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“Don’t tempt me,” I muttered dramatically, unable to move from my hunched over position on the wall, watching the river cascading away from us.
I thought I would feel relief at having dealt with the situation in the only way I could have. It was the only way I could protect myself and my family. But all I felt was empty. Because no matter how much I tried to ignore it, Alessio Barbieri had awoken something inside me that resembled happiness and desire. And it was just another reminder of what I could never have.
Who The Fuck is Flora?
Sitting at the bar in the hotel lobby, I swirled my whiskey on the rocks in my hand as I kept my eyes glued on the door. It was nearly half seven but I hadn’t given up hope yet. She’d come. I’d never had a woman deny me before and I wasn’t about to start now. Especially not her.
When I had read her text hours ago, I lost the fucking plot. She had met another man. One who wanted a fucking relationship with her? I was beyond mad. I can’t even remember the last time I had felt that amount of pure fury and jealousy. I couldn’t even reply straight away and had to go to the boxing ring to relieve my stress and try to calm down. I tried to tell myself she was right. The last thing I wanted was a relationship. I don’t do relationships. Casual sex, yeah. Texting with her the last few days was the closest I had ever come to resembling any type of relationship, but this had always been about sex. From the moment I first laid eyes on her, my dick had taken over my sanity. But just the thought of her being with another man instead of me sent me on a downward spiral of rage. And the crazy thing was… I hadn’t even seen her outside of the club. I still had the photo from her CV on my phone so I knew who I was waiting to see walk through those doors.
“Another?” the bartender asked as I placed down the empty glass of ice. I nodded once and he removed it swiftly, pouring me a new one.
I heard the clicking of heels against the slate floor and my heart skipped a beat. Spinning in my chair, that hope plummeted and turned into instant irritation when I saw Isabelle strutting towards me like she owned the fucking place in her six-inch heels and tiny, pink feather dress. Every man in the room ogled her as she glided past, but I looked away, lifting my glass to my lips and focusing on the bottles of spirits behind the bar instead.
My shoulder tensed as her hand rested upon it and she leaned in, kissing my cheek.
“Hello, handsome.”
“What are you doing here?” I growled lowly as she elegantly perched on the stool next to mine, placing her small diamond clutch bag on the bar. She ordered a martini before turning to answer me with a knowing smile.
“I am about to go out for dinner with ‘the’ boring husband. I thought I would stop by here first for a drink since he had some business to take care of,” she purred, running her hand down my bicep to my forearm. I removed my arm from her grasp and turned to face her.
“Well, I am meeting someone so I don’t have time for a drink with you.”
“Oh really?” She looked around the room before tilting her head. “I don’t see anyone.”
“They’re on their way.”
“It looks to me like you’ve been stood up. Oh well, I am here now and I am so much more fun,” she winked, lifting one of her bronzed legs over the other seductively and running her foot up my calf muscle. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the bar, wondering how the hell I was going to get rid of her.
“You were wrong you know,” I gritted through my teeth. She cocked her head to the side with a frown. “About Elenora and Enzo. They aren’t dating.”
She shrugged her shoulders and pouted her lips in the way she always did when she still believed something to be true, no matter what anyone said. “Well, they looked pretty cosy on the street cameras of Verona—the night the club caught on fire.”
My head whipped around to hers as my gaze narrowed on her. I was already tethering on the edge of insanity. If she was trying to wind me up, she certainly knew how. “What?”
“Lorenzo taps into all the street cameras in Verona and Giovanni knows it. That is why he took his family out for a meal that night in the middle of the piazza just so they would all be caught on camera. Enzo and Elenora were outside alone for quite a while, looking pretty cosy with each other.” She started chuckling before she said, “When they all left to get in their cars, Giovanni looked directly up at the camera and smiled, giving it the middle finger. Now, that is a fucking hot man. Why couldn’t you have married me off to him?”
My rage was flooding through my veins like red-hot lava. Giovanni knew that the Leones would be checking the cameras that night and it had given him an alibi for the authorities if Lorenzo had tried to insinuate to the police that it was arson. Of course, he never would because the police are fucking corrupt. Most of them were already working for the mafia anyway. But that wasn’t what bothered me. Why the fuck was I being told one thing about Elenora yet something else was happening entirely?
I stood up from my chair, downing my drink and slamming it down on the bar.
“Where are you going?” Isabelle asked as I grabbed some cash and placed it on the bar before walking away from her.
“Out,” I growled, storming out of the lobby and into the night. Two of my men, who were poised at the entrance, jumped into action. They opened a door for me to climb into my SUV as my driver started up the engine.
“Where would you like to go, Boss?”
I rubbed my jaw and contemplated my choices. Pulling out my phone, I rang Flora’s number. It disconnected right away as if it was no longer in use. I swore loudly in Italian and opened her CV, giving my driver her home address. If she wasn’t going to come to me, I was going to have to go to her.
Pulling up in a deprived area of Venice where the flats were stacked one on top of the other in a cramped style and the doors and windows were worn and barely hanging on, I peered up at the blue, shabby door of her house. I knew from her chosen career, she was probably not living a life of luxury, but I thought it would have been better than this. Opening the car door, I stepped outside and ordered my men to stay where they were. I didn’t want to terrify her more than I already would, turning up at her home when she clearly didn’t want to see me. Too bad I wasn’t a man who gave up easily.
Climbing the sloped cement steps two at a time, I pressed her flat number and waited for the intercom. I had no idea what I was going to say. But when it rang out and there was no one home, I knocked loudly on the door. Maybe she had left to come to the hotel after all. Fucking Isabelle!
“Can I help you?” An Italian female voice came from the bottom of the steps. I spun around and there she was. The girl from the photo. Dark brown hair flowing past her shoulders, a pretty face with full lips and big brown eyes. I narrowed my gaze at her as I didn’t feel any of the intense desire I did when I saw her in the club in her disguise. In fact, seeing her in person had me doubting this was even the same girl.
I took a few steps towards her, “Emmeline Strazi?”
Her eyes filled with uncertainty as she shuffled awkwardly on her feet, holding a bag of groceries. She was wearing dark jeans and an oversized denim jacket which hid her curves but she seemed skinnier than I remembered.
