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Not until Kiera finally, as he’d been expecting, asked the question he’d been awaiting.
“You don’t care that I didn’t wear the dress?” she asked.
He merely smiled and clicked his tongue, not replying with his words. Oh, he cared. He certainly cared that Kiera wore a dress aside from the thousand-dollar gown he’d provided her for the evening. But it fascinated him—the purposeful disregard for his instructions. She didn’t seem afraid of him, despite the muscles that bulged beneath his clothes and the predatory way he moved.
He oozed danger, but she didn’t react.
It’s almost like she didn’t even care. Intriguing.
“I didn’t think you’d let me come without wearing it,” she continued, waiting for him to reply. He didn’t. He glanced briefly at the woman in his passenger seat before turning left and settling his eyes on the road. “Are you ignoring me?”
“No,” he said tersely. “I’m not in the business of forcing women to wear something that they don’t want to wear.”
She remained quiet for the rest of the drive, speaking only after he had parked in a garage a block from the fine restaurant. “Then why did you tell me to wear it?” she asked.
He looked at her with a smile that held only a flicker of amusement. “I wanted to see how well you would follow orders.”
He opened the door and let himself out of the car, walking toward her door and opening it. Kiera stepped out, pulling herself to her feet suspiciously as she clutched a small black handbag and stepped out of the path of the closing door.
Like a true gentleman, he led her down the sidewalk and toward an elegant building. He opened the door for her and allowed her entrance first as he scanned the faces of those around him. Nothing looked suspicious, so he closed the door and led her down three velvet steps toward a small host’s stand.
The young man who greeted him by name wasn’t recognizable, but Vincent had a face that many knew. That many feared. He’d frequented the small joint for meetings with the higher-ups of the mafia, so he expected exquisite treatment, as they’d never disappointed.
“Your table, Mr. Rossi,” the man said, gesturing to a table tucked into the back of the place—the table he’d requested. In the corner, everything within the eatery could be seen and monitored, and Kiera, knowing no better, sat on his side of the booth.
He watched her settle into her seat and slid into the same side.
“What are you doing?” she asked, eyeing the empty side of the table.
“Taking a seat.”
“But…” she trailed off and dropped the subject, sitting a bit straighter under his scrutiny. “Why did you want to see if I follow orders?” she asked, finally building the courage to mention his earlier claim.
There it was.Thequestion. “I prefer to be in charge, and having a woman who refuses to allow that will simply not do.”
“You don’thaveme.”
“Semantics,” he said, waving away the words. He would have her for as long as he wanted. Vincent didn’t accept defeat. What he wanted, he got. “The point is that I see through your façade, Kiera.”
Her honey eyes softened, and her bright red lipstick accentuated the tightening of her lips. “What façade?”
“I know your type. A woman who doesn’t allow a man too close. One who has never given up control a day in her life, and one who doesn’t think she wants to. But you do, don’t you, Kiera?” he asked, his voice a sensual caress near her ear. With each word, he leaned a bit closer, but he didn’t touch her. Not yet. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have come.”
The delicate bob of her throat in place of a reply gave him the answer he needed.
“If I hadn’t come out of the apartment, you would have come inside.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Perhaps I should have come inside and shown you exactly why people listen to me rather than disobey.”
“What would you have done?” she asked with a breathless lilt to her voice.
“You would have liked it,” Vincent told her.
She exhaled sharply as the server introduced herself and began taking drink and appetizer orders. Vincent ordered for each of them, giving her time to process what he had just said.
The moment the server had left earshot, she spoke. “I don’t want a sugar daddy.”
His laughter bellowed without restraint. If he could have chosen the most unexpected thing to come out of her mouth, it would have been that.
