22. Alina
22
ALINA
M aria Isgro could be a supermodel. Okay, maybe she’s not tall enough to walk the runway, but she’s beautiful. Lush dark hair that spills over her big breasts, a tiny waist, and a round butt.
I hate her.
“So you’re the girlfriend,” she says to me, her eyes sparkling. “No wonder Tomas likes you. You were amazing out there.” She runs her hand down his back before taking my hand to shake it.
No, not shake.
Caress.
“All that barely leashed aggression,” she murmurs. “So hot.”
Hang on, is she flirting with me?
Her next words all but confirm it. “If you’re looking for a play partner,” she purrs, still holding onto my hand, “let me know. I would love to have a three-way.” She takes in my expression, and a wicked smile curls her lips. “Tell me, Alina, aren’t you at least a little bi-curious?”
I’ve honestly never given it any thought.
Tomas spins me around so my back is resting against his chest. His arm wraps around my waist, holding me against his body. “That’s a very tempting offer, Maria,” he says, far more calmly than I’d be able to manage. “But I’m going to have to decline.” He bends his head and kisses the side of my neck, his lips pressed to my fluttering pulse. “I would be far too jealous to share Alina.”
The other woman tucks a small business card into my back pocket. I half-expect her to pinch my butt in the process, but to her credit, she doesn’t. “If you change your mind, call me,” she says. “That goes for both of you. Separately, or together.”
She winks at me and strolls away. I wait until she’s out of earshot before I pull away from Tomas’s hold and spin around to face him. “Did that really happen?”
“Ciro’s parties,” he says with a shrug. “They tend to attract a certain type.”
I shake my head, resisting the urge to touch my swollen lip. I still feel the touch of his mouth on mine. The pressure of his tongue in my core. “I thought Maria was an ex.”
“Nope. Just someone who was rather obviously interested.” He laughs. “In both of us, evidently.”
And in response, he said he would be far too jealous to share me.
It’s a line, Ali. Just pretend. It’s not real.
But the thrill that shot through me when he wrapped his arm possessively around my waist—that wasn’t pretend at all. That felt all too real.
Tomas plucks the empty glass of prosecco from my hand. “How did you get to Milan?”
I have to stop thinking about his kiss. The way his tongue slid into my mouth, sure and unhurried, the way his breathing quickened, the way he growled as I deepened the kiss…
“I took the train.”
He frowns. “It’s one in the morning. How were you planning on getting back? There’s no train until the?—”
“Morning. Yes, I know. I was going to wait at the station. It’s only a few hours before the first train.”
His look of displeasure deepens. “No, you’re not,” he says. “I’ll give you a ride back home.”
“Was that in the contract, too?” I ask sweetly, grabbing another glass of prosecco from a waiter. For a brief second, I contemplate turning down his offer, and then sanity wins. I’m already exhausted, and the idea of sitting around the station for hours waiting for the first train home sounds truly awful. There’s no point cutting off my nose to spite my face. “Thank you, a ride would be wonderful.”
Tomas drives a BMW sedan. It’s a nice car, comfortable and spacious. I sink into the leather seat with a sigh. “I’m exhausted,” I confess. I pull out my phone and realize my battery is completely dead. “You wouldn’t happen to have a phone charger, would you?”
“In the glove box.” He gives me a sideways look. “You were going to wait for five hours in a train station without a working phone?”
“When you put it that way…” I find the cord and plug it into the USB port in the console. It takes a few minutes for my device to power up. When it finally does, I see that I have multiple messages from my bank. After the two-sets-of-books disaster, Tomas took Simon’s name off the bank account and signed me up for a fancy service that alerts me every time there’s a withdrawal. “Why is the bank texting me in the middle of the night?” I open the most recent one. “There’s been a one hundred and nineteen thousand euro deposit into the gym’s bank account? That’s not right. It’s got to be some kind of mistake.”
“One hundred and nineteen thousand, nine hundred and eighty-eight euros,” Tomas says, not taking his eyes off the road. “It’s from the investment, the one I called you about.”
What kind of investment converts ten thousand euros into a hundred and twenty in less than six hours? I turn in my seat and stare at him. “Tomas, where did this money come from?”
“I bet on your fight.”
My mouth falls open. Did I hear him right? “You did what?”
“I bet you’d win,” he repeats. “They set the odds at twelve to one, the idiots.” A smile plays about his lips. “I had to walk a fine line with that bet. Del Barba gets notified anytime someone bets over ten thousand, so I bet nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine.”
“You bet ten thousand euros?” Yes, I sound a little shrill, but can you blame me? “What would have happened if I lost?”
“I guess I would have been out ten grand,” he replies, accelerating around a slow-moving transport truck. “But I wasn’t worried, and I’m not reckless; I only bet on a sure thing. I knew you were going to win.”
He says it with complete confidence, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. A lump wells up in my throat. The last person who had this much faith in me was my mother, but even before she died, the Alzheimer’s took her mind. It’s been a long, long time since someone believed in me.
I think I’m going to cry.
And I can’t do that in front of Tomas. I just can’t. I can’t expose myself that way.
“You bet on my fight with the gym’s money,” I make myself say, my tone snarky. “How confident could you have been?”
“Look at what time the text came in.”
I pull up the details. The text from the bank alerting me to the money deposited into my account came in only a minute or two after Tomas called me. Which means… “You put the winnings into the gym’s account before the fight even happened? I don’t understand…”
“Like I said, I knew you were going to win.” He glances at me, a long, lingering look that sets butterflies fluttering through my stomach. “I owe you for the kiss. What do you want?”
You.
I take a deep breath. “I want first right of refusal when you sell your share of the gym. I want you to offer it to me first and give me enough notice so I can raise the money.”
“How much notice?”
“A month,” I reply, reaching for the stars. My previous contract with Simon specified a week. That contract wasn’t even worth the paper it was printed on, but I know enough about Tomas now to know that if he agrees to do something, it’ll get done. His word means something.
“Done,” he says. “I’ll have Daniel draft up the changes tomorrow.” He takes his attention off the road once again. “You could have asked for anything you wanted,” he says. “I didn’t put any conditions on it. You could have asked me for my share of the gym.”
Anything I wanted. My heart starts to beat faster. “You paid a million euros for that share,” I say lightly. “That seems excessive for one kiss.”
His gaze rests on me, an invitation in the smoky depths of his eyes. If we weren’t speeding on the E70, I’d be tempted to take him up on it, consequences be damned. “You’re selling yourself short, Alina,” he murmurs. “Never underestimate your worth. Any man with a pulse would pay that and more for a chance with you.”
Any man with a pulse would pay that and more for a chance with you.
He drops that bombshell as if it were nothing and turns his attention back to the road. I hug his compliment to myself for the rest of the way home, and it warms me from the inside out.
Tomas parks his car in Tronchetto. The trains aren’t running yet—it’s too early—and in any case, I feel like walking. The two of us stroll in silence toward Dorsoduro. “Where do you live?” I ask him.
“Giudecca.”
“Like Antonio Moretti.” The mafia boss of Venice famously lives in Giudecca. His wife, Lucia, just opened an art gallery there. I saw a fawning article about her in one of the magazines in the gym’s lobby.
“The padrino prefers we live close. It’s easier that way.”
Easier for what, I wonder, though I don’t ask. “Is he a good boss?”
“Yes,” Tomas says. “Very much so. It makes for a very pleasant change.”
“A change from what?”
I don’t think he’s going to respond, but to my surprise, he answers my question. “Back in Valencia, I used to work for a man called Alonzo d’Este. He was… not a good boss. On my first day, I wanted to impress him, so I prepared a presentation about how he could improve his investment strategy and triple his returns. Alonzo flew into a rage. He took my critique as a personal affront.” He exhales in a long breath. “It was not the best working environment.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“I should have. But I thought I was in love with Alonzo’s assistant, Estela. It wasn’t until that blew up in my face that I quit.”
He said he moved to Venice five years ago. Estela—I even hate her name—should be firmly in the past. There’s no need for my stomach to sink the way it does when he mentions another woman.
“What happened?”
He shrugs. “I asked her to marry me, and she turned me down. I thought we were in love with each other, but she told me in not so many words that she was slumming with the help. Her father was an enforcer for one of the Colombian cartels, and she was only working for Alonzo to learn the business. She intended on marrying cartel royalty, and I was too much of a nobody. After that, the idea of working alongside her didn’t appeal, so I looked around for another job, and Antonio offered me one.”
I stare at him, my heart aching. Tomas is gorgeous and smart, witty and capable. He’s someone you can count on in a fight, someone whose word is his bond. I can’t think of why any woman would turn him down. “Estela clearly has the brains of a pea.”
The look in his eyes is affectionate. “That almost sounds like another compliment, Ali.”
“Don’t hold your breath for the next,” I respond automatically. Barbs and insults and sharp banter—that’s been the nature of our relationship so far. Why do I feel like I’m standing on the precipice of something new?
“Do you ever miss Valencia? How often do you go back?”
His shoulders tense. “I haven’t,” he says, his voice clipped. “Not since I left.”
He’s been away from his home for five years. He misses it—I know he does, even if he doesn’t admit it to himself. I can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice.
But he’s stayed away because he’s still in love with Estela.
My heart feels like it’s been tossed into the smoothie machine. I take a deep, steadying breath. “It didn’t bother you that you’d be working for the mafia in Venice? Or did you already work for the mafia in Valencia?”
He chuckles. “Officially, there’s no mafia in Valencia.”
“And unofficially?”
“Unofficially, Spain is where the mafia, the bratva, and the cartels hang out and learn from each other. Mallorca is filled with villas belonging to the Russians, the Colombians, and the Italians. Alonzo d’Este wasn’t connected to any one organization; he profited from them all.”
We’ve reached our destination. I come to a halt outside the gym and fumble in my purse for the key. I’m not ready to say goodbye. Not yet. Almost four hours after it happened, I can still feel his kiss on my lips. “How will you get home? The vaporetto won’t start running for another hour.”
“I have a boat.” He looks up at the lightening sky. “What time does the gym open on Sunday?”
“Eight.”
“Tell me you arranged for someone to open.” He glances at my face, and he shakes his head. “No, of course you didn’t.” He follows me into the lobby and waits for me to open the door to my stairwell. “Sleep in, Ali. I’ll open the gym for you.”
It’s the first time he’s called me Ali, in a tone that is exasperated and affectionate all at once. My heart does a funny little flip when I hear it. “You should make that offer only if you mean it,” I warn him. “Because I’m going to take you up on it.”
“I mean it.” He brushes his finger over the cut on my cheek. “Put something on this.”
His touch sends a surge of desire through my bloodstream. “You keep telling me what to do,” I whisper. “I don’t like it.”
A smile ghosts across his face. “I think you like it more than you’re willing to admit.” He strokes my cut again, his touch as light as a feather. Need rises sharply in me, an aching need that demands the weight of his body on mine.
I swallow again. “I don’t like it,” I repeat stubbornly.
“Okay.” He doesn’t pull away, and neither do I. We stand in the doorway, staring at each other. Make a move, I think urgently. Ask me to invite you inside. Because if you do, I’m going to say yes.
He lets his hand drop.
“Goodnight, Ali,” he says, taking a step back. “Lock this door behind you and get some rest.”
I watch him turn around and walk away. “Tomas,” I call out just as he’s at the front door. “Last night, I might have lied.”
He freezes in his tracks. “About what?”
“About inviting you upstairs. I wouldn’t have regretted it the morning after.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t react. If it wasn’t for a muscle ticking in his jaw, I’d be wondering if he even heard me.
For one brief, hopeful moment, I wonder if he’s going to turn around and come back to me. Kiss me hard and hurry me up the stairs.
Finally, he breaks the quiet. “Sleep well, dolcezza,” he says.
And then he leaves.