Chapter Sixteen #3
“I warned you away because you flirt with anything with long legs when you’re bored,” I say.
“Mmm. She does have long legs,” he says wistfully, and I nearly snarl.
But I know he’s just trying to rile me up.
“Anyway,” he says, as if shaking off the thought of her legs. “I flirted with her for all of four minutes before you warned me off.”
“That was enough.”
“For who?”
I say nothing.
Diego’s expression turns openly amused. “Ah.”
“Do not ‘ah’ me.”
“I am going to ‘ah’ you. You earned it.”
“You are very close to being removed from this office.”
“By who? Your assistant?”
My stare turns flat.
Diego’s grin widens. “Too soon?”
I lean back in my chair. “You came here to discuss my assistant?”
“No. I came here because you warned me away from Victoria like I was a dog sniffing up the wrong tree, and then a week later, I find out you’ve spent the night with her.”
“I did not warn you away like a dog.”
“You did. Nicely. In Mario language.”
“There is no Mario language.”
“There is absolutely Mario language. It mostly consists of orders, and making people feel like they might die of insufferable silence.”
“You are still alive, so apparently you are fluent.”
He laughs once, then sobers just enough to make me pay attention.
Diego is not often serious.
“I was not going to touch her. You know this.”
“I know.”
“Then why warn me away?”
I look at him for a long moment.
Because she had walked into my building and caught my attention before she said a word.
Because I saw the way Diego smiled at her and felt something inside me rear its ugly head.
Because I told myself it was about protecting the company, protecting her access, protecting the work, and all of that was true.
It was just not the whole truth.
Diego studies me when I don't answer right away.
“I do not owe explanations for my personal life,” I say.
“No. You don’t.”
“Good.”
“But you made it about me,” he says. “That is the part I dislike.”
I hold his gaze.
He sits forward, forearms resting on his knees now. His face has changed. Less easy. Less amused. More like the man beneath the charm, the man people often don’t realize is under it all until it’s too late.
“You acted like I needed to be managed,” he says. “Like I could not be trusted to see a beautiful woman in our building and not make a bad decision.”
“That was not—”
“It was.” His voice stays calm, but there is steel in it. “Maybe not entirely, but enough.”
I do not answer because he is right.
Damn him.
Diego exhales and looks toward the windows for a moment. “I did not need a warning about professionalism, Mario.”
I say nothing.
He rises from the chair, slower now.
“I also did not need you to make up an excuse for me to back off.”
The room is thick with the words he hasn't said.
He smooths a hand down the front of his jacket, then meets my eyes again.
“You are my brother,” he says. “All you had to do was tell me you were interested.”
The words sit between us, simple yet true.
Far more generous than I deserve.
Diego’s mouth curves, but there is no real humor in it now. “I would have stepped back.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
This time, the question is not a challenge.
It is a wound.
A small one, perhaps, but a wound nonetheless.
One that is my doing.
One that I can fix.
The man who raised us would not have. The man who raised us did not.
He ruled with pride.
Too much pride to admit to the mistakes he had made, and that had led to him losing his first son to another man, his own brother, and had kept both brothers apart for a lifetime.
But I have learned from his mistakes.
I lost a lifetime with an older brother I have never met. Now, we are enemies.
I won't lose another.
I meet Diego's eyes and see the truth reflected back at me.
This will not separate us.
But if I don't make it right, the wound will remain.
It will grow.
We both know what happens then.
I take a deep breath.
"It is true that I didn't think you'd be interested in her," I admit. "Not for more than a few nights, and that might have been detrimental to the work."
Diego studies me.
"But I was not only thinking about the company."
His eyebrows lift, the corners of his mouth tilt up, and I know whatever it was has passed.
"Ah," he says.
I let out a very creative insult in Italian.
He laughs.
"That is anatomically impossible, brother, but why don't you try it with the pretty lawyer and get back to me?"
"Get the hell out of my office."
"Do you not like it when I call her pretty?" he says, acting innocent. "I would hate to think you were capable of something so petty as jealousy. That’s only for us mere mortals.”
"I'm not."
"No. Of course not."
"And even if I were," I say, my tone turning dry, "I certainly would not be jealous of you."
"Because, for the record," he says, "I do think she's very pretty. Beautiful, in fact."
I narrow my eyes.
He grins and starts for the door. "And now I know saying so annoys you."
"Your face annoys me."
He just laughs.
"Fine. Not another word about her." He opens the door. "But you can't stop me from thinking it."
He closes the door on my snarl.