Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nicolò
I blink at the watch on my wrist. Did I really sleep for eleven hours? I sit up and listen for signs of life in the house, but all I can hear are leaves blowing outside in the yard and the faint sound of a security guy on a radio at the gate.
I throw on some clothes and head downstairs. It’s probably the longest I’ve gone without food so I need to grab something to eat before my blood sugar takes a nosedive. The ground floor of the house feels deserted. Tony will be at the port but Mom is usually around.
A note on the kitchen island draws me over. I recognize Mom’s handwriting.
“Hey Nicolò, the cupboards are bare, so Bambi and I have just popped to the grocery store. There are muffins on the side but if you’d like eggs, you’ll have to wait. We’ll be back around 11.”
A flood of adrenalin surges through me from nowhere, my body realizing the opportunity before my brain has a chance to catch up. Before I can stop myself, I’m running up the stairs and making a beeline for Lina’s room.
I take hold of the handle.
Please don’t be locked.
The door opens easily.
Thank you, Satan.
I scan the room quickly, my gaze passing over an unmade bed, scattered clothes, toiletries and perfumes. Then it lands on the thing I’ve been unable to get out of my head: her diary.
I don’t take a breath. Two strides and it’s in my hands, the leather warm and soft against my fingers. I sink on to the edge of her bed and open it to the first page.
Ava’s father had just announced he’d re-married. Her heart was broken. Then she looked a large part of her new future in the eye—or as much as she could when he was staring at his phone—and he didn’t care if she was dead or alive.
Holy shit. I was right. This is autobiographical. Lina’s heart was broken when Tony made the announcement. Everyone saw how she reacted, by running out of the room. I was the only person in that room staring at their phone, although even I couldn’t miss Lina’s reaction.
Either I am the inspiration for Brodie. Or Brodie is me.
My mind tracks back to that day. Mom waited outside the house while I joined Cristiano and Benito in the kitchen. Tony had told them too, seeing as Cristiano, being the don as well as Mom’s nephew, has a vested interest in any Di Santo marriage.
Tony was worried his daughters might not take the news well, which was why he wanted all of us there—to provide some support.
I’ll be honest, at the time I didn’t care how the girls took it.
All I cared about was my mom, and how she would be treated.
She hadn’t done anything wrong and I didn’t want her coming under any kind of fire for falling in love with Tony Castellano.
So, yeah, I was staring at my phone. While also being very much aware of how the news was going down.
I was also aware that sitting in front of me, glaring like I’d squashed her pet caterpillar, was the prettiest sister of all.
I hadn’t paid much attention to her up to that point.
She’d been largely kept away from family gatherings and wrapped in cotton by the aunt.
But on the day of the announcement, it was like she’d emerged from a chrysalis or something.
I half-wondered how I hadn’t noticed her before.
So, when I say I was staring at my phone, I was partly forcing myself to stare at my phone. I was battling with the need to look up and take more of her in, while simultaneously being angry at how pissed she was at the news and wanting to console her at the same time.
I return to the story.
Things happen to Ava when she looks at Brodie that don’t happen when she looks at other people. Her cheeks grow hot. Her blood seems to pump faster. Her chest feels light and fluttery. And she can’t seem to operate her mouth.
My chest thumps and I flick forward a few pages.
Tatum was an asshole to Ava again today. He waited until it was just him, Ava, and a few of his friends alone in the hall, then dropped his pants. He waved some kind of organ around at her but it was too small to be identified as anything specific.
Tatum is clearly Taylor. I can’t help but snort.
Thankfully, the head came down the hall, so Tatum had to zip up pretty fast. Ava hates that he won’t leave her alone though.
It’s like he took her response as a massive rejection and now wants to get his revenge by showing her up at every opportunity.
The social media taunting, Ava can live with, but that’s because she rarely goes on social media.
It’s the stuff he does in school that’s hard for her to escape.
I chew my lip, knowing I did the right thing by ruining Taylor’s reputation. Now that I’m learning more about what an enormous dick he was, I wish I’d done worse. I turn the page and keep reading.
Ava had a surprise when she woke up. Brodie had made her coffee.
COFFEE! She couldn’t believe it. Brodie hardly says two words to her and suddenly he’s dressing her hand after she scratched it on the vines, and making her coffee?
And speaking of vines, even though he won’t admit it, Ava knows Nicolò broke the gardener’s arm. Is it wrong that it turns her on?
Coffee. Dressing her hand. Breaking the gardener’s arm. Even though it is now patently obvious she’s writing about me, I can’t get my head around it. I can’t allow myself to get my head around it.
And then he started asking her about Tatum. Ava wasn’t going to say who it was that ripped off her work, but Brodie somehow knew anyway.
She thinks perhaps he’d done some research, which should be worrying, but instead, it made her feel… special. Like she was worth looking out for.
It was probably the longest conversation they’d ever had and it didn’t help Ava’s crush one bit. She is now officially low-key obsessed with him.
My cock twitches. Low-key obsessed, huh?
Ava touches herself, imagining what, in another life, it could have led to. Just before she went upstairs, Brodie’s last words were, “If he keeps running his mouth, let me know.”
What if Ava had turned around, walked right up to him and tilted her chin so she could breathe in his heavy, dizzying scent, and said, “And if I don’t?”
Brodie might’ve wrapped a hand around her throat—not tightly, just forcefully enough to convey that she’s at his mercy. He might brush his lips over hers before telling her in great detail how she would be punished…
I pause for a moment to rub my eyes. I can’t take this in, it’s too much. I’m so fucking hard my zipper is straining, and my mind is blurring with all the wrongs around what I’m doing. But, like an addict, unable to walk away from a hit, I fixate on the words again.
He would put his tongue in her mouth and press her up against the wall. He’d spread her legs with his thigh, opening her to him. He’d drop to his knees and push her skirt up to her hips. Then he’d tease her with his tongue, until—
I slam the book closed and breathe in and out through flared nostrils. My heart is racing. I didn’t know women had these kinds of thoughts—so open and explorative and smutty—especially a woman so young. But then again, she’s had to grow up fast. Maybe she has matured beyond her years.
And fuck if she isn’t turning out to be my perfect woman.
She’s everything I’ve always wanted. Sweet, playful, a little shy, reserved. Passionate, headstrong and determined when it comes to the things and the people she cares about. But with a wild, dirty and reckless side that only comes out in private.
Not only is she the most beautiful woman I’ve ever set eyes on, but she has depth that no female I’ve ever had has come to close to possessing.
But why me? Bambalina Castellano could have anyone she wanted, and the odds are decent that she wouldn’t be related to them. I’m a made man, not boyfriend material, certainly not for a teenager barely out of diapers.
So, why won’t those stone cold facts force my dick down? Why I am still turned on by her words?
I force myself to put the diary back where I found it, smooth down the bed sheet where I’ve been perched, and leave the room, vowing to never enter again.