Chapter 6
Emma
K rista and I didn’t stay at the club for long. We left and headed to a bar on the resort, but that wasn’t too fun. We ended up sitting at the bar late into the night, watching the news report that was keeping track of pending storms passing by.
We attracted too much attention at the club with that idiot trying to fight the bouncer just because he’d looked at me. Then again, if I were there with a man, the way Luke had his gaze wandering to me would’ve been a reason for suspicion.
If he didn’t scowl each time we made eye contact, I might have convinced myself that he couldn’t help himself from checking me out. But no. He kept gazing at me like I was thorn in his side.
All night, I felt his stare on me. Like a tangible caress. A burning sensation that keyed me into this magnetism that had me wanting to look his way too.
“Sorry,” I told Krista as we walked back to our condos.
Her heavy sigh was hard to interpret. She liked to dance and flirt and generally have a good time. I didn’t fault her for wanting to have fun. I did, however, battle a twinge of jealousy that she could. She would never know the pressure of marrying someone you feared and didn’t desire. She would be ignorant of how depressing it was to accept that love wasn’t an option. That no options were viable for her to pick and choose from.
As the daughter of a capo, she wasn’t held to high expectations like me.
I got that glory all by myself.
“It’s okay.” She linked our arms together.
“No it’s not,” I argued weakly. “You wanted to go out and have a good time and I ruined it.”
She snorted a laugh. “I’d say that douche ruined it. What the hell was his deal?”
I shrugged, but I knew damn well why.
He didn’t like Luke looking at me.
That kind of mentality would be the possessive crap I didn’t want to deal with if Antonio ruled my life. That no other man could look my way. It was so stupid. And I hated that it would be my fate, to be beneath the rule of a man who didn’t hold my interests and desires in mind.
But Luke did.
We were strangers. He was an employee at the resort while I was a guest. There was no reasonable connection that we could have to be acquaintances. Yet, he got it. He told that other guy to listen to me . To heed what I wanted. Having a man defend my right to call the shots was a novel idea. I never got what I wanted, and it excited me that someone, even a peeved stranger, could insist that a man listen to me for just one moment.
As Krista and I walked, I tried and failed to elaborate more. She had to be curious about why a bouncer would rush to intervene. She had to be wondering why a bouncer would instigate a fight too.
He wasn’t just any old rent-a-cop figure. Krista mistook him as a cop when she realized he was a figure of hotel authority, their security worker. At that club, though, he looked even gruffer, firmer.
I replayed the memory of him stopping the other man’s arm. Then the ease that he used in blocking and deflecting the hits. He was a strong man, used to combat of some degree, and I couldn’t pinpoint why that got to me.
All my life, I’d been surrounded by security. Giordino guards and soldiers were always there, blended into the background as the imperative protection I needed just because I was the daughter of the Giordino boss. Being near a trained fighter wasn’t something that shocked me. I was usually so protected that it felt like suffocation.
Luke could put so many of those men to shame. My father took pride in training and employing ruthless capos, supervisors, and spies who’d mastered the complicated art of torture. I was familiar with the concept of death and violence, of the gore that happened when drama escalated into a reason for war.
“You all right?” Krista asked as she brought me to my condo door.
“Yeah.” I glanced at the door and realized she probably meant the lock. “I checked both doors. The locks work.”
“No, I mean...” She twisted her lips a bit and glanced to the side. “After that fight.”
I rolled my eyes. “That wasn’t a fight.”
“It could have grown to one.”
I doubted it.
“It feels strange not being surrounded by Giordino guards.”
It sort of did. “But it also feels so freeing.”
“And...dangerous?” She grimaced. “When I saw you near those men ‘almost’ fighting, I got so worried. What if something happened to you? What if—”
“Hey. Take it easy,” I said, using what my former instructor used to call my nurse voice. Before Antonio got impatient about how long it was taking my father to agree on a wedding date, he complained that I was getting too liberal, too bold and independent for going to college. I hated that his opinion was enough of a reason for my father to stop me from going to school to be a nurse.
“We’re still at a resort that’s operated by the Giordino name.”
She scoffed. “Loosely.”
“Even though we shut our phones off, I know he’ll find out that we’re here eventually.” My only hope was that he wouldn’t demand that I come home. By staying at a resort he could monitor me at remotely, maybe I could have this chance at one last summer of fun.
She leaned in to hug me. “It just put it all in perspective. Like, yeah, we know you’ll marry Antonio, but I haven’t really let myself think about that meaning you’d be gone. That we wouldn’t hang out anymore. When I realized that anything could happen to you, I got started on this whole negative train of thought about how I don’t want to see you go.”
I frowned, hugging her close again.
“We’ll have a beach day tomorrow. For sure.”
She smiled, slightly happier about that promise, and headed to her condo after we said goodnight.
As soon as I was alone, I checked that the doors and windows were intact. I stood at the rear door for a long moment, picturing Luke in here when he tended to it fixing it and changing the code on the panel. His broad shoulders stretched in his work shirts as he moved, and I let my mind wander a little further as I envisioned him in here, near my bed, with no shirt on.
A man as tall and ripped as him had to be huge all over, and I furrowed my brow. I was curious about him—where he learned to fight, why he had to argue with me, and what he was thinking when he gazed at me with those intense stares.
Curiosity was one thing. But lusting after him wasn’t smart. I had no business standing here, connected to him simply because he’d previously stood in the same space.
I told Krista that it’d be sweet justice if I could lose my virginity on my own terms, but with a rugged hotel staff member like Luke?
Yeah, right.
I shook my head as I tossed my key card to the nightstand.
As if he’d want me.
Stepping outside on the balcony, I considered how dumb it was to think of losing my virginity with someone as fierce and powerful as Luke. He’d handled that guy at the club so easily, without break a sweat or looking concerned.
But he also handled me with that same distance and command. He didn’t back down, not when I caught him looking at me almost naked, not when I told him I’d get him fired either. Luke had to be one of those rare individuals who didn’t fear anything.
He also seemed like he wouldn’t suffer the company of fools, either. He proved it at the club, and he suggested the same with me.
How can he look at me like he can’t stand me at the same time he can stare at me like he wants me?
“Dammit,” I muttered to myself as I leaned my forearms on the balcony railing. “What am I thinking?” That he’d want me? Checking someone out didn’t equate to anything hot like real desire. Besides, there was a perfectly logical explanation for why he helped me out at the club—he was just doing his damn job. He worked on the security staff and as a bouncer. It was his job to help out women who were being groped or harassed, right?
As if my thoughts summoned him, he showed down below. Strolling along the path that cut toward the beach, he passed through the Tropican property.
What the hell? I glanced at my watch, seeing that it was really late. Krista and I killed hours at that bar, but...where did he go? I didn’t see him after he strode away from that dumbass who’d been trying to get me to dance with him.
It seemed he’d gone somewhere, and I didn’t want to restrain myself from being intrigued.
“Late night?” I called out. Leaning further over the balcony railing, I let my motion clue him in to where I was.
He did a double-take, glancing up at me once too quickly, then again for longer. His dark-brown eyes were hard to make out in the darkness, but I felt the burn of his attention on me.
Of course, he had a scowl on his lips.
“Be careful.”
“With what?” I retorted, unable to be submissive and nod along with his instructions.
“Be careful that you don’t lean too far and fall.”
I made a face and stayed put. “I don’t like being told what to do, Luke.”
He stopped walking, peering up at me long enough for me to see the start of a smile. It transformed his whole appearance, lighting up his face with a cocky kind of expression. Laughing, he shook his head and resumed walking, clearly having seen enough for the night.
I wouldn’t delve deep and try to understand why his dismissal stung.
“Be careful, you rich, spoiled brat.”
Oh, you asshole! “I’m not a spoiled brat.” Hearing myself deny it actually made me sound like one now. Dammit!
He turned, walking but looking back up at me. “I know your type.”
“Yeah, well I know yours, too.”
“See if I care. I don’t have time for—”
I stood up and crossed my arms. “Good.”
“—a woman who thinks she can always get what she wants.”
“You’re wrong,” I whispered, too quietly for him to hear but aloud so I’d feel the words slipping past my lips.
He was so wrong. Between my father and my soon-to-be fiancé, I wouldn’t ever get anything I wanted. Nothing.
I narrowed my eyes at him, unable to look away as he faced forward to walk down the path leading to the road.
Before he turned, out of sight, I winced at the sudden thought that I wanted him .
Because there was simply no chance in hell of us getting together.