Lorenzo (The Conti Cousins #3)

Prologue

Present Day

The Night Before

Alessio Conti should have left the club twenty minutes ago.

He knows this because his phone has already buzzed twice with reminders he set himself earlier, back when he still believed he intended to be responsible tonight.

The first reminder was subtle. A simple vibration in his pocket while he stood near the bar with Dante and Tomasso, laughing at something he did not remember two seconds later.

The second came ten minutes after that.

Go home.

He ignored that one too.

Mostly because of the woman in the red dress.

She stands across the room beneath a wash of amber light, one shoulder angled toward him, one hand wrapped around a coupe glass she has barely touched.

The dress is not bright red. Not cheap red.

It is deeper than that. Wine-dark and expensive-looking, the silk sliding over her body like it has been poured there.

She knows he is looking.

That is the dangerous part.

Not because Alessio is unfamiliar with women who want to be looked at.

He enjoys women, enjoys their laughter and confidence and the warm, electric pleasure of being wanted. He likes flirting. He likes the slow start of a game when everyone involved understands the rules and no one pretends otherwise.

But this woman is not playing quite the way most people do.

She does not look away when their eyes meet.

She lifts her glass instead.

A toast from across a room.

Alessio smiles before he can decide not to.

Dante says something beside him, but the music eats half of it.

“What?” Alessio asks.

Dante follows his gaze. “No.”

“That is not a complete sentence.”

“It is when you know exactly what I mean.”

Alessio laughs and takes one last sip of his drink. “Relax.”

“I hate when you say that.”

“Because you are terrible at it.”

Dante gives him a look. “You have work in the morning.”

“I always have work in the morning.”

“You also have a father who notices everything.”

That should be enough to make him reconsider.

It is not.

Across the room, the woman in red turns from the bar and begins walking toward him.

The crowd seems to part for her. Not dramatically. Nothing that anyone else would notice. But Alessio notices. The way people shift to let her pass. The way men look and then look again. The way she moves as if she is used to being watched and has long ago decided whether to care.

By the time she reaches him, Dante has muttered something in Italian under his breath and stepped away.

Coward.

The woman smiles.

Up close, she is even more beautiful. Dark hair swept over one shoulder. Red mouth. Eyes the sort of pale green that look too deliberate to be real, as if someone painted them for trouble.

“Your friend disapproves of me,” she says.

“My friend disapproves of almost everything,” Alessio says.

“Does he?”

“He would say no. But he lies to himself.”

Her smile widens slightly. “And you?”

“I try not to.”

“Admirable.”

“Occasionally.”

She laughs then, low and warm, and Alessio feels it move through him in a way it probably should not.

He offers his hand. “Alessio.”

She looks at his hand for half a second before placing hers in it. Her fingers are cool. Slender. Stronger than they look.

“Genevieve.”

He repeats it, because it suits her.

Genevieve.

Her eyes flicker at the sound of her name in his mouth.

That is the moment he should recognize the hook for what it is.

Instead, he lets himself enjoy it.

They talk at the edge of the bar while the club pulses around them.

Nothing heavy at first. Nothing that matters.

The music. The city. The absurd price of cocktails in rooms where no one ever admits to caring about money.

She asks him if he comes here often, and he tells her no, which is not exactly true.

She says she is in Chicago for a few days, and he asks for work or pleasure.

She looks at him over the rim of her glass.

“That depends on how the night goes.”

He should laugh.

He does laugh.

But his body reacts first.

Genevieve notices.

Of course she does.

She is not shy. She is not sweet in the usual way. There is something polished about her, something practiced, but not false exactly. More like she has learned how to stand in any room and become exactly what she needs to be.

Alessio understands that.

Maybe that is why he keeps talking to her.

Maybe that is why, when her hand brushes his sleeve, he does not step back.

Maybe that is why, when she leans closer and says the music is too loud, he hears himself ask where she would rather go.

Her room is at the Halston.

He knows he should say goodnight.

He even thinks about it as they step out of the club and into the summer night. The air is hot and heavy, the sidewalk still giving back the day’s heat. Cars slide past at the curb. Somewhere down the block, someone laughs too loudly, and a siren wails in the distance before fading into traffic.

Genevieve walks beside him instead of ahead of him.

He likes that too.

Most women either drift closer or hold back, testing how much space he will claim. Genevieve matches him. Step for step. Her shoulder near his arm. The scent of her perfume mixing with the city. Something floral, yes, but darker beneath it. Spiced.

“You are very quiet suddenly,” she says.

“I was thinking.”

“About whether this is a mistake?”

He glances at her.

Her expression is amused, but her voice has changed. Softer. Less performance now. More woman.

“Is it?” he asks.

“That depends on whether you make a habit of regretting beautiful women.”

“No.”

“Then perhaps you are safe.”

Alessio laughs under his breath. “Safe is not usually the word people use.”

“No?” She looks ahead again. “What word do they use?”

He thinks of the name Conti. Of the way people hear it and become either too careful or too eager. Of the way his father can walk into a room and alter the temperature without raising his voice. Of how many people look at Alessio and see the family before they see the man.

“Complicated,” he says.

Genevieve’s smile turns faintly sad for half a second.

Then it is gone.

“I know complicated.”

There it is again. That flicker of something beneath the surface.

Alessio notices because he is his father’s son, and because Lorenzo Conti raised both of his boys to pay attention to the things people try to hide. Edoardo is better at it. Edoardo can watch a person for five minutes and know which pressure point to press.

Alessio is better at making them forget they have pressure points.

With Genevieve, though, he finds himself wanting less performance.

Less charm.

More truth.

The Halston rises ahead of them, all limestone and brass and dark glass, the kind of hotel that makes privacy look like a service instead of a promise. Genevieve does not hesitate as they pass beneath the covered entrance.

He files away the lobby in his mind. Cameras near the entrance. Another angled toward the elevators. Staff at the desk. A bartender wiping down glasses though the room is nearly empty.

Habit.

His father would be proud.

Or irritated.

Probably both.

In the elevator, Genevieve stands close enough that her shoulder brushes his chest when the car rises.

“Do you always watch rooms like that?” she asks.

He looks down at her. “Like what?”

“Like you are deciding who might lie to you first.”

The observation surprises him enough that he smiles.

“No one lies to me first.”

“No?”

“I usually start.”

She laughs again, but this time there is something almost relieved in it.

On the fifteenth floor, the hallway is hushed, carpet thick beneath their feet. Genevieve takes a key card from her small clutch. Her hand is steady, but when she reaches the door, she pauses for half a breath before unlocking it.

Alessio sees that too.

“You don’t have to invite me in,” he says.

She turns her head.

For the first time all night, her expression is not seductive. Not practiced. Just open enough to make him feel suddenly careful.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She lifts one hand and rests it against his chest, right over his heart.

He believes her.

Maybe that is the mistake.

The room is beautiful in the cold way expensive hotel rooms are beautiful. Pale walls. Dark furniture. City lights beyond the window. A bed made too perfectly to look inviting until Genevieve crosses to it, turns back, and lets one strap of her red dress slip down her shoulder.

Then everything else becomes irrelevant.

Alessio goes to her.

The first kiss is slower than he expects.

He means for it to be easy. Heat. Want. A gorgeous woman and a night that asks nothing beyond itself.

But Genevieve kisses like she has been waiting too long to be touched without being handled.

That undoes him a little.

His hand slides to her jaw. Her fingers curl in his shirt. She makes a sound against his mouth, small and hungry, and something in Alessio’s chest tightens before desire cuts through it.

He is careful with the zipper of her dress.

She laughs breathlessly when he takes too long.

“You are patient,” she murmurs.

“I have other qualities.”

“So I’m hoping.”

She turns to face him, and the dress falls to the floor.

He forgets whatever answer he meant to give.

***

Later, with the city glowing beyond the windows and Genevieve warm beneath him, Alessio understands he has miscalculated. Not about wanting her. That part was obvious from the moment she raised her glass across the club.

He miscalculated the rest.

The strange comfort of her hand sliding through his hair. The way she laughs when he says something ridiculous against her throat. The quiet that settles after, not awkward, not empty, but intimate in a way he does not usually let happen with strangers.

She lies beside him with the sheet draped low across her body, her dark hair spread over the pillow, the red dress a discarded pool of silk near the chair.

“You are looking at me like that again,” she says.

“Like what?”

“Like you are thinking.”

“Dangerous habit.”

“For men?”

“For me.”

Her mouth curves, but her eyes stay on his face. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I wish I had met you earlier in the evening.”

She smiles.

His phone lights on the nightstand.

12:04 a.m.

Reality returns with the quiet cruelty of a blade between ribs.

Alessio exhales and reaches for it.

Genevieve shifts beside him. “You’re leaving.”

It is not a question.

“I have to.”

“So soon?”

“I’m on duty in the morning.”

“With whom?”

The question is casual.

Almost.

Alessio looks at her.

Genevieve rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling. “Sorry. None of my business.”

“It isn’t that.”

“Then what is it?”

He sits up, dragging a hand through his hair. “Family business.”

A smile touches her mouth, but it does not stay. “Of course.”

There is something in the way she says it. As if she understands more than he expected.

“Tomorrow,” he says.

Her eyes return to his.

He should leave it there. A meaningless promise made in a hotel room after sex.

But it does not feel meaningless when she looks at him.

“I mean it,” he says. “I’ll call you after I finish work.”

“You don't have my number.”

“Then you should give it to me.”

That makes her smile for real.

She reaches for her phone from the nightstand, and they exchange numbers while the room remains dim and too quiet around them.

He dresses while she slips from the bed and reaches for the red dress.

Genevieve turns to face him.

“Tomorrow?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

The word is too serious for the night they have had.

Alessio does not treat it lightly.

“I promise.”

She steps closer and kisses him once. Not like before. Not hungry or teasing or designed to pull him back into bed.

This kiss is brief.

Almost careful.

When she pulls away, her eyes shine a little in the low light, though whether from desire, exhaustion, or something else entirely, he cannot tell.

“Goodnight, Alessio.”

“Goodnight, Genevieve.”

He leaves her standing near the bed, one hand still holding her dress, preparing to fix what he helped undo.

In the hallway, the door clicks shut behind him.

The sound feels too loud.

Alessio pauses for one second, looking back at the closed door. Room 1519. He notes it automatically, the way he notes the camera near the end of the corridor, the quiet elevator bank, the empty hallway stretching in both directions.

Nothing looks wrong.

Nothing feels wrong either.

Only the low, reluctant pull in his chest as he walks away from a woman he met tonight and already wants to see again.

He tells himself he is being dramatic.

Tomasso would call him sentimental.

Edoardo would call him careless.

His father would call him late.

Alessio smiles faintly and heads for the elevator.

The time is just after midnight.