Chapter 7
Parkingmy car next to Luca’s Escalade feels oddly right. I’ve been on this job for a month and settled into a routine.
I’m on time. I’m professional and polite. I look like a demure vixen with an advanced degree, like Luca’s assistant, when really…I’m falling for him and his daughter.
Gia’s so cute in her school uniform. Her navy pleated dress melts my heart. Kids get me every time. They can be trusted. Adults can’t.
Because every day when I accompany Luca and Gia to school, Maren and her gaggle of school moms whisper. They snicker at me like we’re in middle school and not in the middle of a parking lot full of their kids.
“Whore.” I heard one of them spit at my back. And “white trash,” Maren wanted me to hear her hiss it.
But Luca doesn’t say anything.
Honestly, I don’t think he hears it.
Over the din of screaming kids, Luca’s too crestfallen every time we drop Gia off, and he’s too elated every afternoon we pick her up. And I’m too proud to let those women know they get to me while I guard Gia with my life.
It’s a mistake to assume this is an easy job. Assumptions can get someone killed or kidnapped.
But with each day I work for Luca, it’s more than a job. We feel it deepening, but we don’t say it.
Silently, I wear his hair clip every day, and silently, every morning, he hands me a tumbler full of steaming hot coffee. We drive Gia to school, listening to her favorite Disney tunes, and then, on the ride back, Luca and I take turns controlling the playlist.
He’s into Miles Davis, but I introduce him to Cardi B. When “WAP” played, he acted unamused, but I saw the thrill in his eyes.
Once at the hotel, Luca returns to work while Zar spars with me in the gym. We laugh, we shoot the shit, but we don’t talk about him.
It’s like Zar trusts that eventually, I’ll figure out what Luca’s hiding.
His fear, yes. Luca’s terrified driving over that bridge; I can see it. It makes his square jaw clench, no matter what music is playing. But that’s not a sin. A lot of people are afraid of bridges, especially that one.
But there’s something else.
I feel it every time I sit in my office or walk the hallways of Luca’s hotel. The memory of the photos Luca’s stalker left him stalks me too. My suspicions are dark and secretly tempting.
I could tell the photos were taken in his hotel. In one of the shots, you can see the carpet. Most guest rooms have the same dark blue and white Grecian key pattern.
Whatever Luca’s hiding, it’s here.
And when I’m not shadowing Gia, I’m looking for it. So why am I not prepared when I finally find something? When I see Maren with her cute son, and a trio of other mom/child duos standing in the lobby of The Mercier Hotel on a Saturday morning.
I’m surprised, but I don’t greet them. I sneak past Maren, hoping she doesn’t notice me while I take my usual trip to the penthouse.
Luca told me he needed me to accompany him and Gia to the aquarium today. I get it. It’s a high-risk location.
But I don’t like this risk. The one that makes me vulnerable and jealous. The one that makes me feel not good enough. Like I’m that girl again who couldn’t get a date for prom.
Girls at my high school spread mean rumors that I was too poor to afford a fancy dress, and I was. The boys avoided me, too. They heard what I did to my stepdad, and they eyed me like I was crazy.
But I wasn’t crazy. I was protecting my sister.
And now I’m protecting Gia. So please don’t tell me that she and Luca have a playdate with Maren and her cunty crew. I’ll have to watch Luca live the life he should while I stand, feeling like I’m looking through a store window at all I can’t have. Like happiness and love and a family aren’t meant for me.
Though, I want it.
I didn’t know I did until this job. Everything about me changes when I’m around Luca and Gia.
Pressing in my code, the front door opens to the penthouse, and I look forward to how Gia greets me. She hears the door beep and runs to hug my legs.
But this morning, “Hello?” I call out.
Where is everyone?
“Fuck.” Luca’s deep voice bellows down the hallway where I’m standing, which leads to his bedroom. I haven’t seen it yet, but when he appears in his bedroom doorway, I’ve seen that before.
Luca with no shirt on.
“Sorry,” he mutters, rubbing his mussed hair. “We fell back asleep.”
But I’m wide awake. My pussy just woke with alarm; my clit startled at the sight of his grey pajama pants with a faded HARVARD written up the right leg. The waistband of Luca’s pants is like my hanging jaw, barely clinging to his chiseled Adonis belt. The pants are old and worn, but he’s not.
HIF #7: Big dicks like that should be illegal to pack. Or they should be required to carry. Pick one while you pick me up off the floor.
Because Luca’s dick matches his body. It’s thick and long with muscle. It hangs free, suddenly seeking while he searches my eyes, shamelessly groping him. But I can’t help myself because he rouses at my stare. Like our silence, it’s long and heavy and growing with desire.
“Good morning, my belle,” he speaks, and his cock agrees. He lets me watch it rise along with his rare smile, flashing his white teeth, and it makes flashes of those kinky photos hit me, too.
The photos of Brooke surprised me. They turned me on. They made me jealous and curious, but mostly, they make a moment like this with Luca way too intense.
He knows I’ve seen his kinky photos.
I know what he’s into.
He remembers what we’ve done, too.
Because it’s a sudden storm in my eyes, and his quickly darken. We drop our stoic masks for the roles we play and reveal what we really want again. What we can’t deny. It’s right here, standing in the hallway between us. It’s intense. It’s aching. It’s asking…
Will we break the rules?
Will I submit to him again?
I bite my lip in his presence, staring into his eyes as we swim in the silent questions between us.
“Scarlett!” Gia rushes out from behind him, her dinosaur long johns crinkled from sleep along with her face. “We’re going to the aquarium today.” She runs to me, hugging my legs and gazing up at me. “And Spencer’s coming. All my friends are. We have a playdate.”
“That’s awesome,” I tell her before forcing myself to suffer the gorgeous sight of Luca again. “They’re waiting downstairs for y’all.”
“Shit,” he murmurs, the presence of his daughter quickly deflating his dick. “We got up early, had waffles in bed, but fell asleep watching The Little Mermaid.”
What inspired that movie choice? I’m kind of flattered.
“Gia, go get dressed, please. Quickly.” He turns and disappears into his bedroom, announcing over his broad, naked back. “I’ll call Maren and tell her we’ll be down in ten minutes.”
Doyou know how hard it is to suck at a job you were born to do?
For the first time, I struggle to keep my face frozen, to show no emotion. I shadow Luca and Gia around the aquarium while Maren and her friends stare back at me. I keep a safe distance behind them while Maren’s glued to Luca, with Gia on his other side.
Every time Maren’s eyes meet mine, they silently hiss “bitch” as if my presence annoys her, and it does. All of her friends do the same, whispering god knows what verbal diarrhea to each other about me.
“Why would Luca’s assistant accompany him on a playdate?” Maren’s asking herself, gossiping with her friends that I must be something more.
That I’m his whore.
And it makes me grin, breaking my mandatory stoic stare.
Oh, Maren, if you only knew.
If you only heard all the dirty things Luca said to me while I gave him the reverse cowgirl ride of his life, his fingertips spanking my clit for two couples admiring us.
“Let them see.” He fisted my hair in his hand like reins. “Let them watch how my sweet whore fucks a big cock. That’s it. Show them how you ride it. How you cream on it. How you love it.” His other hand palmed my breast, his wicked pinch of my nipples perfection. “Let them watch how I make you come.”
And oh, Maren, I grin at her, how they watched me come for Luca—many times.
“Luca,” she snaps his name. “Come for dinner tonight. Just you and Gia. I’ll make my famous crab cakes that you love.”
“Thank you,” he answers with his eyes on Gia. So are mine. She’s fascinated by a shark swimming behind the glass before her. “That’s very kind. But not tonight. I…” His tone drops. “I have plans.”
“Plans? On a Saturday night?” Maren’s worried. “What kinda plans? Not a date?”
Oh, please, woman. Have some pride. If you want to fuck him, just say it.
And if Luca wants to fuck Maren, please don’t.
Please, God, don’t make me watch her get what I secretly want so much and can’t have.
“Yeah, I have a date.” He laughs, his wide shoulders shaking underneath his half-unbuttoned white linen shirt hanging untucked over his worn jeans. I love how Luca dresses on the weekends, all casual and one minute away from bending you over the hood of a car. “I have a date with Zar,” he tells her.
“That man.” Maren rolls her eyes. “He’s profane. I don’t know why you keep him around. Darby never trusted him.”
I glance at Luca. His smile drops while I look back and keep my eyes on Gia, who’s now fascinated by the turtles.
“Darby loved Zar,” Luca snarls, defending him, “and so do I.”
That’s the first time I’ve heard Luca say his wife’s name, and it doesn’t hurt. I’ve seen her in photos in gold frames around his home. She was beautiful, and Gia looks exactly like her. It’s got to hurt Luca sometimes. Like staring at his greatest pain and loving it so much.
It’s how I feel when I see Rose. She looks exactly like our dad. She’s the only one who has his straight dark hair, while the rest of us have our mom’s auburn waves.
“Still,” Maren huffs, “Zar’s a bad influence; I can tell. Some people just don’t belong. While you… You don’t come to the club. You don’t come to church. You and Darby used to be there with us every Sunday and?—”
“Maren,” tension rumbles through Luca’s deep voice, “a lot of things changed when Darby died, including me, and I can’t go back to how life was with her. It’s time Gia and I move on.”
“Well, you can’t forget her memory, either. Gia needs to know about her mother and?—”
“Trust me,” he growls. “I remember her mother every day. I can never forget…”
Luca trails off, and my glance darts from Gia, who’s giggling at the turtles, to Luca, whose jaw clenches at the sight.
The deep agony twisting Luca’s handsome face wounds my heart. He suffers the grief for two people.
Gia doesn’t remember the beautiful mother she’s missing. But he does.
It makes me not hate Luca. It makes me see more sides to him. Like turning a crystal in the light, Luca shines in moments, but he has dark edges, too, places the light can’t reach.
“Luca, I’m sorry.” Maren caresses his sleeve for the umpteenth time today, and my nostrils flare. “I didn’t mean to push. I know you loved her. She was so beautiful, so elegant and smart.” She tosses it over her shoulder for me to hear. “Darby was your soulmate. Your first and only love. She was perfect, and I loved her too.”
Oh my god, Maren, put a stamp on it, stick it in an envelope, and mail me the message: “Luca’s mine now, you red-neck bitch.”
I half expect her to lift a leg and piss on him, too, marking her territory.
She and her mom-friends continue quietly bullying me all day, and my strength starts to waver. The bullied girl in me fights back all the emotions I hide. But later, Maren’s overflowing with so much venom she gossips loud enough for Luca to hear it finally.
“Wonder how many times that redneck let him yank her trashy red hair to earn that Prada clip in it?”
And that hurt.
Because I love my hair clip.
It makes me feel special. Like I belong to Luca. I’m not supposed to feel this way but I cherish his gift. I feel like it’s our shared secret when I wear it for him, and he smiles.
Like every morning, he’s softly telling me, “Sorry if I’m an asshole today.” And I tenderly reply, “I understand. I won’t punch you in the dick for it.”
But now, Luca growls aloud, “Excuse me?” Slowly, he pivots, confronting the moms while I don’t take my eyes off of Gia, picking a plush animal to buy in the gift shop.
But no woman answers him, especially Maren.
“Ms. Jones is a professional,” he defends me. “She works hard. She earns her salary. Do you know what that is, Maren? A job? A salary? Do you earn any money outside what your ex-husband owes you?”
“Luca,” she hushes, embarrassed. “You don’t have to be so unkind.”
“Neither do you,” he sneers. “You will treat Ms. Jones with the respect she deserves, or I’ll let her show you an excruciating way you’ll damn sure give it to her.”
I bite my lip, fire burning behind my eyes—half to keep from smiling and half to keep from crying.
All the times I defend myself. All the times I defend others. Proudly, I do it, but I feel so alone.
No one ever protects me. No one ever stands up for me. No one ever loves me enough to fight for me, too.
Something foreign suddenly warms my heart while I watch Gia giggle, holding up a plush sea ray for me to give her a silent nod, telling her that I love it, too.
I love the warmth of Luca protecting me.
“What do you think?”he asks, watching as I try to use manners.
“It’s good,” I admit, hiding my stuffed mouth with my hand. “Really good. What are they?”
“Dolmades.” He sets three more rolls of grape leaves stuffed with rice and spiced meat on my plate. I sit on a stool at his kitchen island, and Gia sits beside me, scarfing them down, too.
This evening feels too sweet to be real.
“They’re our favorite,” he shares. “I make them with beef because Gia doesn’t like lamb,” he smiles her way, “yet like every Greek girl should.”
“Lamb is yucky.” Gia scrunches her nose. “Baba, if I eat all my dolmades, can I have my baklava?”
“Yes,” Luca pops a dolmade in his mouth, answering while he chews, “dinner then dessert like I promised. And when Celine gets home, you can watch Moana with popcorn.”
Gia smiles, chomping on her dinner while Luca aims those eyes my way, searching for what in my gaze, I don’t know.
“Do you cook?” he asks.
“I had to,” I answer. “I was the oldest of four girls. Like a junior parent.”
When Luca smiles, the cleft in his chin deepens like the pounding in my heart while he asks, “What’s your best dish?”
I twist my lips, reluctant to be honest but fuck it. I am who I am. “Country fried steak and collards.” Is it possible for him to smile even bigger? “What?” I scoff. “Like a five-star European man would ever eat the luxury of country-fried steak.”
“Try me,” he teases.
And I want to reply, “I have, and I’ll take more, please. Like the Golden Corral of sex where I can just keep fucking the buffet of you and never get full.”
But that’s not in my Employee Manual of HGR Security, so I answer, “Alright. If you buy the groceries and the grease, I’ll teach you how to be a redneck too.”
He throws his chin up, his booming laughter filling the room and making my cheeks hurt.
Fuck, I’m laughing, too.
Only with Zar have I seen Luca this relaxed. But feeding his daughter and me has him howling with his mouth full.
And he’s the sexiest man ever.
The steamiest dad ever.
The hottest boss ever.
But will I ever get used to this?
Feeling comfortable, like I belong with Luca and Gia. It’s a one-eighty from this afternoon when Maren fired an Uzi of insults my way.
But once we left the aquarium, Maren wasn’t saying much while Luca insisted on feeding me dinner.
Did he feel bad about Maren being a bitch to me? Or did he do it for Gia’s sake because she asks me every evening to stay?
“So you made these?” I ask before enjoying another roll, relishing the savory stuffing and tangy grape leaves.
“I’ve learned a few recipes over the years,” he answers, leaning against the white marble countertops in his gourmet kitchen, crossing his arms across his broad chest.
I like how all his cabinets are Grecian blue, and the sleek hardware is gold. Every inch of Luca’s hotel reflects his culture.
“But not the baklava,” he says. “Our chef downstairs at Margot’s makes it. I named the restaurant after my mother, but it’s my father’s family recipe. Still, it’s too complicated for me to make.”
“Scarlett, come to brunch tomorrow.” Gia swings her legs from her stool. “You’re family now.”
I nudge her. “I’ve only been here a month, kiddo.”
“But you’re like Celine and Zar,” she says. “You’re family. And Baba likes you. You make him happy.”
I huff, smiling at her profile. Gia’s got moxie, and I love it. But when I glance at Luca across the island from us…suddenly…he’s not happy. I don’t know what smokes across his eyes as they dart between me and his daughter before he clears his throat.
“Scarlett works with us, Gia. So do Celine and Zar, and we must respect their time off. I’m sure she has a life outside of work. Friends and all.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
The mention of friends and having a life makes Gia wonder aloud. Me too. What do I have other than my work?
“I have my puppy,” I answer her.
Gia bounces in her seat. “When do I get to meet him?”
“When your Baba says you can.”
“Where’s your puppy when you’re here?”
“He goes to doggy daycare. Kinda like your kindergarten. They’re teaching him not to pee on the floor, too.”
Gia laughs at my joke, but Luca won’t let it slide, his accent thickening. “You didn’t answer her. Do you have a boyfriend?”
I look his way, my smile dropping as his eyes narrow.
Is he jealous or mad or flirting?
Either way, he shouldn’t ask me that as a professional, as a man I work for, as a man who made it clear that we were one night only.
One night we can’t forget.
It makes me bite my lip before I answer, “I don’t know. Should I?”
There are lots of things I should do, that Luca should do, but the way he’s looking at me now? Should sucks. We want to do everything we shouldn’t.
“All big girls have boyfriends.” Gia pulls the plate of baklava her way.
I turn to her. “Well, I don’t have a boyfriend. All girls need is to be what they want to be.”
I don’t know what Luca’s taught Gia yet. Because I also want to tell her that girls, I mean women, can have girlfriends, too. And they can meet boys, I mean men, who fuck them so passionately they cry, watching them leave, breaking their hearts like her Baba did to me, but that’s not entirely true.
Not every man is bad.
Not every man leaves.
And Luca is a good father, and he’s a generous but grumpy-as-hell boss.
Every morning, when I arrive, he knows I like my coffee with sugar and no milk, and he serves it to me with a silent scowl.
Every day, when I enter my office, a new floral arrangement awaits me. Three times a week, he has my car in the parking garage washed and detailed alongside his. He has chocolates and fancy spa products sent to my hotel suite, the one I breeze in and out of as a glorified changing room. He even had a plush white Mercier Hotel robe monogrammed with an S in gold for me. It hangs, freshly washed, every day in my suite, ready to warm me after my evening swim.
Luca is silent perfection.
He’s a shitty not-boyfriend.
And a soul-altering fuck.
“So, you’ll have brunch with us?” Gia asks.
Crumbs from the baklava pepper her cute face. On instinct, I take my napkin, gently wiping her smiling cheeks clean while I feel Luca’s heavy silence.
What does he want me to say? No to him, but yes to his daughter? I can’t win, and I won’t disappoint Gia.
“I would love to have brunch with you.” I flick her cute nose, making her giggle.
Later, when I’m leaving, Luca escorts me to his door, which is weird. This was work today, not a date. It makes me pause after I open it to leave, whipping around to face him after he mutters, “You don’t have to come tomorrow.”
He speaks lowly so Gia, who’s in the living room watching a movie with Celine, won’t overhear us.
“Thank you for being kind to her,” he says with his hands shoved in his front pockets, “but that’s not your job. And I’m sorry those women were cruel to you today. Thank you for being dignified about it. And thank you for being kind to Zar, too. He likes sparring with you.” He pauses. “You know, I never told him I was well enough to fly home that Christmas in college, but I lied and stayed to keep him company, so thank you for keeping him company, too.”
Dark silence is Luca’s default setting, so his avalanche of gratitude is overwhelming. It’s touching. I’ve never seen this side of him, but I guess he’s taking a chance while we have a rare moment alone and off-the-clock.
“I don’t mind,” I answer, trying not to get trapped in his crystal eyes. “My stomach’s been growling, smelling that brunch spread for over a month, so I’d love to try it.” I shrug. “Besides, I know the hotel owner. I won’t have to pay.”
A smile cracks his mask again. “Is that so?”
“Uh-huh. I also know he has a sexy birthmark the size of a nickel on his left thigh. That’s why I don’t pay when I use his hotel’s gym or swim in his lap pool.”
“I think he likes that.” He grabs the door frame above me, leaning way too close. “He’s got cameras everywhere and likes watching how you please yourself.”
Oh fuck, he flicked my clit.
And he knows it.
“Does he watch me, too? In my suite here when I’m taking a shower?”
I’ve never seen a camera in my suite or the hotel spa. Luca seems too ethical to violate privacy, but maybe that’s his secret. He is a voyeur, too. He watches what he shouldn’t.
His black hair hangs, long strands kissing the top of his lips as they near, inches from mine. “He wants to watch you shower,” he taunts. “He wants to see you nude every day with your hair down. He wants to do a lot to you, but rules keep him from his desires.”
His aroma, sex mixed with spice, makes my flesh tingle. It makes me confess, “Sometimes I want to break the rules again. Do you?”
“You know I do.”
He glances down, directing my gaze to follow. Under his jeans, he’s getting hard, and the surge is sudden, desire flipping my stomach. “So we aren’t strictly professionals?”
He glares. “We’re whatever I say we are.”
“Oh?” I cock a grin. “You think I’ll submit to you again?”
“I say WE crave it.”
We? Me and him and the anaconda in his pants?
Who else is there?
Celine has Gia in the living room. The volume on the flatscreen is high enough, so it’s safe for me to indulge, just for a minute.
“If I submit, what will you make me do?”
I turn the tables, needing Luca to need me, too. So, he leans closer, his lips brushing my ear, the steam of his voice, of that accent, drenching my sex.
“I’ll make you sit on my desk and lift that skirt and pull your panties aside. You’ll sit there while I watch your pussy get so wet for me. Then I’ll tell you how to touch yourself, rubbing that beautiful hard pink clit of yours. I’ll watch you get so desperate for me; you’ll tell me how you’re my little whore to fuck anyway I want until you beg me to let you come. But I won’t. Not until that tight wet hole of yours is pulsing for my tongue to fuck it, and when I devour you, I’ll make you scream my name. I love your screams, Scarlett; my name shredding your voice is where it belongs. Your cum is my water, and I’m the only one allowed to drink it.”
I shiver, my pussy clenching as he swears, “Even if you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend—I know you go both ways—it doesn’t matter because you belong to me. Even if I let someone taste your sweet pussy, it’s mine. You can’t get me out of your blood. When you come, I own your mind now, don’t I, Scarlett?”
My lips graze his stubbled cheek, my nose inhaling his citrusy scent, my fists twisting to grab him.
It floods me with our truth.
“Just like you’re mine, Luca. You want me. You spoil me. You think about me. You can’t find a pussy like mine. One that can take your pounding and your pain away. One that owns your cock, too, no matter where you put it; it’s mine now, isn’t it? You come with my name burning on your lips.”
“I will tonight.” He nibbles my ear, and it takes all my strength not to take him down. “I’ll come on my pillow thinking about you.” I can flip him onto the floor, on his back, and make him mine again. “And you’ll send me a video tonight of your fingers buried inside your pussy, needing it to be my hard cock ripping you open again. I want you coming while I watch you scream my name.”
He presses his forehead to mine, the brush of his lips hovering over me is so close…
“You ache for me, Scarlett, just like I ache for you. It’s torture being around you every day. I feel the same way. I need you again. I’m empty and in pain, wanting me inside you forever.”
“Luca.”
His name escapes in a stutter, and I can’t control it. This hurts so much, and I love it. I need it. He hears it. He sees it, too.
“But I can’t,” he growls like a war wages inside him and suddenly pulls away.
So I turn and leave him this time.
I don’t look back at him in the doorway, though I can feel him there. I step into the empty elevator and stare in the mirrors, seeing him watch me in the reflection as the golden doors slowly close.
Without a word or a single thought but him, I mindlessly follow my new routine. I go to my suite on the executive floor.
And I change.
I become a woman who’ll fight for him. Who’ll break the rules for him. Who’ll lose her job for him. A woman who needs these feelings, his sweet family and his brutal fucks, his tender gifts and dark secrets, his wicked mind games and warm heart.
I don’t know why, but I need it all with him.
I slide on my red, one-piece Speedo before slipping into my plush, white Mercier Hotel robe. The hotel gym is at the other end of this floor. The heated, saltwater lap pool there has been my relief from old injuries and new ones, too. The fresh scars of Luca sting as I dive into its depths…
And there…
I scream his name.