Chapter 16 Alessandro
ALESSANDRO
October comes and goes uneventfully. The pattern of our days settles into a comfortable groove.
Three days a week, I have the opportunity to get to know Giulia better, physically and otherwise.
We’re careful not to cross paths while she’s at home unless it’s unavoidable, and even then, we don’t spend time alone.
Sophia never did mention her suspicions to me, and now I’m glad I didn’t bring it up to her.
I might as well have hung a sign around my neck with the word guilty scrawled in red spray paint.
In a situation like this, it’s safer to fake ignorance, one of the lessons from my lifelong training.
Nice to know I can still use the unique skills I learned.
“I do sort of wish I could go out with the girls on Halloween.” Giulia now sits next to me in the front seat, moving up once we’re down the road from the estate, moving back at roughly the same spot later in the day.
We have to keep up appearances in front of the family, of course, if only for her sake.
Personally, I don’t care much if Rocco doesn’t like it, but it means a lot to her.
I’m willing to take the extra steps if she feels safer that way.
Considering I’d move heaven and earth for this woman, it seems like a small sacrifice.
She’s changing me. There’s no other explanation. I hardly recognize this version of myself. Willing to compromise, keeping her needs in mind, and swallowing my pride from time to time. The biggest surprise? I don’t mind all that much. She’s worth it.
I reach over and close a hand over her knee.
One thing I don’t like about the crisp weather is that she’s now wearing jeans and leggings instead of her skirts and dresses.
The denim under my hand stands between me and her bare skin.
I never thought I’d have a personal beef with a pair of jeans.
There’s a lot about my life as it stands now that I couldn’t have imagined.
“You feel like you’re missing out,” I murmur, merging onto the highway to head for Long Island.
“Of course,” she grumbles, staring out the window to her right. “Everybody else gets to have these experiences I can’t even hope to have.”
She’s not going to want to hear this, but it’s the truth. “You won’t be missing much. I promise. You probably wouldn’t remember most of it the next day.” Snickering, I squeeze her knee. “Have you already forgotten the last time you went out for a big night?”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“Yes, but it’s true. People go out on Halloween and get blackout drunk. They get in fights with their friends, they throw up, and make sloppy assholes of themselves. That’s the reality,” I conclude. “The night might start out fun, but it always ends up painful.”
She’s quiet for a moment, eventually covering my hand with hers, linking our fingers. “I know you’re right, but I still feel like I’m missing out. I hate always being the person who has to hear about things on Monday morning, you know what I mean? I’m never actually a part of anything.”
“I’m sorry about that.” That’s the truth too. I’m not sorry she isn’t exposing herself to the kind of shit she narrowly escaped the night I pulled that drunken douchebag off her, but I’m sorry she feels like she’s missing out.
Though let’s face it. The fewer chances for another douchebag to put their hands on her, the better. Better for me, too, since I’d have to kill them.
“Would you believe it if I told you I used to feel jealous of normal people?” I ask.
The days are getting shorter all the time, meaning the late afternoon sunlight is golden and warm when she turns her head to look at me. It frames her, creating a halo around her head. I wish I could stare, but I have to turn my attention back to the road.
“No way.” She laughs.
“All the time.” When all she does is snicker, I shrug.
“Believe me, if you want or don’t. I’m telling you, when I was younger and watched people my age going through normal rites of passage, joining sports teams and going to dances, there were times I felt jealous.
” Especially when it came to the kids whose parents gave a shit about them.
My parents didn’t bother to show for my high school graduation, and neither of them cared very much when I announced I wouldn’t go to college.
Dad figured I didn’t need to, anyway. The only training I required was the training he would give me, since my future was laid out before me. What a damn joke.
After a few quiet moments, she murmurs, “I guess I assumed you were always satisfied with the way your life was going. Like you weren’t missing out on anything.”
“You know what they say about what happens when we assume things, right?” My heart isn’t in the laughter I force out, but she giggles and gives my hand a playful smack, meaning she feels better than before.
“The holidays are right around the corner,” she muses, fishing around in her bag for a clip she uses to pull her hair back.
A few loose strands frame her face, and God, I want to reach out and stroke them along with her soft, smooth cheeks.
It’s dangerous, having her in the front seat with me.
She’s that much closer, that much more tempting.
“I’ll bet the Santoros know how to do it up big,” I murmur.
“What about your family? Will you spend time with them?”
She’s getting at something, though I don’t know what. “I doubt it. We never exactly made holidays a priority, especially after Sophia grew up. If my parents threw a party, it was for their friends. It had nothing to do with us.”
“I’m not really looking forward to it,” she admits, her knee bouncing almost like she’s nervous. “I’m not going to have any excuse to see you over break.”
Shit. I didn’t think about it that way. If she doesn’t have classes, there’s no need to drive her anywhere. “We’ll come up with something,” I decide, though I’m not sure what. “Maybe you can convince your papa to let you visit the city to see your friends.”
“But they’ll be home for break too,” she points out.
“Does he need to know that?” I give her a narrow-eyed look. “Would it be the first time you’ve made up a story to get away from the house a little while longer?”
“That’s true. And he’ll probably have you around more,” she adds with a note of hope in her voice. “You’ll still have to, you know, earn your salary. Right?”
There’s no pretending that doesn’t sting, even if she’s right.
The innocent reminder I’m still under her father’s thumb leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
“That’s true. We’ll figure something out.
I’m not going anywhere,” I promise, though that promise is a double-edged sword.
Because I’m stuck. My feet are in cement, and there’s no moving them.
Stroking the back of my hand, she sighs a heavy sound, full of unspoken feelings. “I guess you wouldn’t come to Thanksgiving dinner. It would be too weird, no offense.”
“None taken. It would be weird.”
“But your sister will be there,” she points out with hope in her voice. “It wouldn’t be too outside the ordinary if you had dinner with us too, as her brother.”
Fuck, she is so young. Still so innocent, it’s almost enough to break my heart. She wants to believe. She wants it so badly.
“Will Luca and his wife be there?” I ask in a soft voice. We’re approaching the exit now. This is not the conversation I want to end on this evening—the reminder of the walls still standing between us.
Even if those walls have a good reason for being in place, sneaking around is fun. God knows the sex is explosive, mind-bending, insane. That’s as far as it can ever go, and I’ve known that from the beginning.
“Probably,” she eventually sighs. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. Ignore me.”
“If I could ignore you, my life would be a lot simpler and a lot more boring,” I add, in case she gets the wrong idea from the darkness I know rings out in my voice.
I don’t want her to think she makes me unhappy.
If anything, the past three months or so, since I started driving her in and out of the city, have meant the closest thing to happiness I’ve felt since I was little and didn’t know any better.
Once we’ve reached our customary spot around half a mile from the front gate, I pull over to the side of the road so she can climb into the back seat. When she doesn’t move right away, I arch an eyebrow and ask, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” She unbuckles her belt, but instead of taking hold of the door handle, she takes hold of me. This bold little minx. Her hand covers the crotch of my slacks while she kneels on her seat, leaning in to brush her tongue over my bottom lip.
That’s all it takes for all of my awareness to narrow down until this is the only thing happening, the friction from her hand rubbing me in slow, tantalizing circles.
The lightning bolts of pleasure sizzle their way through me every time her tongue strokes mine.
I’m swelling under her palm. She chuckles when she feels it. “Is that for me?” she whispers.
The girl is a fast learner. It wasn’t that long ago she was totally innocent, but now she takes the initiative of opening my belt with one hand while kissing me, popping the button, and lowering the zipper.
“What are you going to do with it?” I ask, gasping when she slips a hand under my waistband and takes hold of me. My eyes close as unspeakable pleasure tears its way through me at her slightest touch. It’s too much and not enough at the same time. I don’t think I could ever get enough of her.
“Why don’t you lower your seat back a little, and I’ll show you?” she teases with her face inches from mine. Well, fuck, I died and went to heaven. She doesn’t have to tell me twice, giggling like the naughty thing she is as my seat slowly reclines.