Chapter 6
Bianca
It’s official: I’ve run out of things to say. All the time in Switzerland’s best finishing school can’t prepare someone for making small talk with a person who has the conversational skills of a piece of cheese. And even cheese is good for something.
This man, on the other hand, is as useless as a strain of bacteria that does nothing. This man, my fiancé.
We’re sitting at a table at the illustrious Richmond Club located on the south-west corner of Lenox Hill and Central Park, a stone’s throw from the Plaza Hotel. It has a refined ambiance and delicious food, though I can’t appreciate either tonight.
It’s my fourth ‘date’ with my fiancé. Four months since our engagement has been announced, and we’ve met just as many times, if you discount my brother’s wedding from the list. He’s a busy man, it appears, Ardian Abrashi. Busy doing what? Crunching numbers? Even that didn’t get him talking—I asked about his job on our first outing. Books on the second—he doesn’t read, prefers TV. Food tastes on the third—he eats everything, he says.
I have no clue what to ask today. My eyes return to the Rolex on his wrist. Different one from the wedding. Is he into watches?
“You like Rolexes?” I ask.
He shrugs. “They’re good.”
Okay, I’d stand a better chance of pulling words from a rock. To think I’m going to spend the rest of my life with this meat suit filled with absolutely zero personality? How are we going to manage that? I shudder just thinking about it.
Ardian’s eyes narrow on me. They’re especially assessing tonight. I better be careful. Has he noticed me shivering? Is he going to ask me if I’m cold, show he cares, at least a little bit?
“You haven’t touched your wine,” he says.
The tone makes me think of an AI trying to grasp the human experience and failing dramatically to compute it.
I give him a strained smile. “I’m not a big fan of red.”
“It’s an expensive bottle.”
I nod. “It is.”
Watching him order the wine gave me a precious look into who he is. He’s having a medium rare filet mignon, and the sommelier recommended a Malbec to go with it. Ardian was adamant on one of the most exclusive Burgundy reds on the card.
It’s so basic, really—red wine with red meats, white wine with more delicate fare like fish. Guess no one ever educated him on the complexities of wine. After nearly five years in France, I’ve acquired myself an education on the topic.
The wine he got? It’s from a recent vintage, even though it comes from a renowned domaine in Bourgogne. Such wines are best with significant aging. It’s not going to taste as good as it should so soon after being bottled.
As for me, reds give me the worst hangover, even after just one glass. And I’m having sole meunière. Red wine belongs nowhere near a lemon-butter sauce unless you want a strong metallic aftertaste in your mouth ruining your meal.
It shows me the man he is. No consideration for anyone but himself and his self-importance.
What the hell was my father thinking pairing us together?
Except, we as people don’t exist. It’s an alliance between the Mafia and the Albanians, so neither will step on the other’s toes.
“My apologies, sir,” a waiter says softly.
Ardian turns to him with a glare. “What?”
The waiter bows and extends a bottle of champagne. “Courtesy of the gentleman at the bar, sir.”
I glance at the bottle, my eyes going wide. It’s a Bollinger Vieilles Vignes Fran?aises Récolte 2012 . That’s an exceptional year for their champagnes.
Immediately, I glance at the bar area, regretting my action when my gaze collides with his.
The man I’ve been doing my utmost best to forget, to erase from my existence.
Leo Pellegrini’s dark eyes hold mine, then shift to my fiancé. He holds up his glass of Scotch, gives a curt nod, then the ma?tre d’ is escorting him to the other side of the restaurant.
He’s dining alone then, the wall in the middle of the space dividing it into one section for couples and small gatherings, the other for single diners preferring a slice of tranquil quietude to enjoy their meals prepared by the Michelin-starred kitchen.
A puff of air leaves my lips when he steps out of sight.
Why does being anywhere near him have to be so magnetic? I all but held it together the other night at Mattia’s when my brother and his wife returned from their honeymoon. I hadn’t known Leo was going to pick them up; I’d never have parked myself at their place making dinner, so eager to see my best friend after three weeks and to make sure she and my brother were good, that the hesitation I picked up from her on their wedding day was just last-minute jitters.
Seeing her wide smile as soon as I stepped out soothed all my concerns, until I realized who was standing near the car with Mattia. Tall, dark, handsome, and absolutely dangerous Leo. He’d worn a slim-fit, short-sleeved button-down shirt I never would’ve thought would look good on his big, brawny body.
But there he was. Utterly hot in tight jeans molding his firm ass and long legs, powerful forearms dusted liberally with dark hairs exposed and seeming to beg my tongue to come discover the sinews between his honed muscles, the slight indents of raised veins just below his skin.
I hadn’t dared look at his face. Doing so would’ve made me lose the plot completely. I hadn’t seen him since the wedding. There’d been no texts, no communication. And just as well. Because I was promised to another—what happened between us could never come to light.
I’d garbled a greeting, then focused on Hana. Bubbly Hana, who glowed like a woman well-loved and seriously well-fucked. Lucky her. Though I cringe whenever I think it’s my brother fucking her. Euww!
I kept it together, doing my utmost best to ignore Leo in the room. Until the moment I walked back in wearing the bikini Hana had bought me.
One look colliding with Leo’s, and it all rushed back, gathered speed, snowballed. I could see it in his dark pupils, the narrowed eyes, the flare of his nostrils, the slashes of color on his high cheekbones. Exactly like he’d looked at me in that bridal suite, right before we consummated our joining. Desire, lust, craving, yearning… They echoed in me, too.
Until the sound of glass smashing tore us both out of our daze. How hard had he been gripping that heavy glass to break it like that? Then again, Leo has big hands, strong and capable. I remember them sinking into the flesh on my hips. The hurt had been so delicious in the moment, though it left me bruised for days afterwards.
Meeting his eyes today, for a second, it took me back to the other day, when he looked at me in a bikini like he was raring to lunge and devour me on the spot.
Until his gaze had shifted to Ardian, and ice had filled them. Cold, burning, lethal.
“You know him?’
I blink out of my thoughts and glance at Ardian. “Hmm?”
He frowns. “The man who sent the champagne.”
I swallow reflexively, forcing a detached composure again in front of him. “That’s Leo, my brother’s best friend.”
“You know him well?”
As well as a woman can know a man.
I shove the thought away and nod, smiling. “Yes. His father is a friend of ours.”
If he knows our lingo, he’ll understand I just told him my father and Leo’s father are allies. A friend of mine is a third party a mafioso vouches for. A friend of ours is a made member of the syndicate.
He nods, gaze going to the champagne before he snaps his fingers calling the waiter.
How gauche—I cringe inside. My father’s marrying me off to a philistine.
“Throw it away,” he cursorily snarls.
As the bottle is being taken away, I pull in a breath. Something’s not right. Is it the fact his ego is pricked by someone sending him a more expensive bottle than the one he ordered, showing this person has more money and can be more careless with it? Or is it more? I haven’t felt this level of tension in Ardian ever. He must know something is afoot with Leo. Or if not, that he’s a threat. Well, anyone in their right mind would know this and bear it in mind at all time. Leo’s his father’s heir, and he’ll be a Don one day when his padre dies. All families, like mine, have a boss at the head. Not all of them have a Don, though.
Suddenly, I can see it so clearly. I tangled with the wrong man. Leo can mean trouble both for me and this alliance. What did I think? That he’d just blip out our time together and get on with his life? I’m not that na?ve usually, but this time, I was.
I have to make this right. Smooth everything over, at least.
And this means having a talk with Leo Pellegrini.
I get up and place my napkin in a soft fold on my chair. “Please excuse me.”
At least he understands this means I’m heading to the ladies’ room and doesn’t question my movement.
Here’s the thing about the Richmond Club. Two sides of the restaurant, one single hallway leading off in the middle to the rest rooms. Many a tryst has been had in these stalls, which are almost double the size of regular ones in the ladies’ corner to allow for ease of movement, should a person not find themselves alone in there.
But that’s not my destination. The same blind spot that allows one to take this corridor unnoticed permits sneaking into the other half of the dining hall.
In this bastion of male presence and occasionally ballsy women dining alone, fashioned like a gentleman’s country club in the elite areas of London, it doesn’t take me long to zero in on my target.
Leo Pellegrini is seated on a chesterfield three-seater near an unlit fireplace, one leg casually draped over the other, a lit cigar in his hand, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
His heated gaze tracks me as I make my way to him, stopping a few paces short near the low coffee table on which I place my purse.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I hiss in a low tone.
He peruses me from head to toe with a slow, languorous glance. I can feel heat start to burn in my cheeks, my nipples pebbling against the silk of my bra, my core tightening with need.
For God’s sake, woman! Get a grip!
“I asked you a question,” I state.
He shrugs. “Thought you’d enjoy the champagne.”
“Ardian returned it.”
“He’s even more of a fool than I imagined.”
Frustration is rising in me. Is this a game to him? It’s not to me, to anyone in our world. Why can’t he grasp this?
“Leo, please, stop this.”
“Stop what?”
I huff. “This. Whatever it is you’re doing.”
“I’m just enjoying my cigar,” he says. “And the view.”
Argh! This man is insufferable!
“Leo, please… This is my life we’re talking about.”
Whichever way we cut it, I’m done for. If I don’t marry into the Abrashi family, my father himself will kill me, for bringing dishonor onto the family. I can’t even hope he’ll send me off to a convent somewhere.
My words seem to have leeched the playfulness from Leo’s stance—he’s still sitting in the same position, but there’s a tenseness to his arms now, a mask of terse focus on his roughly handsome features.
“Bianca—”
“No, you listen to me.” I sneak in a deep breath. “You’re going to leave, let me go back to my dinner, and we’re going to be civil to each other whenever we meet in public, okay?”
His mouth tightens, lips a thin white line.
“Is this what you really want?”
It’s the last thing I want, but I have no other choice.
“Yes.”
His nostrils flare. So many emotions run over his face, I can’t keep up and tag them all. I did see frustration in the way his eyes narrowed. Like I’ve hurt him, dealt a blow he might not recover from.
“This can’t be the end,” he says softly.
So he’s felt it, too, this connection between us.
I bite my lip to stave off the sob wanting to tumble out. “It has to be.”
“Bianca, we need to talk.”
“We can’t—”
“Even if just one last time.”
This. His words make me pause.
Closure. It’s all we can aspire to between us.
It has to be.
“Not here, though,” I say.
He swallows, hard, the movement of his Adam’s apple evoking so much sadness in me, I want to cry.
“Later tonight. Vince’s, in Tribeca. Can you meet me there?”