Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
NICO
Two hundred and seventy-two seconds later, she burst out of the crappy motel.
The door swung dangerously on its hinges, swinging to embrace her, push her back in, but her rage was too great to keep her contained.
When she crossed the street, she kept her murderous glare pinned on me.
Didn’t even look before she crossed. My hand twitched to put her across my lap and slap her smart ass for taking risks with her fucking life.
I had a sequence in my head. Calculating. Building up. I couldn’t even get to sixteen of them before I gave up. Numbers were the one thing that I could control. Even that, she took from me. Along with my fucking sanity.
I’d never let this woman walk away from me.
Not again. Not while I was still breathing.
Thirty days. My first impulsive idea had crossed my mind like insanity on the drive to that shitty neighborhood.
Statistically, an indefensible plan. Disproportionally high risk.
There was no version of it that could end well.
But it was going to be worth the risk. Because on the way over, I’d decided if anyone was going to get into her fuchsia panties, it had to be me.
It was the least she could do before she killed me.
The car shook with the force of the passenger door being yanked open. The lamppost next to it caught the brunt of her rage. Metal slammed into metal. Hands hanging off the door frame, she shot me a glare and a question: “What the hell do you know about my family?”
Way more than you.
“Get in the car, Anna.”
“No.” She backed off, stalked to the back door, yanked it open, and reached for her bag.
My hand whipped around and fisted her wrist. I had to grit my teeth and think of the increasing interest rates.
Only then did I turn. “Get in the car now, or I swear to God, if you make me say the words, I will follow through with the deed.”
The threat hung in the air like dark, poisonous smoke.
The weight of it was almost tangible. Her breasts moved up and down as she stared me down with hatred fueled in her eyes.
Mine said ‘test me’. Doubt and fear chased each other across her face.
After nine rushed beats of her pulse under my fingers, she decided I wasn’t joking and, with a sigh, dropped the bag back onto the seat.
I released her hand. The door slammed shut.
Rocking the car again. Here I was orbiting around her like she was my fucking sun, and she was geared to kill me.
In fact, if her little knife wasn’t tucked in my nightstand drawer, I was sure she would have stabbed me in ten different places already.
Until last night, she’d loathed me. Now that I’d poured gasoline on it, her deep-rooted hatred was fire-balling inside the car. The bomb had already detonated. Just breathing it in was going to suffocate me.
She dropped next to me on the passenger seat, and the door slammed shut behind her.
Her dress hiked up three inches. Another hand up, and I’d see her pretty little moles.
Eleven years of wondering how many clusters she had, the shapes and sizes of them.
The desire to push the flimsy piece of fabric up was so ridiculous that I had to curl my hand into a fist to stop it from shaking.
Fuck.
A mixture of irritation and frustration pooled in my veins. I raised my gaze to glare at her, but she’d got there first. Skinning me alive with her stare alone.
“Wear your seatbelt,” I told her in a clipped tone.
Surprisingly, she did it without an argument. Fucking smart wild girl. Pretty fucking smart wild girl.
I started the engine and drove off. Her smoldering gaze burned the side of my face.
“How did you get the key?”
This girl had no idea what I was capable of. “Do you even need to ask?”
A beat of silence, followed by her shocked response. “You paid him.”
“Of course I did.” She didn’t know half of it. I shoved his face into the toilet. I paid him as compensation.
I glanced at her. She had my fist curled on the steering wheel under observation. I relaxed my hold immediately. She frowned, bringing her gaze up to my face. I focused back on the road. She was trying to figure me out. There wasn’t much to figure out. My life revolved around her. Simple as that.
“Does a murderer have morals and ethics?”
I focused on the traffic. It was safer that way in more ways than one. “Depends on the type you’re looking for.” I’d just threatened her family. I’d pretty much crossed all the lines.
“How will I know you’ll keep your promise?”
At least there was no chance of her falling in love with me.
I didn’t even know why that thought hurt like a stab to my heart, when it was a clear fact.
I sighed to ease my breathing. “I’m a lot of things.
All of them atrocious with a VIP subscription to hell,” I took my eyes off the road to level them at hers, “but what I’m not, is a liar. ”
She frowned. She didn’t believe me. She didn’t know me as the man her father believed in. Then again, I didn’t add up to that man.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep my word.” ‘You’ll get to end me’ went unsaid. She swallowed. I followed the bob of her throat all the way to her collarbone, where her pulse beat crazily like a captured thing.
I shifted my attention and got to seventeen thousand seven hundred and eleven before she broke the silence. “When will you tell me?”
“When you please me.”
“Would it please you if I dropped some sesame oil in your morning coffee?”
I turned my head.
She gave me a sweet smile. “Accidentally, of course.”
I couldn’t help it. I had to feel the evidence of that smile. Reaching out, I stroked the corner of her lip with my thumb. She shrank away like I’d burned her with my touch. I pulled my hand away. “Why pretend? Own it, Anna. And no.”
She stewed with that idea for a few minutes. “So how do I please you, Signor Martello?”
I ignored her jibe. “You’ll find a way.”
“Does this pleasing involve sex?”
She had her arms crossed, defiance screaming from her posture. I took her in from her messy bun on the top of her head to her curves covered in black. She’d stopped wearing fuchsia the day her father died. At least on the outside.
“My eyes aren’t between my legs,” she snapped.
My lips curled in amusement. “More of what you did to me last night? No man would say no to that, mia piccola assassina.”
“I didn’t do anything to you,” she said in disgust.
“Of course not. A witch invaded your body and dry-humped my dick until you came.” I turned to look at her. “Right?”
ANNA
Wrong.
There was no one to blame but myself. He knew he had me. His eyes shielded what he was thinking, but he had no problem showing off his cockiness.
I gave him my back and stared out the window. My mind was in chaos and everything was a blur. I had no idea how long we sat in his car. The thing smelled like him. Teak and cedar with the distinct smell of male arrogance mixed into it. He had tainted my vision and taken away the joy of a scent.
Far too soon, the house I thought I’d never see again loomed in front of me. Despair gripped me. There was no escaping this time. Unless I managed to end him.
I got out of the car reluctantly. When he took my bag from the back seat, I snatched it from his hand in the next instant. My gaze darted to the street.
“If you even think of running, I will make you regret it.” The chill in his tone was the scrape of a metal knife running down my spine.
I suddenly wanted to rush across the street and put myself in front of a speeding car.
He gestured toward the front door. “After you.” Clearly, reading my mind was another one of those things he was good at.
Each step I took toward the house dragged me deeper into the pits of hell.
I stopped. He gave a gentle shove. Staggered a few steps, then stopped again.
The bubble of shock he’d put me in with his ridiculous devil’s deal was cracking like dry clay under the beat of sudden heat.
My breathing heaved. I should never have come here.
Met this man. Tried to kill him. Should have just stayed home, looked after Mamá, and forgotten all of this.
I dragged my feet for three more steps and stumbled to a stop.
His chest brushed my back, and a sound that felt like a groan of irritation fell from his throat.
What the fuck was he irritated about?
He was the problem. That was it. We weren’t married yet. I could still get out of it. Push it as much as I could, and if I had to do it, I still had plenty of time to end him after a month and get back home before my visa expired. Who knows? Maybe I could off him sooner.
?Joder! Off him sooner. The words alone were too ridiculous.
I picked up the pace.
“Finally,” he muttered behind me. I flipped him off without turning, and he muttered something in Italian.
The house was quiet when I walked in. An uncomfortable thought settled in my head.
I’d have to explain my desertion and reappearance.
I’d let Magda down. I’d run from my friendship with Isidora.
No wonder I didn’t have friends. When life tested me, I went into my shell.
I’d lost all of them after Papá. Having Isidora to talk to had been refreshing.
Disappointment flooded me at the thought that I’d destroyed that too.
I needed to clear my head and figure out a plausible explanation before my next move.
I turned to go down to the basement, and he followed me. I spun around.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
He nodded behind me. “Need to tell Magda you’re fired.”
“?Qué?”
He dragged his thumb across his lips. “Because you’re fired.”
“Why?”
“My wife’s not going to be a fucking maid, Anna.”
My wife. The idea was turning my stomach into a thriving hub for an ulcer. I didn’t fucking think so. Not if I could help it. I could still get out of this shit deal, which wasn’t a deal at all.
He made to move past me. I blocked him. I took a deep breath. Handle this like him, Anna. Think. Come up with a plan. Cool it. “There’s no need for that. It’s only for a month, anyway.”
“Right.” He shot me an irritated glare. “Because after you kill me, you’re going to hang around and clean my fucking toilets?”
When he put it like that…
He took in my expression. “That’s what I thought.”
“Wait.” He stared at his wrist, where I clutched it. Instantly, it started to burn, and I snatched my hand away. “I’ll tell them.”
He frowned in annoyance. It took me a second to realize I was rubbing my hand. I stopped immediately. After a beat, he asked in a tone threaded with suspicion, “Why?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“You’re not going to tell them.” It wasn’t a question.
I wasn’t, but since he’d caught up to my lie, I insisted on it. “I’ll tell them.”
He took a step toward me. Oxygen snuck out of the hallway. Suddenly, the fifteen-foot space felt like a foot-by-foot boxed container. “When?”
“In a few days,” I mumbled. I couldn’t think when he was this close to me.
“How many?”
“?Que?” I croaked.
“You said a few days. I’m a numbers guy, Anna. How many fucking days do you need to tell them you’re mine?”
“Woooo…” My heart lurched. He was scaring me. Panic crawled at my throat. “This loco deal of yours is for one month. And I’ll never be yours.”
He ignored me like I’d not spoken. I wondered if I had. I was losing my senses. Sweat dripped down my back.
“How many?” he repeated.
I swallowed the thick lump choking me, down my throat. “One week.”
“Two.”
Even better. I nodded. “Two weeks.”
“Two fucking days, Anna. Forty-eight hours.”
Oh, I don’t think so. He smothered my defiance when he leaned right into me.
His height, his build, his look. All of them overwhelmed me.
The power within him vibrated like a warning, and something else I couldn’t place.
Nevertheless, it pressed me against the wall.
His darkened eyes rested on my lips, and they trembled underneath his heated regard.
He’s going to kiss me. My hand clenched.
He dragged his tongue across his teeth. I felt the heated lick on my clit.
Wrong. This is all wrong. I willed the heat climbing up my body to calm down.
When he spoke, his words were a whisper, and even though it was nothing but a threat, it landed like a promise.
“Because if you don’t tell them, I will. ”
I gulped. My lips tingled. He leaned forward but pulled himself up short. With an annoyed sigh, he shifted and turned. I exhaled. Took a slow, deep breath. Waited until he’d moved five feet away.
“Thirty days.”
He paused. “Seven hundred and thirty hours.”
“I’ll be plotting to kill you in every one of them,” I told him bitterly.
He shook his head. A soft laugh escaped him. “Go ahead. As long as you fuck me while doing it, mia piccola assassina.”