Chapter 9 Giulia
GIULIA
“I told her, friends with benefits only works if you’re actually friends with the person.
Otherwise, they’re just a random hookup.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.” Brynn sets down the sandwich she’s been picking at since we grabbed lunch together in the courtyard.
It’s a nice day, pretty and sunny. That means everyone wants to be outside and is jockeying for spots at tables as soon as the people sitting there leave.
“You should write a book,” Olivia tells her. “Or charge as a college sex therapist or something.”
Brynn only rolls her eyes. “It’s common sense. A friend is somebody you do more with than just fuck, you know?”
All I can do is nod silently because no, I don’t understand. I mean, I do on some level, but I have no experience to fall back on. It’s not a surprise that everyone seems way ahead of me on this, since that’s the way pretty much everything goes when it comes to guys, sex, and all that.
Which is probably why I’m struggling with this crush or whatever it is.
The word makes my stomach turn.
A crush on Alessandro Vitali?
For one thing, it’s ridiculous, if only because of the age difference.
He’s not exactly old enough to be my father or anything, but he’s definitely over thirty.
I don’t want to be like one of those girls on the internet who gets criticized for letting an older man take advantage of her.
I don’t know why I should care so much, but I do.
I want to believe I’m smarter than that.
And the only thing he could do is take advantage of me.
All right, so he’s been nice a couple of times.
When Papa had that heart issue, he even held me for a little while.
It was magic, the way all of the hurt and fear left me as I melted against him.
I’ve never seen Papa like that, looking vulnerable and ill.
It hit me then and there that he won’t always be around, and I’ll have to figure out how to get along without him. We all will.
But Alessandro took the fear away.
He did something else too. He lit a fire in me. I have replayed the moment when I was so sure he was going to kiss me hundreds of times over the past four days, sitting in the back seat of the car or during class when I should be listening to the lecture.
Even now, when the girls are chatting happily, I should be listening to them the way a real friend would. Instead, I’m obsessing like a lovesick puppy dog.
But it’s late at night, in the dark, when I have all the time in the world to replay that heart-stopping moment.
When I can close my eyes and focus on the heat that always builds in my pussy.
I can let my imagination go wild with what could have happened next, how his kiss would feel, what he would taste like, and the sounds he would make.
My touch becomes his touch when I imagine his hands on me. What he would do with my body. I’m sure an experienced man like him has to know exactly how to make my back arch and pussy quiver the way I can, until I come with his face in my mind’s eye.
I’m in big trouble. And I know it’s impossible for him to have the first clue what’s going on in my head, but that doesn’t help when I look up to the front seat and catch him watching me in the mirror.
My heart always skips a beat. How much of that can a girl go through before she either has to turn fantasy into reality or die from the pressure of pretending nothing has changed?
I have to get over this somehow. My gaze moves over the tables around us—there are at least a dozen cute guys out here. They’re who I need to be thinking about, not some homicidal maniac with strong arms, a firm chest, and eyes I could drown in.
“Oh my God. Oh my God!” Serena’s choked whisper makes me look in the direction she’s staring.
There goes my heart, skipping a beat again.
I can’t help it. The day was already sunny and bright, but everything shimmers now.
My pulse starts to race, and I have to deliberately fight off a smile of pure relief because there he is.
His black polo and charcoal slacks perfectly highlight his body, and his dark aviators give him a touch of mystery. Danger.
He spots me from across the courtyard and starts charging my way before I can fully process his presence.
“Here he comes!” Maddie whispers while Brynn makes a strangled squealing sound.
Alessandro either doesn’t notice the guy he bumps into and almost knocks over, or he doesn’t care. The rest of the world might as well not exist. “We need to go,” he mutters when he reaches the table, while I sit and stare up at him in disbelief.
“Wait. What? I still have two classes.” I pop up from my seat, blushing more out of embarrassment than the thrill of seeing him. “What are you doing here?”
“You can come sit down with us,” Olivia offers in a loud, bright voice. “There’s plenty of room.”
His nostrils flare, but he doesn’t acknowledge her. When I don’t move fast enough, he stuns me by picking up my backpack off the bench, then taking my phone off the table. “Ladies,” he murmurs. The only word he speaks to the rest of the girls before turning on his heel and marching away.
I will kill him and dance on his grave. “I’ll see you guys,” I mumble, already on the move while my friends gasp and giggle behind me.
From the corner of my eye, I see we’re gaining attention, with people turning to watch while I try to maintain a little dignity instead of running after him and screaming his name.
Once we reach the sidewalk, I break into a run and grab hold of my backpack. “What are you doing? I still have two more classes!”
“I’m telling you, you need to go home. Right now.
Get in the goddamn car, and we can talk about it.
” He gives the bag a sharp tug, but I keep my feet planted because, fuck him.
He might be scorchingly hot, and I might be losing my mind a little over him, but he doesn’t get to make a scene and expect me to go along silently.
“You could try telling me right now like I’m an adult, instead of being all weird,” I retort.
“An adult would accept this and know it must be something important if I went to the trouble of hunting you down.” Another tug pulls me a little closer to him. “You think I have nothing better to do than search for you?”
Oh my God, how stupid can I be? My stomach drops when I remember watching Papa turn ashy gray and almost slump over his desk. The kind of news you want to deliver in person instead of via text. “Is it Papa? Is he sick? Tell me!” I beg with my heart in my throat.
His jaw loosens a little, and his shoulders drop when he sighs. “No, it’s not him. Everyone’s fine as far as I know.”
“Then what is it? Goddammit, talk to me!”
All he does is drag me to the car, waiting in a no-parking zone with the hazard lights blinking. When he opens the back door, I slam it shut, glaring up at him. “I’m not a child!”
“You’re doing a pretty damn good impression of one,” he groans, reaching for the handle again.
When I swat his hand away, he bares his teeth, his brows lowering behind his glasses.
There’s that look again. The one he gave me before, weeks ago, on the first day he drove me.
That scary shifting of his features—the reminder of the animal he barely keeps under control.
Instead of chilling me as it did before, that shift heats my blood until all of my confusion, frustration, and hatred are ready to boil over.
“You need to learn to stop testing me,” he warns, his voice a menacing growl that lifts the hair on the back of my neck.
Tossing my hair over my shoulder, I scoff. “And you need to treat me like a person and not something you can shove around. It’s bad enough I have to take it at home, but I’ll be damned if I take it from—”
“From who?” He arches an eyebrow, one corner of his mouth tugging up. “Finish your thought.”
Goddammit. One day, I will learn to stop talking before I say too much, but today is obviously not that day. He knows what I was going to say too. I can tell. I’ll be damned if I take it from somebody like you.
All I can do is stutter, searching for a response, but he cuts me off with a grunt before leaning down and stealing all the air from my lungs once the scent of his cologne envelops me.
I freeze solid, except for the goose bumps covering my body, the instant his hot breath hits my ear.
“There’s been trouble. I’m taking you home to be safe. ”
Certain bits of shorthand are universal for people who grew up the way we did. ‘There’s been trouble’ is always code for ‘something bad has gone down, and we’re circling the wagons.’
I can see why he wouldn’t want to say anything in front of the girls too. They’re civilians. They either can’t know or wouldn’t understand if they did.
“Now,” he concludes in that same low, intimate growl. “Are you going to get in the car, or am I going to throw you in?”
A shiver runs through me when he raises his glasses to look me in the eye. It’s funny, but he has always looked at me like he knows me better than he should. Why did I never notice that until now?
This time, when he opens the door, I get in and accept the backpack and phone when he hands them over. It’s such a shame a backpack can’t act as a shield against whatever is happening between us.
We’ve made it up to the corner by the time I find my voice. “So what happened? You said everybody’s okay?”
“Your family is fine. But a warehouse full of goods and the guys guarding them went up in flames this morning. The Scarpetta family is taking credit and promised more to come.”
He looks at me in the mirror before making a turn that will lead us out of the city. “Dante called to give me the heads-up.”
Now I can exhale, knowing none of my loved ones were involved. “Oh. That’s all it was.”
“All it was?” he asks before letting out a silent laugh. “Sorry. Would you like it better if I said there was another explosion at your estate?”
“Don’t even joke about it,” I snap. That day was a nightmare from start to finish, at least until Sophia came back home. Even then, I spent the next week waking up in a cold sweat, remembering how the house shook when the bomb went off down at the front gate.
“All those guys who died today had families, if not wives, girlfriends, parents. Siblings. Just like you. And now they’re dead,” he snaps with disdain and anger dripping from every word.
I feel about two inches tall by the time he’s finished, at least until the first flush of shame fades away, and I remember who I’m riding with.
Of all people, he’s going to lecture me about the value of life and caring about what others go through?
“Is that what you told yourself whenever you killed somebody?” I ask.
A soft growl fills the front seat, and once again, I could slap myself for saying too much, twice in less than five minutes. Maybe I shouldn’t insult the guy driving the car while we’re actually in motion.
The air in the car is so thick, I can barely breathe. Dark, seething energy is rolling off him. His hands have tightened around the wheel so his knuckles stand out bone-white under his tanned skin. Terrific. For my next trick, I’ll wave my hand around in a tank full of piranhas.
Should I say something? Apologize? I want to, that’s the thing. I shouldn’t have said it. My brothers have both killed people. Papa too. I might be the youngest, but I am not clueless.
They had their reasons. Alessandro had his. If he’s evil, so are they.
But I can’t forget watching Emilia struggle after he hurt her.
I guess I must have forgotten a little, though, right? Considering I’ve made myself come to the thought of him. The line between right and wrong has blurred to the point where I can’t see it anymore. I don’t even remember where it was.
By the time we take the last turn before reaching the estate, I’m ready to jump out of the car and run the rest of the way.
Sweat is starting to bead at my temples, and I might scream if my nerves shred any more than they already have.
He hasn’t said a word in thirty minutes, but it might as well be hours.
Dante is in the middle of a conversation with a couple of the guards when we roll through the circular courtyard in front of the house. He opens the back door for me and extends a hand. “Good. I know Mama will feel a lot better knowing you’re here.”
He closes the door, and my heart aches when the car pulls away toward the garage. Maybe I should’ve tried to apologize when I had the chance.
I wish I could go back and not be so hateful.
Dante scowls, watching the car. “I was going to thank him for deciding to bring you home instead of waiting,” he murmurs.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I wanted him to be aware of what was happening and to keep his eye out,” he explains with a shrug. “But he offered to bring you home right away to set minds at ease around here. It was the right call. Mama has been worried half to death.”
Yet when he places a hand in the center of my back, steering me toward the stairs, I slip out of his grasp.
Not yet. There’s something I need to settle first.
“I left my backpack in the car. Be right up,” I promise, trotting away.
My heart pounds in time with my footsteps on the way to the garage, where the automatic door lowers now that Alessandro has pulled through.
He was the one who wanted to bring me home.
It was his idea because he wanted to know I was safe here.
I know it, I feel it. He left that part out when he was explaining what happened.
I’m not going to fool myself into thinking he’s the knight in shining armor my friends described him as, but there is something good in him.
I almost wish there wasn’t, because I wouldn’t have to do what I’m about to do now.
I punch the four-digit code into the keypad to raise the automatic door again. Slowly, a row of cars is revealed, including the one with the man now climbing out from behind the wheel.
Great. Now I can’t move.
This was a mistake, too, wasn’t it?
I can’t get it right with him.
I keep screwing up.
The way he’s looking at me—resentful, bitter—tells me it would have been a better idea to leave him alone. Because I didn’t come in here for my backpack. Not really.
“I…” I can’t talk, that’s what. The door lowers shut behind me, darkening the garage little by little until I can barely make out more than his silhouette.
I’m like a moth to a flame. Something carries me toward him, something more powerful than I am. He might be the devil incarnate for all I know, but he’s never done anything but look out for me.
And he has totally consumed me until the only thing left to do is crash into him and reach out to take hold of his face so I can pull him down and finally find out what he tastes like.