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I toss my phone aside as if it burned me, my face heating with shame as I bury it in my hands. “Oh,fuck,” I moan again—this time for an entirely different reason.
I’ve never been so embarrassed by anything in my entire life.
“It’s fine,” I tell myself after a long moment, dropping my hands to my lap and trying to shake off the feeling of utter humiliation. “I’ll never see him again. It doesn’t matter.”
I hope, with every fiber in my body, that that’s true.
4
DANTE
My phone buzzes a few minutes after Emma walks out of the front door. I glance down at it, finding myself hoping that it’s her. It’s entirely irrational—I can see that she didn’t leave anything, and there’s no other reason for her to send me a message so soon. I shouldn’t really care if I hear from her again at all.
But, despite that, I feel a flash of disappointment when I seeKaitlynnon my screen instead.
I’d actually forgotten that I had a date set up after my appointment—if ‘date’ is the proper term for having a girl over for a couple of drinks and casual sex. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but after the hours of being tattooed, I’m more inclined to just have the drink alone and go to bed.
Which is surprising, considering the state of frustrated arousal that I’ve been in for all of those hours.
It has nothing to do with Emma.I tell myself that firmly as I text Kaitlynn back, letting her know that Idostill want her to come over.If nothing else, she’ll suck my cock, and that’s just what I need to take my mind off of things.‘Things’ being both the pain in my back from the fresh tattoo and the brunette who inked it on my skin.
I pour myself a drink while I wait—a whiskey with ginger syrup and lemon—and perch on the edge of my couch to sip it. The stunning vista of the city is just beyond, shimmering outside of the glass windows as I look out over it. I’ve lived here all my life, and the view never gets old. Sitting up here like this, I feel like a king surveying his lands.
As far as the mafia world is concerned, that’s exactly what the Campano family has always been. The problem is, things are changing. And I’d like to move our family into the changing times, not buck against them the way so many others do. Chicago, New York, Boston—they all want to cling to the old ways. But out here, on the western side of the country, we’ve always been about innovation and exploration. I want to find a way to do things differently. I want to live mylifedifferently, insofar as that’s possible.
For instance, I managed to avoid any of those pesky arranged marriages that mafia families are so fond of while my father was alive, and now that I’m in charge, I can avoid it permanently. The burden of carrying on a legacy has always seemed tiresome to me. If one of my brothers wants to provide an heir to carry on the Campano name, I’ll happily let him take over when I’m gone. The idea of marriage and children has held very little appeal to me.
I live in a city full of some of the most beautiful women in the world, all eager to climb up the social and professional ladder. I see no reason to shackle myself when I could be enjoying it.
The sound of the door opening jolts me out of my thoughts, and as I turn, I see one of those women. Kaitlynn Black—not her real name, I don’t think, but the one she prefers to go by while she’s trying to get her big break—steps into my penthouse. She’s entirely done up, just as she always is, looking more as if she’s about to go out for a night on the town than sit and have a drink here with me. She’s wearing a bright blue, slinky minidress that stands out against her silky platinum blonde hair, her legs appearing to be a mile long. Her nails are done, and her full lips are slashed with a deep red, and she’s done something with her eye makeup to make her eyes look huge—almost anime-like.
She’s drop-dead gorgeous, supermodel hot—one of the most beautiful women I’ve had the pleasure of telling to get on their knees for me. But for the first time, as I look at her, I don’t feel the instant arousal that I’m used to.
“Hey there, Dante.” Kaitlynn smiles, displaying expensively white teeth, swaying towards me. Her voice is a seductive croon, full of anticipation. We’ve fucked a few times already—sex good enough that I’ve wanted her to come back—and I know she’s hoping for more. Not a serious relationship, necessarily—but for me to take her places, introduce her to people that matter. I’m a rung on a ladder for her, and normally I don’t really mind that, so long as I’m getting my dick wet on the climb up. But for some reason, tonight, it irks me.
I have the sudden, overwhelming urge to tell her to leave. I was achingly, painfully hard earlier while Emma was here, but suddenly, there’s not so much as a twitch. It’s as if my cock has gone to sleep, utterly uninterested in the gorgeous woman who is standing there looking at me as if she wants to eat me up.
“I’ll make you a drink,” I tell her, trying to cover for my sudden and confusing lack of interest. “Same as always?”
“You know what I like,” she purrs, drifting over to the couch. “Busy night?” she teases, draping herself artfully onto it.
“I had a tattoo appointment.” I pour vodka into a glass, adding a splash of cranberry and a twist of lime. An utterly banal, cliche drink, in my opinion, nothing sophisticated or interesting about it, and I once again wonder why it’s irritating me so much tonight. Whyeverythingabout having Kaitlynn here seems to be grating on my nerves.
“Ooh!” She sits up, interest lighting her face. “Can I see?” She tilts her head, giving me that seductive smile.
“It’s bandaged.” I give the drink a quick stir and bring it to her. “But you can get a peek later.”
“Mm.” She takes the drink, lifting it to her mouth. She makes sure I notice the way she purses her lips around the edge, everything practiced and purposeful to be as seductive as possible, to turn me on. Usually, it works like a charm.
But not tonight.
Goddamn it, stop thinking about Emma.I chastise myself as I sit down on the couch, trying to focus on the woman in front of me, who is both beautiful and eager. Emma was pissed at me for even trying to give her my number. There wasn’t the slightest hint that she was interested.
Which means it’s utterly pathetic that my thoughts keep drifting back to her like this.
“I had a callback today,” Kaitlynn says, taking another sip of her drink. “This soap opera. It’s not like—abigpart or anything, and it’s not really what I want todo, but I feel like it might take me somewhere—”
I nod along, finding that I’m having a hard time focusing. My thoughts keep drifting back to Emma, to how easy it felt to talk to her while she was working, how she had her own command of the conversation. Everything she did wasn’t meant to pander to or attract me—if anything, it was the opposite.
