every bit of my frustration and need to protect myself from it all. Something I can never undo, no matter how badly that I feel.
I walk into the bedroom and the covers are just as they were before I started watching television on the couch. Clearly, he still didn’t come home. But what was there to come home to? A woman who doesn’t trust him, flew thousands of miles to get away from him, and made it clear that she didn’t plan to stay.
The bed is a welcome sight after the back-to-back flights and not getting to sleep until hours later. Instead, I tossed and turned on the couch until the sun was up and I was too exhausted to think about him anymore. I crawl into the warmth of the covers, and his scent permeates my senses, instantly calming me. Just a couple more minutes is the last thing I remember before drifting into a sound sleep, dreaming of dark brown eyes that penetrate me with their need.
* * *
I get up a few hours later. I’ll probably regret sleeping this late when sleep won’t come later, but clearly my body needed it. My stomach growls reminding me that a banana is hardly enough for lunch. I order room service before getting ready for the night and settling in to work on a different article. Just to keep my mind off of whatever Lorenzo and his family are up to because it certainly isn’t going to be good.
Just give me the gist of it and some images and, I’ll write the article. No need to flood my memories like the ones that still haunt me from the funeral. It may have been what I wanted at the time, but the emotions of the day still gnaw at my insides.
I understand the need for revenge, but no thanks.
A rap on the door before the knob moves causes my heart to race. I wait for Lorenzo to walk through the door. We have so much to say, well, that I don’t really even know where to begin.
I try to hide my disappointment when the same lady who delivered our food the other night walks into the dining room with a cart. It’s laden with covered dishes, an arrangement of different crackers, cheeses, and fruit.
She wheels it to the table and begins placing the contents of her cart onto the table. “Everything smells delicious,” I tell her, as she lifts one of the dome lids, sending the scent of freshly cooked bacon that’s been heavily sprinkled over my salad into the air.
The woman turns and gives me a half smile, but her eyes are filled with unshed tears. “Si, señora,” she says.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She turns from me and moves a few things around on the table, fussing with the arrangement before turning back to me.
