CHAPTER 24
NINA MARCHESI
“What?” Nero asks when I stay quiet for too long, staring at mile after mile of cotton fields.
I look away toward him, my cheeks warm, but I say nothing.
I refuse to admit out loud that I was imagining him shirtless, the tattooed skin of his arms and chest slick with sweat, wearing nothing but worn jeans, a hat shielding his face from the sun, and work gloves—during a very obscene cotton-harvesting session.
Of course, Nero understands exactly where my thoughts went without me needing to say a single word.
“You were thinking about sex, weren’t you?” he asks, and I don’t answer again. “I’ve created a monster,” he declares, pretending to be horrified. The little smile on his face, however, makes it obvious that the only thing he feels about it is pride.
“Maybe I was imagining you as a cotton farmer…” I confess softly, and his smile widens.
“Don’t provoke me, Nina. Or I swear to God I’ll send every damn employee home early today just so I can fuck you right there among the cotton rows.”
“How much work would that take?” I tease, and the look in Nero’s eyes tells me that no matter how much work it would be, he’d do it.
“Mr. Nero Zanthos.”
The voice of his assistant, Icarus—whom I met earlier today—interrupts us.
In his effort to eliminate all the lonely hours from my days while my mother is away, Nero suggested that the shop’s day off would be an excellent opportunity for me to see his work up close. It’s not that he didn’t give me a choice—but honestly, what choice did I have?
The more time I spend by his side, the more time I want to spend there. And if that weren’t reason enough to accept his suggestion, my curiosity certainly was. I really wanted to see him in his own environment.
I turn my face toward Icarus the moment I hear his voice, but Nero keeps looking at me as if he’s about to devour me for a few more seconds before finally turning too.
“Yes, Icarus.”
“I know you said not to interrupt unless we had a fire. Well—” The man pauses, clearly nervous. “It’s not exactly a fire, but it is an emergency.”
His dark eyes flick between Nero and me, as if he’s unsure whether he should continue speaking with me present. I’m about to excuse myself to give Nero privacy when he speaks.
“Get on with it, Icarus.”
The order sounds a bit rude, but it’s not as though I can form an opinion about what kind of boss Nero is when today is—literally—the first time I’m seeing him outside our bubble.
I’ve seen him with the guys plenty of times, of course—especially this week, since Nero showed up at the shop at closing time every day.
Some days, we went on proper couple dates. On others, we went straight to my place and got lost in banal conversations and maddening touches. Sometimes we met the guys on purpose; other times, we were surprised by them crashing our plans one way or another.
And since, despite Nero’s constant complaints, they keep showing up, I’m assuming this is just the four of them’s modus operandi.
Nero and Atlas are always the ones complaining about Drako’s and Apollo’s supposed bad behavior, while those two are the ones committed to behaving in ways worthy of constant complaint.
I’m convinced those complaints have far more to do with the pleasure Nero and Atlas take in making them than with their real opinions about how Drako and Apollo live. I don’t think the more serious friends find the other two nearly as inconvenient as they like to pretend.
I certainly don’t. I like the guys’ company—watching their dynamic and, most of all, feeling like part of it. It’s funny how, overnight, they simply started treating me like some kind of younger sister.
The Nero who fills my days is the same one who’s always surrounded by his friends. And although I don’t yet have a formed opinion about Nero-the-boss, one thing is already very clear: he’s not the same lighthearted, selectively grumpy man who’s been sharing my bed.
But given the number of things he has to deal with here, I don’t blame him.
In the few hours I’ve spent at the export company, I’ve seen very little of the processes behind Nero’s work—and still, I already feel overwhelmed.
I never wanted a desk job. I’d be lying if I said I chose nursing for romantic reasons. One of the main factors in my decision was that it’s a profession that allows me to work anywhere—after all, everyone needs hospitals.
That wasn’t all, though. I always saw myself doing something that escaped routine, that was different every day, and—above all—that kept my body as active as my mind.
And although the first time I stepped into an emergency room as a professional rather than a patient I thought maybe I’d taken those desires a bit too literally, I don’t regret my choice.
“The safety evaluation of the new machinery was postponed, and if—”
“And if we can’t move it back to the original date, we’ll have to suspend operations again. Fuck,” Nero cuts Icarus off, finishing the thought himself. The lightness and desire that were on his face seconds ago evaporate in an instant.
Is it wrong that I find this just as arousing as my fantasy of Nero-the-cotton-farmer?
God, I really am becoming a monster.
I shake my head, pushing the naughty thoughts away and focusing again on the man in front of me. I can almost see the gears turning inside his head.
He turns to me, his face softening just a fraction before the words leave his lips.
“I need to go back to my office to deal with this. Will you keep me company?”
“Of course.”
***
“If I were you, I wouldn’t sit there,” Drako says in my ear as I’m about to lower myself into an armchair in Atlas and Apollo’s apartment.
Apartment is actually a very modest word. The twins live in the penthouse of one of Khione’s few luxury buildings, and they invited me to see it when they ran into me in the export company’s corridors this afternoon.
After Nero’s usual round of complaints about his intrusive friends, he agreed to do what I wanted. I straighten up, stand, and walk toward a sofa.
When I look at Drako, he’s already watching me. He shakes his head side to side in a silent no, and I scan the room, looking for somewhere to sit—but with every step I take toward a sofa, chair, or armchair, Drako shakes his head again.
“Why are you standing?” Nero asks, coming back from the kitchen with two glasses of water.
I look over his shoulder to check whether Atlas and Apollo are paying attention anywhere near us, but they’re far enough from the living room not to hear my next words.
“Drako said it wasn’t a good idea for me to sit on any of the sofas, chairs, or armchairs,” I whisper, and Nero’s eyes go straight to his friend.
Drako doesn’t last two seconds before bursting into loud laughter, and my jaw drops when I realize he was mocking me. What an asshole.
I shoot him a narrow look, promising revenge, but he doesn’t care in the slightest.
“What’s the joke?” Apollo asks, returning from wherever he was.
“Nothing. Drako’s just being the idiot he always is,” Nero answers for me.
“He said it wasn’t safe for me to sit on any of your furniture,” I add.
“Snitch!” Drako accuses, clutching his chest in mock outrage.
I shrug.
When Apollo throws him a reprimanding look, I smile, satisfied, and finally sit down in the first armchair I’d chosen.
“I might’ve said it—but she believed me. What does that say about what she thinks of you, huh?” Drako tries to turn the tables.
For a second, I think he might have a point—but I think fast.
“It says I thought you were trustworthy. Clearly, I was wrong. And when I go to your place, I’ll remember to bring my own chair—just to be safe.”
The entire room goes silent for ten seconds before we all burst out laughing at the stupid argument.
It’s official—I’ve been completely infected by the Fantastic Four middle-school spirit.
“That was a very good comeback,” Drako admits, and I give him a sloppy bow.
“At your service,” I say, winking at him.
Atlas appears at the end of the hallway and sits on the sofa across from me. His brother takes the seat beside him, Nero sits on the arm of my chair, and Drako drops into the armchair to my left.
“What are we eating?” Atlas asks.
“I could go for Mexican today,” Drako answers quickly—and in the same middle-school spirit as before, every eye in the room turns to him.
He rolls his eyes and points at me.
“You’re a pervert!” he accuses only me, even though everyone thought the same thing.
“You can blame yourself for that. Exposure really is the worst teacher,” I shoot back.
He laughs.
“Mexican works for me,” I say, and everyone agrees.
Atlas pulls his phone from his pocket and starts tapping on the screen, placing the order, I assume.
“So, Nina—have you met your witch yet?” He says the last word too quickly, then fakes a coughing fit before continuing. “Mother-in-law. I meant mother-in-law.”
I open my mouth to answer, but again, Nero is faster than me.
“No. And she won’t be meeting her anytime soon.”
His tone is so final that no one questions it. I look at him, searching for an explanation, but his face isn’t offering one.
“Shrimp tacos. Who wants some?” Apollo asks, and I blink, still confused by Nero’s reaction—but not willing to think about it right now.
“I want two,” I answer.
What follows is a chaotic stream of orders—enough to feed an entire battalion, not just five people.