Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Nico
The suite smells like lemon polish and expensive perfume that doesn’t belong to her.
Security clears me through without question. They know who won. They know the number. They know not to waste my time.
The door swings inward, and I step over the threshold like I own the room, because for tonight, I do. And everything in it.
Erica stands with her back to me near the window, arms wrapped around herself, shoulders tight. The city lights beyond the glass look distant and unreal, and it makes her look smaller than she is.
She’s still, but not calm. I can see it in the way her weight isn’t settled on her, those icepick heels. Like she’s ready to bolt even though there’s nowhere to go.
Then I take in what she’s wearing.
White.
A baby doll—barely. Tissue-thin fabric that pretends to be innocent while showing almost everything. It sits against her body and does nothing to hide the curves I’ve been pretending not to notice for weeks.
The neckline dips and the light catches the soft swell of her breasts, the narrow line of her waist, the curve of her hips. It’s a costume designed to make men feel entitled.
And it works, because my first instinct is heat.
Immediate. Sharp. Possessive.
I ignore it.
I’ve built a life on ignoring instincts that don’t serve me. I’m a man with self-control, not because I’m naturally calm, but because I learned early that control is the difference between winning and bleeding out on the pavement.
I take two steps inside and shut the door behind me. The latch clicks.
She flinches.
Good. That means she’s still in her body. Still aware. Still capable of listening when I tell her what comes next.
I keep my expression neutral as I look at her back.
This is more of her than I’ve seen since I hired her a few weeks ago.
Erica Crawford in the office is all soft sweaters and skirts that fall at a reasonable length, hair brushed, eyes too wide when she’s concentrating, voice careful like she’s always afraid of being a bother.
She’s competent. Quiet. The kind of girl who says “sorry” when someone bumps into her.
I noticed her the first day.
Of course I did.
Men notice a pretty blonde with blue eyes. Men notice curves. Men notice lush lips on a face like that. I’m not blind.
I wanted her then. Not in some poetic way. In a simple, physical way. I’m a man. I have blood in my veins. I also have plans. I make moves when they make sense.
But I clocked her as innocent the moment I met her.
Not my thing.
Innocence comes with problems. Innocence clings. Innocence thinks a good night means something it doesn’t. Innocence gets attached and starts asking for things you don’t want to give. Innocence turns into leverage, and leverage gets used.
I don’t need to fuck some woman working for me who might cause trouble later. Might cling to me. Might get ideas about what she is to me.
All for what? So I can get my dick wet?
No.
So I put it out of my head. I kept it professional. I kept my hands to myself. I kept my eyes where they belonged—on her work, not her body.
And if it slipped back in every once in a while, so what? Thoughts aren’t actions. A moment of wanting doesn’t make me weak. It makes me human.
But this—this isn’t a thought slipping in. This is her standing half-naked in a room I had to buy my way into, wearing white and waiting for a stranger to come take what can’t be given back.
My jaw tightens.
I didn’t come here because I suddenly developed a taste for this.
I came because I got a message from someone who knew that having one of my employees in a place like this would get people’s lips moving.
And not just anyone.
Erica.
My assistant.
The girl who brings me coffee and schedules my meetings and looks at me like I’m made of granite, like she’s trying to figure out how to exist around a man who never softens.
The thought of her on an auction block should have been impossible.
It wasn’t.
Because people do desperate things. People do ugly things when the world backs them into a corner.
And Erica—she’s been carrying something. I’ve seen it in the way her smile never quite reaches her eyes. In the way she flinches at her phone when it lights up. In the way she’s been working harder than she needs to, like she’s trying to outrun something.
I should’ve dug deeper.
I should’ve asked questions.
But questions make noise, and noise draws attention, and attention is the one thing my family has learned to manage like an art form. We keep the business clean on the surface. We keep the suits pressed and the public faces respectable.
Because reputation matters.
In this state, reputation is currency.
Our hold on New Jersey has been tested in the recent past. Rivals push when they smell weakness. Cops lean harder when the public starts whispering. Politicians smile less when they think you’re a liability. You don’t give anyone a reason to believe you can’t control your own house.
Imagine what people would think if it got out that an employee of Nico Conti was selling herself for money.
They wouldn’t see “desperate young woman” or even “secret fantasy.” They’d see chaos. They’d see lack of control. They’d see a man whose organization can’t even keep his own staff from being dragged into something like this.
It’s a black mark.
And black marks spread.
So I acted.
I came to the auction. I sat in a dark room with a bunch of hungry animals. I saw men react to her like she was a prize, not a person. I listened to the host talk about her like she was meat.
Every line he said pushed something sharper into my chest.
They weren’t bidding on dinner. They weren’t bidding on conversation. They were bidding on being first. On taking something from her that she can’t get back. On putting their mark on her and walking away satisfied, while she lives with it forever.
I heard the hunger in the room.
I heard how much they wanted the idea of her innocence more than her body. I heard the way the numbers climbed, and I watched the host struggle to keep up at one point, like the bids were coming too fast, too high.
I didn’t intend to spend that much.
I went in with a number. A sensible number. The amount it should take to get her off the market quietly, without making a show of it.
But then the room shifted. The energy sharpened. The bids didn’t slow like they usually do when the price gets uncomfortable.
They got excited.
Men like that don’t blink at money. They blink at boredom. Erica wasn’t boring.
She was everything they wanted.
I bid hard.
I bid harder than I’ve bid on anything in my life, because every time the number jumped and someone outbid me, I pictured what he’d do the moment he got her alone. I pictured her face—soft, confused, trying to be brave—turning into something blank just to survive.
Seventy fucking thousand dollars.
Even the host hesitated for a beat, like he couldn’t believe what he was saying. Then he recovered and hammered it home, voice bright with triumph.
And I won.
If it had been anyone else, I’d have let it go. I’d have removed her from her position, cleaned the mess by cutting the connection, and moved on.
But it wasn’t anyone else.
It was Erica.
Now I’m here to claim what I bought.
Because that’s the only way to keep her from being hurt by a stranger, and keep my family from being hurt by the rumor mill.
And because I don’t trust anyone else in that room with her.
She’s hugging herself like she’s trying to make herself smaller. Like if she compresses enough, she can disappear. The white fabric does nothing to help. It’s a joke. A cruel one.
I take another step into the room, and the anger I’ve been holding down starts to show its teeth.
I rarely get angry. Vito is the volatile one. He burns hot and loud. I burn slow.
But when I do, it’s effective.
Because I don’t waste it on yelling.
I use it.
Erica’s shoulders tense. I can see her steeling herself, the way her spine straightens like she’s forcing her body to obey. She draws in a shaky breath, then turns.
Confusion hits her first.
Her brows furrow. Her mouth parts slightly as she takes me in, like her mind can’t find a way to place me in this scene.
She never expected to see me here.
Then the confusion drains away as it clicks into place.
Recognition.
Shock.
Fear—real fear—because she understands what my presence means even if she doesn’t understand why.
And as she stands there with her breasts right there in the open, eyes wide and glittering under the suite lights, my anger rises higher, heavier, and I let it settle in my bones where it belongs.
Her mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
For half a second, she just stares at me like her mind is trying to catch up to what her eyes are seeing, and I can see the exact moment everything tilts for her.
I don’t give her time to find her balance.
I step forward, anger riding my spine like a blade.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
My voice comes out harsh. I know it does. I hear it scrape the air between us.
She flinches.
Of course she does. She’s never seen me like this. In the office, I keep my temper leashed. I keep my tone even. I don’t raise my voice because raising my voice is losing control, and I don’t do that in front of people.
But this isn’t the office.
This is a suite with bolted windows and a guard outside the door, and my assistant in white fabric that barely qualifies as clothing, looking like she’s about to be swallowed whole by the consequences of a stupid decision.
“Mr. Conti—” she tries, voice thin at first. Then she swallows and forces it steadier. “Sir. What are you doing here?”
My laugh is short and humorless. “That’s what you want to ask me?”
She blinks. “Yes, sir. What’s going on? I thou—” Her eyes flicker to the door and back to me.
I take another step.
“You stood on a stage in a room full of men who were bidding on you like you were a prime piece of meat,” I say, each word clipped.
Her lips part again. Still no words.