Chapter 3 #2
Turning to the side, I was faced with my face in the mirror. Leaning in, I quickly fixed my hair even though I’d gotten a blow-out after the sit-down with my father, re-adjusted my shirt so the deep V-neck was sitting just right, and re-applied my shimmery frosty lip-gloss.
The doors slid open just as I moved back to the center of the elevator.
I stepped out into the Presidential Suite that covered the entire twenty-sixth floor of The Carlyle.
Met by the dark walls and red carpet of the entry hallway, I took a right into the lounge.
“Hello?” My voice echoed in the grand place.
Glancing to the right, I found a piano gleaming beneath the dim light, its lacquered black body catching what little sun filtered through the tall windows.
An untouched glass of scotch sat on its edge, the amber liquid glinting like molten gold.
To the left stretched a dining room – mahogany table, velvet chairs, and a chandelier that seemed to drip with crystal tears. Empty. Silent.
“Matteo?” My voice snapped against the walls. He knew I was coming. He had no excuse for this little game. Irritation curled in my stomach, sharp and familiar.
Beyond the dining room, a long hallway stretched ahead, carpet muffling my steps. The air smelled faintly of cologne and cigar smoke, as though he had only just been here. My heels clicked with purpose, defiance.
“Matteo! I don’t have all night!” I called out, each word cutting through the quiet suite like a blade.
I turned right into the first room, ready to tell him exactly how little patience I had left.
My steps faltered.
Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed the city stretched beneath me, Manhattan awash in the last light of day.
The sky was painted in streaks of fire and ash, the sun sinking behind jagged skyscrapers like it was being swallowed whole.
For a moment, I forgot myself, caught in the sheer magnitude of it – the city alive, endless, merciless.
But then I turned, and the spell broke.
On the bed behind me lay a suit jacket, wrinkled and discarded with careless ease. The tie, crumpled across the sheets.
My throat tightened as realization struck.
This wasn’t a guest room, but…
His bedroom.
And I was standing right in the middle of it.
I spun on my thousand-dollar heels, intent on erasing the mistake of stepping foot into his space. My father’s associate or not, I had no business standing in Matteo Di’Ablo’s bedroom.
“Leaving so soon?”
The voice was low, deep enough to vibrate through the walls, through me. A shiver cut down my spine before I could stop it.
My eyes flicked across the room, and there he was.
El Diablo stood in the doorway of the ensuite bathroom, like a God.
The door behind him half-ajar, steam curling out like smoke from a fire – previously closed or else I would’ve realized and not stepped in.
His hair was still damp, light brown strands falling careless across his forehead, darker at the roots where the water lingered.
His hand held a white towel low on his hips, his frame filling the entire threshold. A gold cross chain gleamed against his chest, its sacred glint at odds with the violence of the body it adorned.
Six-foot-five of merciless muscle, his broad shoulders nearly brushing the doorframe, his chest carved like stone. Droplets of water clung to his golden-tan skin, catching the sunset in sharp glimmers, as though diamonds had been scattered across him.
My gaze betrayed me, sliding down to his defined eight-pack – abdominal ridges, clean and brutal as if they’d been carved by a blade. A trail of water disappeared into the towel. Lower still –
I swallowed hard. A heat prickled across my skin at the sight of the blatant ridge pushing against the thin cotton.
My eyes snapped back to his.
The same light brown, glowing almost honey under the last fire of the sunset.
The weight of him, the sheer presence of him, pressed across the room, suffocating and magnetic all at once.
And I hated that I could feel my pulse picking up.
I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t do something humiliating – like stare more than I already had. He was standing there half-naked on purpose, I was sure of it.
I lifted my chin, sharpening my voice. “You gonna stand there all night? I didn’t come over to watch you parade around like some calendar model. I came for your signature.”
Matteo’s mouth curved, slow and deliberate. “Calendar model? Is that what you’re into?” His voice rumbled deep. He brought his free hand to the back of his head, which only made his bicep flex and the chain around his neck catch the light. “You look… Flustered, principessa.”
“I don’t get flustered. I get impatient.
” Heat pricked at my cheeks, but I held his gaze with practiced steel.
“And you’re wasting my time.” I set the contract onto the nearest surface, the thud punctuating my irritation.
“Sign the contract, Di’Ablo. I want this expansion finalized before the week is over. ”
He tilted his head, advancing toward me, the towel hanging dangerously low with each step.
“Expansion…” His tongue traced the word, savoring it. “Such a dry word for something so… Exciting.”
I swallowed – hard – but covered it with a scoff. “I bet you find everything exciting when it comes to stringing people along.”
He stopped just short of me, close enough that I caught the clean, warm scent of soap tangled with cigar smoke. His eyes glittered with amusement. “Keep speaking to me like that, Francesca, and I might think you enjoy playing with me.”
“The only game I want to play with you is the one where you shut the fuck up and sign my goddamn contract, scemo. And I get to leave this ridiculous suite.”
He smirked, leaning down slightly, his voice dipping lower, smoother. “I was just starting to enjoy your company.”
“I don’t do anything for the enjoyment of men.”
My underlying message was clear.
“Mm,” He murmured, eyes flicking to the folder I’d left on the table. He didn’t touch it. Instead, he straightened again, towering over me, drawing the moment out as though he had all the time in the world. “Then you’ll just have to convince me, won’t you?”
The corner of his mouth curved with a slow smile, and I hated – hated – the flutter it stirred in my chest.
It wasn’t for any other reason other than the fact that I’d never dealt with a man like him in business before. Every other Capo or fed or Dragon Head, was angry and hating and all business.
Matteo was all smooth and ‘laid-back’. And unlike the other men I’d turned my eyes into slits at, he didn’t turn to stone.
He didn’t even flinch.
What he did do, was give me those eyes. Like he was appreciating true beauty. It rubbed me the wrong way that it didn’t feel patronizing.
Matteo brushed past me without another word, striding out of the bedroom with that careless authority only men like him could wield. The towel clung to his hips with each step, and I clenched my jaw, scooping up the contract before storming after him.
“Are you serious?” I snapped, heels striking against the sparkling floors as I trailed him back through the suite. We passed the piano, its glossy surface catching a final streak of sunset like a knife’s edge, heading into the other wing of the Suite. “Oh, so what? You’re ignoring me now?”
He didn’t answer. He just kept walking, down another hallway, until he stepped into what could only be his study. Dark wood panels, shelves lined with leather spines, the faint smell of tobacco embedded into the very air.
Matteo sat down behind an imposing desk, in just his low-hanging towel, the picture of unhurried composure, and picked up a pen.
Then he looked up at me.
Expectant.
I plastered on my sweetest smile, walked right up to him…
And slapped him across the face with the thin contract.
Paper smacked against skin with a satisfying sound before I dropped it onto the desk in front of him.
His head tilted slightly, his eyes cutting up at me, sharp and lethal. A look that could kill. One that had.
“That,” I said evenly, setting my hands on his desk and leaning down over him. “Is for making me chase you through half this palace when you could’ve signed five minutes ago.”
Silence stretched, thick as smoke. His gaze locked with mine, unblinking, dragging me deeper into its gravity. For a second, it felt as if the entire city outside had gone still.
For a second, my heart stood still.
Expectant.
Wondering what he was going to do.
A slow smile pulled on the corner of Matteo’s mouth. He ran a hand over his cheek where the paper had stung him, slow and deliberate, before lowering his eyes to the contract.
I braced for him to scrawl his name without even looking, the arrogant, reckless type of man I assumed he was. But instead, he began to read. Page by page. Line by line. Word. By. Word.
My annoyance faltered, replaced with a flicker of surprise. He wasn’t skimming. He wasn’t pretending. He was studying every word, every clause, his focus absolute.
I hadn’t expected that.
I realized, uncomfortably, that there was more steel beneath his surface than he had previously let me see.
And maybe, slapping the only ex-leader of a Cartel to ever walk away alive, hadn’t been the smartest thing I’d done tonight.
Finally, after what felt like hours but could only have been minutes, he signed with a smooth, sharp flick of his wrist. He slid the folder back across the desk, his eyes meeting mine as though he knew exactly what I was thinking.
I tucked it into my Fendi bag, triumphant, but the moment I looked up, he was already standing.
Too close.
My traitorous gaze flickered down, just once, before I could stop myself – over the hard ridges of his abdomen, still gleaming faintly, though there were no more droplets from his shower.
I snapped my eyes away, heat searing my cheeks – lucky that he hadn’t caught me this time.
Matteo walked me back through the suite, his presence heavy at my side, until we reached the private elevator. He pressed the button with one hand, the other holding lazily into the knot of his towel as though this was all a big joke to him, before backing away.
When the doors slid open, I was about to step in, keeping my head high, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me flustered.
“Oh, and Francesca?”
I glanced at him over my shoulder, catching those eyes.
“You looked good even before you stepped in the elevator.”
Pushing my hand into the cup of my plunge-push-up bra, I cupped my breast and moved it so it sat higher, before doing the same with the other side. Finally, I used the reflection of the elevator wall and re-adjusted the collar of my deep V-neck so the black lace of my bra was slightly visible.
Though my face remained blank, I felt the horror wash over me. He’d stalked me through the elevator’s hidden camera on the way up here. Asshole.
I felt my cheekbones heat.
Matteo winked. Then, he walked away, holding loosely onto his towel.