7. Dante
7
DANTE
Dante
T his time, when I opened the door for Nina, she didn’t fight me on it. Her gaze remained distracted as she entered the car. After I closed the door, I drew in a deep breath and second-guessed myself.
The idea to pretend that Nina was with me was an impulsive one. I didn’t think it through. I operated on impulse, and that wasn’t always a bad thing.
It’s not like it wasn’t on my mind already. Since we’d crossed paths, I battled a persistent need for her. Imagining her naked and bouncing on my cock, I fought the urge to take her as I wanted. Hearing her crying out in pleasure would forever taunt me, and it was the best I could hope for at the moment.
I rounded the car, gritting my teeth. Frustration set in before I reached my door.
I hadn’t been thinking when I acted on my lust for her. Sure, it helped her out in the end, but now that we were committed to pretending we were together, I’d ensured endless torture for myself. I wanted her—all of her—but I’d foiled that from being a possibility in telling her that we’d fake it.
I’d made this a business transaction of sorts. I’d keep the bikers away from her, and she’d keep Vanessa off my back. I couldn’t trust Vanessa because she represented a tie to Stefan, and having Nina close by would buy me time to get to the root of why I didn’t trust anyone in the Giovanni family anymore.
“Tell me exactly what happened tonight,” I said as I got into the car. I had no intention of backing out of my impromptu suggestion to fake date this gorgeous, quiet woman, and I planned to make sure it would go smoothly according to how I saw fit.
“With Ricky?”
I nodded, driving out of the lot. She detailed the circumstances that Henry had left them in, and I hated the sorrow that she’d gotten the short end of the stick with the man who should’ve been her father. A real parent. Nina and Ricky were raised by a grandmother, and their mother was never in the picture. I thought long ago that Alison left because she knew back then that all Henry cared about was his military career.
“Some families are like that,” I told Nina. “Devoted to service.”
She huffed. “Devoted? Or obsessed?”
I couldn’t argue with her there. Henry came from a long line of military-minded servicemen, and I supposed it was a hard habit to break or amend.
“You have lots of men working in your ‘organization’. They’re probably devoted and dedicated to their jobs.”
“They are.” Every Constella soldier could be counted on.
“But they also have families, right? Friends and family?”
“We’re all one family.” It likely wouldn’t make sense to her, but that was how it was.
“Well, I’m not sure I have any family left. Not after Ricky did that to me. He took all the money Dad left. Gambled it away.”
I frowned as I drove on. “At the Hound and Tea rooms?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably other places, too. So, he lost it all and tonight, he said he had an idea. That ended up being betting on me , and losing—of course—and expecting me to go to that biker guy.”
I caught a glimpse of her shivering as she turned to look out the window, and I resisted the urge to take her hand. Now that I’d drawn the line in the sand, declaring us as two players in a grand scheme of pretending to be together, I had to keep it strictly professional.
This was how I erred with every deal I struck. Everyone knew their part. Everyone had their goals outlined. No room for confusion. It was why I didn’t trust Stefan any longer. Since siding with the Dominos, his goals and the spectrum of where his loyalty lay were no longer clear to me.
“Did he say how much he was betting for?”
Pivoting slowly, she hit me with a laser of a glare. “Are you asking me what my price is?”
I didn’t flinch, unbothered by her haughty tone. In fact, I respected it. She had enough sense not to put a price tag on herself—on any person. However, in my world, with other crime leaders as my peers, I knew otherwise. Everything, and everyone, had a worth. And it could always be quantified with dollar signs.
“Did he tell you?”
“No.” She resumed glaring out the window, but her fight deflated quickly. Her shoulders slumped. Sinking back into the cushion, she sighed deeply. “I don’t even want to know, anyway.”
“What did he tell you?” I had to know the details and cover my bases. It entered my mind that I could just offer to pay off Reaper. I could give the motherfucker the number he wanted from Ricky. It could be a payback to Henry, post-mortem, for missing his funeral.
Then again, I wouldn’t dare. The second I entered any kind of negotiation or transaction with those biker idiots, it would be become a deeper level of business, and I refused to do any business with them.
“I was just finishing my shift at the steakhouse. He showed up and told me that he ‘lost’ me in a bet to Reaper, and then he tried to drag me upstairs. As soon as I figured out that he meant it, that those people really thought I was a possession, I hit him and got loose.”
“That’s what the marks on your wrist are from?”
She nodded, rubbing the spot. “It’s not that bad.”
Stopped at a red light, I turned to face her. “Anyone marking your skin is bad,” I growled.
Except… me. I glanced at the redness from where I’d sucked on her pulse point, licking the tantalizing sweetness from her flesh there. Fuck, I really liked my mark on her.
But no more. If we were going to fake this, then I had to keep my need in check.
“Then I saw those bikers, and they came after me. That’s when I turned around and ran into you. And then…” She lifted her hand to gesture wordlessly at what followed.
And then I wanted a taste of you and found a way to make it happen.
I sighed. So much for keeping my life simple. On the rest of the drive to the Constella estate, a little bit further from the city but not too far, I spoke with Franco. He answered on the first ring, unlike Romeo. He didn’t pick up at all.
“I want you to have someone follow Ricky Bardot,” I told him. In my peripheral vision, I noticed Nina jerking to face me, her brow furrowed.
“Henry’s son?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“For…?”
“Just to follow him.” It was all the clarification I wanted to give him while Nina could hear. Half of my plans included beating some sense into the young man. He had no business trying to bet on his sister’s life, and with Reaper, of all people. More than my need to punish him for his stupidity, though, I had to make sure the bikers didn’t retaliate or push the guy to make it easier for them.
My altruism only went so far. Yes, I wanted to save Nina from this situation, but my desire for her fueled that decision. My own interests did as well. As long as she was with me, Vanessa would back the fuck off.
Franco and I talked a little further about having someone track Ricky. He brought up the presence of the motorcycle club members at the gambling rooms, and I debated banning them altogether. That move would also be taken as an “attack” against them, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to mess with them officially like that. Not yet, at least. I saw what happened the last time an MC got involved with a Mafia family—the Dominos were done. Gone. Dead, and broken up as an organization. While I knew the Constella name wouldn’t fall so easily, I would do all I could to steer clear of large issues and unnecessary threats.
“Romeo left an hour ago,” Franco said as I pulled up to the estate. He wasn’t expected to keep tabs on my son. I didn’t micromanage him, either. Romeo was his own man and he’d never let me down. I doubted he ever would. However, Franco and I were both more than aware of how poorly Romeo was getting over his guilt in not saving the three soldiers in that fight. It was a testament to how much we all mattered. Like I told Nina, we were one big family here.
I wasn’t sure if that meant Romeo would be here . We mostly lived together, but he had several other properties he liked to stay in as well.
It looked like it would just be me and Nina, though. After I hung up, I got out and rounded the car to open her door.
“What’s going on?” she asked, taking in the enormity of my home.
“You’re staying here.”
“With you?” She gawked at me as I tilted my head in a mute order for her to follow me to the door. Already, a man was approaching to drive the car to the garages, and she was waylaid with watching the man do his duties without order.
“Yes, with me.”
Nina hurried to catch up with me, grabbing my forearm. She clutched me to stop me, but I rolled with it, tugging her closer and forming her hand to rest on my arm, with mine over hers.
“You expect me to just move in with you?” she spluttered. “Just like that?” She snapped her fingers, and I stopped in the middle of the steps rising to the front door.
“I do expect you to move in with me. Just like that. Because if you go to wherever you call home, your brother or the bikers will take you. Just like that.” I added a snap of my fingers to both mock her and emphasize my point.
She blanched.
“I don’t trust Ricky,” I said as I led her toward the door. “I don’t trust that MC, either.”
“Okay. I realize that, but?—”
“But nothing,” I replied, secretly loving how she would protest and stand up for herself every inch of the way. Pushovers were boring. Obedient, docile, and meek people grated on my nerves. Nina didn’t argue for the sake of bickering, but because she wanted to make her voice heard.
I also loved squashing whatever retort she wanted to fling at me. Satisfaction curled within me, warm and potent, and I reveled in the thrill of this push and pull. Per the texts and emails that had come in while I was kissing Nina and fingering her tight cunt, I had many other things to do. But here I was, bringing her into my home.
“Keeping you close is in my best interests.”
Her eyebrows dipped as she thought over my words.
Shit. I didn’t have the time or patience to explain why pretending to be with her was beneficial for me. “Your staying here, close to me, is in our best interests.”
“To dissuade the bikers from thinking I would be their leader’s.”
I nodded. And to give Vanessa the impression I wasn’t available, since the times I told her no didn’t stick.
“In order to make it believable,” I said as I released her in the foyer. She didn’t seem to be listening, spinning slowly as she took in the opulent entrance. Her plump lips parted in awe as she roved her appreciative gaze over the stained-glass windows and huge chandelier sparkling and glittering with the low lights from the walls.
“In order to make it believable…” she prompted. She was listening, and I had a hunch she always was. Nina didn’t make much of an impact on me when she was a girl because she was quiet and bookish, keeping to herself. But I’d be stupid to assume she lacked any sense of perception and awareness of her surroundings.
Observant. I liked that.
“In order to make this deal between us believable,” I repeated, “you will really need to act the part.”
She sobered, stopping her survey of the foyer. “Which entails what, exactly?”
When she bit her lower lip, I held in a growl. Was she hoping it might include more intimacy? More chances to fuck? The heavy lidded expression she couldn’t hide hinted at it.
“Act the part by living in my house,” I said, pulling my phone out since it buzzed in my pocket again.
Nodding, she accepted that. “Okay. It’s probably safest, too. I wouldn’t trust Ricky if I went home.”
“And you’ll need to be seen with me, too.”
“All right.”
I couldn’t ignore how quickly and readily she agreed to that point. If she was hoping for a repeat of what we did at the car, she’d be disappointed. Now that we’d entered a deal, we both had to stick to what our roles were. The second we blurred the lines, it’d likely fall apart.
“However.”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s always a catch.”
“Don’t give me that sass.”
She arched her brows. “I won’t so long as you don’t try to give me any bullshit.”
“However,” I said again, “I am a busy man.”
“I think you’ve mentioned that.” She crossed her arms. Even though her Hound and Tea uniform was simple, her gesture pushed her breasts up in that white blouse. I struggled not to look.
“I am a busy man and I cannot stop my work commitments for you.” It was the biggest reason I declined any suggestions to date. It was also why I avoided investing the time to find a woman to be with. Work—all my businesses and deals—had kept me company for thirty years, and changing that was easier said than done.
Nina shrugged. “Okay?”
“I won’t be here to pamper you and coddle you.”
She smirked. “Was I asking you to?”
That fire. She had no clue how sexy she was like this. “I don’t want you to get it into your head that I’m available.”
“And why should you be?” She pointed between us. “We’re pretending it all. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a roommate here.”
Oh, is that so? On one hand, I was pleased that she got it, that she understood I wasn’t here to play house with her. On the other hand, though, I wondered how easy it would be to go for it all.
A butler appeared to my side, ready to assist with Nina. He had to have noticed her and assumed she was a guest, not our newest inhabitant.
“George,” I said to him while I kept my focus on Nina. “Please see Ms. Bardot to the guest room near my suite.”
He nodded.
“See to it that her needs are met for the evening.”
“Yes, sir. I will fetch any garments and necessities that she requires.”
“But in the morning, please let my niece know that her assistance is required to further welcome Ms. Bardot into our home.”
Nina frowned. “Your niece?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t certain they’d ever met. “Yes, Eva will help you settle in.”
She opened and closed her mouth, glancing to the side. “Uh. Um, Right.”
Was she already losing sight of my explanation that I was too busy to play house with her? Or was she merely disappointed that I had to cast her aside so soon?
It’s for the better, Nina. I dipped my chin once, as a farewell, before I turned. “Good night, Ms. Bardot,” I said over my shoulder.
“You know, calling me by my name would make it more believable,” she teased.
“Believable to whom?” I turned slowly, holding my arms out to show that it was just me, her, and my butler. I didn’t need to worry about fooling him. He worked for me.
Technically, she does too. I added that to my list of tasks to do—ceasing her employment while she performed this act with me. It wouldn’t be safe for her to be near the gambling rooms with the bikers trying to find her. Or her idiot brother.
She got the point, though. Here, in the privacy of my home, there was no need to pretend anything. After a wince, she nodded. “Got it. Good night, then, Mr. Constella.”
Fuck me. I wanted to hear her say my name again, like she’d cried it out when I made her come.
Clenching my teeth, I ignored my desire and walked away.