4. Azra
Azra
The driver murmurs in agreement before he merges into the emergency vehicle lane.
Ignorant of my slack-jawed expression, Matteo turns his face to the window. He rests his elbow on the door and presses his fingers to his mouth. Even if he weren’t glaring at the passing motorists as if they offended him, I’d still know he’s angry. It radiates from him in invisible waves.
He’s not angry at the people stuck in peak-hour traffic with us, though.
He’s pissed at me.
And somehow, that’s worse.
I understand why he’s upset, but I’m also confused. He’s Matteo Caruso. The man who doesn’t do relationships. The man who doesn’t commit. The man who is so well-known as a playboy that even I’ve heard of him.
He’d have to know this shouldn’t have gone further than a kiss. I came to Sicily for one reason: to marry Antonio. I’m not his to keep. He knows this, and until five minutes ago, I thought he was happy about that.
So why does he look like I just betrayed him?
I turn my gaze to the window too, mirroring him without meaning to. The silence between us grows thicker than fog settling in a valley.
What was I expecting? Maybe a smug smirk of arrogance or a devil-may-care shrug. Maybe even a careless, “You can do whatever you want, princess. I already got what I wanted.”
I didn’t expect this.
It hurts, and I hate that more than anything.
Emotions were never meant to enter the equation.
They’ll only complicate things, so I must shut them down immediately.
When the SUV slows, I straighten my shoulders, ready to step into the next phase of the plan—the part where Antonio sees me moving on with Matteo, and for the jealousy Matteo promised to root.
Just my flushed cheeks and stretched lips should commence an avalanche, not to mention the driver’s steely glare in the rearview mirror. He may not have been able to see or hear anything, but I’m sure his imagination is running wild.
The driver doesn’t pull down a long driveway lined with lemon groves.
He glides us past the departure terminal of a local airport before driving through heavily manned gates.
In this part of the airport, there are no terminal buildings, no crowds, and no neon signs pointing toward baggage claim or security checkpoints.
Instead, there’s a long stretch of tarmac shimmering in the low-hanging afternoon sun and a sleek white jet waiting at the end like a secret someone poorly tried to hide.
My stomach drops when I realize the jet is idling.
I aim to keep my voice calm and miserably fail. “Why are we here?”
Matteo doesn’t answer me. He exits the SUV, walks around to my side, and opens the door. The driver removes my suitcase from the back seat and wheels it toward the private jet.
With an unreadable expression, Matteo offers to assist me out of the limousine. It’s not cold or cruel, more detached.
I don’t move. “Tell me why first.”
He doesn’t enjoy being barked at, but he’s a pro at masking his expressions. “This is a way out.”
“Out of what?”
“Out of this.” The simplicity of his reply hits me harder than any explanation he could have given. “Out of us.”
Reaching into the SUV, he snatches up my hand and drags me out. His demeanor is brutish but also businesslike, implying that he’s trying to wedge a barrier between us that didn’t exist an hour ago.
As he guides me across the tarmac, a cool wind blows over the airstrip. It messes up my hair and headpiece more ruefully than his fingers did, and briefly, I feel small against the vastness of the sky and the coldness in Matteo’s eyes when he hands me over to the flight crew.
“Take her anywhere she wants to go,” Matteo says to the pilot waiting beside the jet’s stairs.
The pilot respectfully dips his chin. “Yes, signor.”
Anywhere could lead me straight back into Antonio’s arms, but Matteo’s unruffled appearance makes me wonder if he knows that isn’t a possibility.
I had already packed my suitcase for a reason.
Antonio hadn’t been marching me into his father’s office to solely authenticate my claim that the Adami compound was being graced with Cosa Nostra royalty.
It was to remind his father of his decision for us to no longer wed.
Matteo was right.
Antonio only wants what he can’t have.
That’s why we need to continue with our ruse. If Antonio’s reaction to our kiss is anything to go by, his jealousy will snowball in less than a week, and we will wed just as fast.
The reminder pushes my desperation to fever pitch.
“I don’t want to go.” I step closer to Matteo, my voice rising with an urgency I can’t hide. “I’m not leaving Sicily. This was not our agreement.”
“The only thing I bartered for this afternoon was for you to suck my dick, sweetheart. You’ve done that, so now it’s time for you to go.
” His glare is mocking, nothing like the one he gave me when he was ready to devour me.
“Unless you’re desperate for another mouthful of my cum.
You’ve got a long way to go before knowing how to please a man, but I can be generous with my time when it’s for the right cause. ”
With a narrowed glare, I cut off the snickers of the men surrounding us before I return some of the lip Matteo’s giving me. “Go fuck yourself, gerizekali. I’d rather eat my own liver than get on my knees for you.”
His jaw twitches, but its spasms don’t keep his mouth shut. “Again. You won’t get on your knees for me again.”
After giving him the universal sign to fuck off, I sidestep him and hobble back to the SUV, my pride too wounded not to wobble. My unstable strides have nothing to do with the lust still roaring through my veins.
Yeah, right. If you believe that, you probably think Antonio will welcome me back with open arms.
His jealousy may be high enough to allow me to enter the grounds of the Adami residence, but it’ll take more than flushed cheeks for him to continue with the arrangement his father initiated behind his back.
My steps slacken. Without Matteo’s help, there’s only one route I can take.
I’ll have to butter up Don Adami.
He has a soft spot for anyone under twenty-three. Regretfully.
“Where are you going, micina?” Matteo asks.
I keep walking. “I have a wedding to plan.”
“To whom?”
My brows furrow. I wait for my pulse to calm enough for my words not to stumble before I spin to face him. “You know who.”
“Yeah, I do. But I need you to spell it out for me.”
His reply wavers, as if unfinished.
I realize it is when he mutters, “Because I only need you to say his name one more time to excuse my knife slipping from his dick to the artery in his thigh. The contract says you’re my wife-to-be, and anyone dumb enough to insinuate otherwise will face my full wrath at their stupidity to any decree I see fit. ”
Shit. He’s right. The arranged marriage contract has a bunch of stipulations I can’t ignore. But they don’t just affect me. They also impact Matteo.
Before I can remind him of that, he joins me by the SUV, bands his arm around my thighs, then hoists me onto his shoulder. Heat floods my face when my dress mimics a miniskirt, and my heated center feels every cool breeze whipping across the tarmac.
Mercifully, the pilot and flight crew look away long before Matteo’s stern growl rumbles through their ears. “Eyes to the floor before you lose them entirely.”
As he briskly climbs the jet’s stairs, I put up one hell of a fight.
“Matteo!” I gasp, pummeling his back with my fist. “Put me down!”
He doesn’t. He carries me up the stairs, veers me through the jet’s spacious interior, then plonks me onto the first oversized recliner he sees.
I lurch to my feet quicker than a heartbeat. I don’t get even two feet away. With his hand curled around my throat, Matteo forces me back onto the recliner.
“Sit.”
I’d spit in his face if I didn’t see spitting as the most inhumane act. Instead, I give him a dirty look, as if he’s dog shit under my shoe.
His narrowed gawk shows mutual disdain.
I despise that above all else.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask when he secures me to the recliner with the belt extenders some passengers need. “The idea of spending a few days in my presence too much for you to bear?”
He doesn’t answer me. Not with words. He just continues tying me to the recliner.
“Answer me, goddamn it!” I kick out so firmly I knock him back two spots. His crash into the table housing champagne glasses should fill me with victory.
I feel nothing close to a winner.
“I have rights. You said it earlier. Things are different in Carlisle, so you have no right to…”
My words trail off as he clicks his fingers at someone to his left. They hand him a large strip of duct tape, and unease tumbles through my stomach like a washing machine.
“What’s that for—” He flattens the duct tape over my mouth, silencing me.
Being silenced doesn’t end my fight. I keep thrashing and kicking.
My movements are so abrupt that if Matteo had forgotten he shredded my panties off my body, he can’t anymore.
The hem of my dress almost resembles a belt.
It sits dangerously high on my thighs, mere millimeters from exposing me to the half a dozen men who followed us into the jet.
And I’m not the only one noticing.
With his narrowed gaze burning my skin, Matteo clicks his fingers again. When he’s only given a strip of tape long enough to secure my wrist to the armchair, he snatches the tape out of the man’s grasp before he pulls off a piece as long as he is tall.
He tugs down my dress’s hem before securing the fragile fabric to my knees with tape.
My nostrils flare. He’s acting like a possessive jerk, which makes no sense. He said just minutes ago that he bartered only for me to suck his dick. I coughed up the goods in minutes. It might have been before I told him I still wanted to marry Antonio, but he had decided before then.
He instructed the driver to take the long way to Lombardo—the exact name of this private airstrip. That was before I sucked his dick, and long before I reminded him of my plans.
He always intended to get rid of me. He just made sure he got off first.
Pig.
After securing a large piece of tape to the minute bit of cleavage the V-neckline of my dress exposes, he dumps a duffel bag at my feet.
“There’s enough in there to set you up anywhere you want to go.” After wetting his dry lips, he lifts and locks his eyes with mine. “You can go anywhere you want… except back to him.”
Tears burn behind my eyes.
I can’t leave. I don’t have a choice. I must marry Antonio. It is the only option.
Matteo doesn’t seem skilled at mind reading.
After a brief glance at my flustered cheeks and panting chest, he moves back toward the exit. Tears prick my eyes when the wind outside flaps out his jacket.
It could be my imagination—my panic is at an all-time high—but I swear he murmurs, “Goodbye, la mia tigrotta,” half a second before the air hostesses close the jet’s door with him on one side and me on the other.