24. Gray
CHAPTER 24
GRAY
M arco
Fuck . I can feel Jia’s burning gaze from across the room before she utters a sound. I shove raunchy Raquel off for the third time since she came by to personally deliver a second set of keys for my girlfriend . The woman has no shame and simply cannot take the hint that I’m not interested. Clearly, this woman can’t take no for an answer.
“Jia!” I spring for her, but she lifts a hand, pure venom carved into her jaw.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she hisses as I reach for her arm.
“Let me explain?—”
“There’s nothing to explain. It’s not like I expected your manwhoring days to come to an end just because of our sham of a wedding. I just didn’t expect to see it in our apartment.” She spins out of my reach and races around the back of the kitchen. Her footfalls slap across the steps a moment later as she disappears up into the master loft, and I just stand there like an asshole.
A lethal tempest of fury, pain, and ice-cold fear twist in my gut. What if she leaves? What if she calls this whole thing off? A few days ago, and I would’ve been thrilled by the prospect… but now? Cazzo , what has this woman done to me?
Raquel’s head twists in my direction, and I swear a spark of hope lights up her face. She must have caught that sham wedding part. Bad news for her, though. She and I were not happening. Ever.
“Please leave,” I bark at my all-too-eager realtor.
“But—”
“No buts . Get out of my house and never come back unannounced. What almost happened between us was before Jia and I were engaged, before we were even together, as I keep trying to tell you. And it will never happen again.” I wrap my fingers around her wrist and haul her to the door just in time to find Guo and Arianna walking in. Merda . “If you have any business to conduct with me in the future, Miss Raquel,” I add to the realtor, a bit more politely now that we’re in company, “please go through my assistant, Melanie, at Gemini Corp.”
She rips her hand free from my grasp and saunters toward the elevator. Before the elevator doors close behind her, she offers a flirty smile. “I’m always available, Mr. Rossi, whatever your needs may be.”
I heave out a grunt and slam the door. Good God, the woman is relentless.
Mr. Guo and Jia’s best friend stare at me expectantly as I stalk back inside. Shit .
“Everything all right, Mr. Rossi?” Guo cocks his head, eyes thinning as he scrutinizes my disheveled state.
“Just fine. I need to speak to your granddaughter, if you’ll excuse me for a moment.” I nearly make it all the way around the kitchen before calling out over my shoulder. “Please help yourselves to whatever you want in the refrigerator and make yourselves comfortable.”
Then I’m racing up the steps and sorting through the best way to explain—no, grovel to my future wife. Thankfully, the master loft has no doors, so Jia has no option but to hear me out.
When I reach the sprawling, modern chamber, I find my fiancée in the closet yanking off the shirts I’d spent the last hour hanging.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
She whirls at me, dark eyes murderous. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m moving your clothes. I may be forced to marry you, but I refuse to share the same bedroom with a man who is fucking other women.”
“I’m not!” I howl.
“I just caught you with your tongue down the freaking realtor’s throat!”
“It wasn’t my tongue! She attacked me.”
“Oh, you poor baby! How did you ever survive?” Her eyes narrow as they focus on my shirt collar. “You’ve even got battle scars to prove it.”
I flip up the corner of my collar and cringe at the bright pink lipstick. “It’s not what it looks like. The reason her lipstick is on my collar is because I turned my head when she tried to kiss me the first two times, and her lips landed on my shirt instead. The last time she got a little aggressive, which was at exactly the moment that you walked in.”
She rolls her eyes so damned hard only the whites show. “You’re pathetic.”
“It’s the truth!” I drag my hands through my hair and suck in a steadying breath. “Damn it, Jia, I haven’t been with a single woman since our engagement was announced.” And I have the blue balls to prove it.
She begins a slow clap that only aggravates my fired-up nerves in the way that only she seems capable of doing. “ Would you like a medal? You made it through two whole weeks without sleeping with another woman? That’s truly impressive, Mr. Rossi. Well done.”
“And I didn’t kiss the realtor either!”
“Well, it didn’t look like you were trying very hard to pull away until you saw me.”
“Yes, I was! Did you miss the part about the first two attempts? Not to mention when she tried to put her hand down my pants—” Damn it. Too far.
A shriek bursts from her lips and she shoves me out of the closet, grabbing my shirts as I stagger back. “Take your clothes and get out of my room.”
I plant my feet into the carpet and, despite her punches and an occasional kick, I stand my ground. “I’m not going anywhere, spitfire,” I growl. “As a matter of fact, I think I’ll sleep in here tonight.”
“You will not!” She throws another punch. I don’t deflect it; I just stand there and take it.
“It’s not the night before our wedding yet. There’s no reason why I can’t sleep in my own damned room with my fiancée.”
“You don’t get to call me that when you still smell like that woman’s cheap perfume.”
As I stand there while she continues to wail on me, a realization surfaces: Jia’s jealous. For the first time since this whole mess started, she’s showing me actual emotion. Emotion for me . If she truly didn’t care about me at all, then why the dramatics? We’d never discussed the parameters of our fake relationship, but there’s more than just anger in her eyes. It’s clear she’s hurt.
And cazzo , that understanding has me downright giddy.
My fingers curl around her wrists and drag her flush against me. I keep her steady against my chest with one hand in spite of her squirming. My heart kicks at my ribs from the faint contact with her flesh. With the other hand, I grip her chin and force her eyes to meet mine. “Listen to me, spitfire. I don’t cheat. I may have been sleeping around with a few women before we met, but they were all very aware of it. When I commit to something or someone , I’m all in. If you want this marriage to be real, then trust that I will be as devoted and faithful to you as I have been to everything that’s real in my life. I put my heart and soul into Gemini Corp, into making myself into the man I am today, and I’ll do the same for this relationship, but only if you’re willing.”
Some of the fire in her eyes diminishes at my tempered tone. Her chest still heaves with every breath, and I can’t keep my gaze from dipping to the taunting neckline. Dio, she’s tempting when she wants to kill me.
“I don’t know,” she finally mutters, a long minute later.
I release her and take a step back, all the intensity deflating from my lungs.
“I don’t know that I can trust you, Marco. You’ve still done little to earn it.”
Gritting my teeth, I fold my hands behind my back. I don’t find that to be at all true, but I keep my mouth shut all the same. Maybe she really does just need more time. Maybe she needs to hear me say it…
“I don’t need Raquel; I don’t want other women. Your lips are the ones I dream of every night, spitfire,” I whisper. “I dream of claiming that mouth, devouring those lips until they’re swollen, then filling them up with my cock.”
She gasps, and a satisfied grin stretches across my face. Dio , I love riling her up.
“We could be good together, Jia, really good. You just have to give it a chance.”
She releases a breath and lowers her fighting stance, her arms falling to her sides. “… And if I can’t?”
Those words sting more than a dozen knife wounds. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to find another way to make this arrangement work. ”
“Like we each live our own separate lives in private?”
“Is that what you want?” I bark, the question coming out harsher than intended. I never thought she would be the one to need her desires fulfilled outside of our marriage.
“Maybe,” she murmurs.
Merda . That one little word is like a hot blade right between the ribs. I stagger back a few steps then whirl around, no longer able to face her. As I march to the steps, my pulse thrums across my eardrums in a furious rhythm. Why am I so stupid? Why would I give up everything for one piece of ass? If she wants an open marriage, I should be thrilled.
Before I reach the top of the staircase, I double back and swing my head over my shoulder. “I’m going out for the night. You’ll have the place to yourself. Arianna and your grandfather are waiting downstairs so I wouldn’t think on it too long.”
The soft rush of her bare feet across the carpet stills my own footfalls. “Where are you going?” she blurts.
Without turning to face her, I mutter, “I’m not sure yet, but I need to think. And I find that difficult when I’m around you. Before I met you, things were very clear, black and white. Now all I see is gray.”
I wait for a long minute, but she doesn’t speak, so I force my feet down the stairs and forbid myself to look back.