8. Isabella
CHAPTER 8
Isabella
“ I can’t believe you walked away from all of this,” I said. Cristian Vitali was so different from his brother that it was hard to imagine them growing up together. The younger brother was quick to smile, easy to make laugh; there was a gentleness to him that simply did not exist in Lorenzo.
Cristian hummed as he took another bite of eggplant. He was on his second helping; Amalia seemed to preen every time he reached for another piece. “My father wasn’t happy, I can tell you,” he said. His eyes cut to Lorenzo, who was glowering at his own plate. “But Enzo fought for me to be able to join the Church.”
“Did he?” I looked at Lorenzo, surprised. It wasn’t that Lorenzo didn’t seem the type to fight for his family…but his brother wanted out of the organization that he now runs. It seemed counterintuitive.
“Only because you would have been shit as my vicecapo ,” Lorenzo said in a voice that was more of a growl. He almost didn’t sound human. I didn’t know what he was mad about, but it had been like that since he and Cristian had come out of his office after lunch.
Cristian didn’t seem affected at all by his mood, though. “Keep telling yourself that,” he said. He looked at me and rolled his eyes, playful, as if Lorenzo wasn’t one of the scariest men that I had ever met in my life. “So, Isabella, you’re a nurse?”
His question was innocent, but it felt like a backhand. “Yes,” I said. “I mean, I’m a CNA, but I’m in school to get my nursing degree…or I was in school, anyway.” I didn’t know whether someone from the Vitalis had formally withdrawn me from school, or if I had disappeared. Either way, I had missed nearly two weeks’ worth of classes, and I would have been kicked out of the program anyway.
“I’m sure nursing is difficult,” Cristian continued as if he hadn’t knocked my world off its axis a little. I had been doing well not thinking about the life that I had built for myself that was all but ruined now. “What made you choose it?”
Again, there was that backhanded feeling. I tried not to curl in on myself, even as I felt my shoulders slump inward. “I don’t know. I like helping people, I suppose.” It wasn’t totally a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth either, and from the look on Cristian’s face, he knew, but he only smiled and nodded.
“I understand that,” he said. “Helping people is one of the reasons that I joined the Church. Doing charity work is one of my greatest joys. You should come down sometime and?—”
“Cris,” Lorenzo barked. “Enough.”
Cristian glared at his older brother, but he didn’t push when I thought that he might. Instead, he turned to Amalia, who was seated between her husband and Damian, and thanked her for making his favorite meal. “Would it be too much to bother you for an espresso before I go?”
I all but jumped up. I wanted—no, needed—to get a little air. The tension was coating the inside of my throat; I felt like I was going to choke. “I’ll get it.”
I practically sprinted to the kitchen. It had taken me a few days to figure out the too-fancy coffee machine, but now I was something of an expert. It was, basically, the only thing in the kitchen that Amalia let me touch, other than the Keurig, which didn’t compare.
I was tamping down the espresso when fingers closed around my arm, tight and painful, and yanked me around. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Lorenzo had pulled me in against his chest, and for a moment, all I could focus on was the heady scent of his cologne.
The coffee machine behind me began to steam, and the gurgles and hisses it let out brought me back to myself. I shoved at him, but Lorenzo didn’t budge. “What are you talking about?” I said, seething.
“Cristian is a member of the Church.”
I blinked. “Okay?”
Lorenzo’s grip on my arm tightened, and he shook me, just enough for fear to claw at my chest. “You think it’s all right to flirt with a priest?” he demanded.
It was like a record scratch in my mind. “You thought I was flirting with him?”
He loomed over me, jaw clenched and eyes blazing. “I saw you,” he said. Lorenzo’s voice had dropped into a deep gravel, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Damnit . Not now. “The whole table saw you.”
I tried to hang onto my irritation, which wasn’t all that hard to do, but it was hard to ignore the rush of arousal that came with it. I shouldn’t like how he stood over me. I should be scared out of my mind. But all I wanted was for him to press himself even more against me.
I forced myself to meet his gaze; I refused to back down from him. The idea of cowing to him anymore was intolerable. If I was going to be stuck here for the next year of my life, then I wasn’t going to do it folding every time I laid eyes on the man. “You know what you sound like?”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. “What do I sound like, Isabella?”
I sneered at him. “Like you’re jealous that I might like your brother more than you.”
He stared at me for a moment, and then a smirk curled his lips, sending shivers through me again. No one should be allowed to look so good and so dangerous from a smile. I squirmed against the counter, squeezing my thighs around the ache between them. He leaned down so that he was speaking directly in my ear, low and something only for me. “I don’t need to be jealous. I’m not interested in you that way.” His hand crept around my waist, pulling me flush against him.
He set his teeth into my earlobe, and I couldn’t hold back a soft gasp. My heart was doing its level best to climb out of my throat. “Why do you keep touching me, then?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice steady.
Lorenzo made a noise that could have meant just about anything, and his lips brushed against my throat. Goddamn him . The ache in my core had become a throb. “I’m touching you because I want to,” he said. “Don’t you get it yet, Isabella? Everything in this house happens because I want it to.”
His words sent ice water down my spine, but it did little to finish the desire choking me. “I want you to stop.”
Lorenzo laughed; it was a confident and utterly masculine sound. “You’re a terrible fucking liar.”
I felt heat in my face. “I’m not lying,” I insisted.
His lips brushed my cheek, the corner of my mouth, my ear again. “So, I wouldn't find you wet for me?”
“Absolutely not ,” I said, but my voice was a touch too shrill, overly defensive, and Lorenzo snorted.
The hand that had been pressed to the small of my back moved down, heavy against me, until he was gripping my ass. His thigh pressed between my legs, and he dragged me against him. There was just enough friction to make things go low and tight in my belly; it left me trembling.
“Be honest with me, Isabella,” Lorenzo coaxed. His fingers gripped my ass, pulling me against his thigh again. I groaned, frustrated. “Say that you want me.”
I shouldn’t. I wouldn’t . I resolved to survive this moment and then run to my room as soon as I had the chance. But then his fingers slipped lower, over the seam of my leggings, and I moaned outright. I didn’t know whether to keel over from mortification or from the smug look on Lorenzo’s face.
My head was swimming, and a base part of me wanted so badly to say yes. He would make that belly-deep throb go away. Then his free hand slipped under the hem of my shirt, so close to where the worst of my raised scars started, and it was like being doused in ice water. I shook my head, pushing at him again. “No,” I murmured. “I won’t. You ruined my fucking life. Why would I ever want someone like you to touch me?”
Lorenzo frowned, obviously frustrated, but he let me go and stepped back so that he didn’t have me crowded against the counter so thoroughly. His eyes slid past me, focusing on something above my shoulder. “Nothing is ruined.”
I laughed, and it was an ugly sound. “What the hell would you know about it?”
“You think I just snatched you from your life without a trace? You think I’m that goddamn stupid?” Whatever expression was twisting my face, Lorenzo didn’t like it. I watched a muscle in his jaw tick. “You’ve taken a leave of absence from school for mental health reasons. You quit your job for a better one. The rent for your apartment has been paid for the next year.” He leaned in so that his breath skimmed my face, making me shiver again. “Don’t underestimate me, Isabella. That will only end badly for you.” He straightened up again. “The espresso is done,” he said flatly. “Cristian has to get back to the dorm. Hurry up.”
Then he was gone, and I was shaking so badly I couldn’t tell which way was up.