Chapter Ten
Willow
“He just hung up on me Alina.” I say down the phone to my best friend. I don’t know why I called Dragna and after not wanting to call Alina and tell her I thought I was being followed, I was so annoyed he hung up on me that I called her anyway.
Fuck. My. Life. I’ve clearly followed in said best friend’s footsteps and gone insane over a beautiful Russian man that I don’t even know. My parents raised me to be better than this I think as I mentally scold myself.
Despite gifting me a brand new phone with his number in it, he’s been so rude to me.
Yes the phone, his number and his text were kind, but then he just hung up on me after I said I wanted someone on the line with me as I walked to work while believing I was being followed.
He’s clearly messing with whatever remaining brain cells I have left over after being around him.
“Okayyy, but he said he would sort it for you. He also said he was there if you ever needed anything and what’s more serious than thinking you’re being stalked?” Alina coughs down the line and I feel bad for calling her and making her worried while she’s sick.
“I know, I know. I just have a weird feeling about everything. He's in my head and I don’t want him to be.” I sigh as I close up the bookstore for the day.
I was on edge being on my own without Alina and thinking I was being followed this morning. I really have no idea why I thought calling Dragna instead of the police made more sense to me, but something in my gut after being in his presence just told me he could maybe help.
“Well… Lev dropped over some soup for me today and there’s plenty left for us to have for dinner tonight so just hurry your pretty little ass home and we’ll talk more then, okay?” Alina coughs out down the line.
“Yeah, okay. I should make the train on time so I’ll only be about an hour. I love you Ali.”
“Love you too girl. See you soon.”
I end the call and finish locking the shutters for the store when a car pulls up behind me.
I immediately turn around in a panic praying it isn’t going to be the same car I saw this morning.
Then I pray that I’m not actually seeing what I’m seeing right now because in front of me is a blacked out BMW and an extremely tall, muscular man who is looking as dangerous and as God like as he probably knows he is as he leans against the door he’s holding open.
“Evening. Do you want a ride home?”
I feel that deep, commanding voice in my bones and I can’t do anything but continue to stare at him in disbelief. It has to be about a minute that goes by before his phone rings and brings me out of the chokehold him being here had on me.
He answers the call and speaks in Russian all while staring into my soul and suddenly I understand why Alina hasn’t been able to shut up about Lev.
“Willow, would you like a ride home? He asks me again, pulling me back to reality to see his call has ended and I realise I’ve just been staring at him.
I clear my throat, attempting to hide my embarrassment and try to be a somewhat functioning human by giving him a response.
“Are you sure? You’ve already given me a new phone and took my call this morning. I don’t want to inconvenience you further.” I say implying that I know he’s irritated by me.
“It’s not an inconvenience at all. I also want to talk to you about this morning and the car you saw.”
I look around us and I don’t know whether it’s the empty street with no witnesses around that means he could very easily shove me in the back of his car, or that seeing him in person again is making me wish he would just pick me up and throw me in the backseat, but something makes me do it.
I walk towards the open door, towards him, and I get in his car.
I slide across the leather seats, occupying the one Dragna sat in when they picked us up the other night while he gets in behind me.
He pulls the door shut and suddenly I realise I’ve actually got in the back of this mans car. A man who screams danger, ruin, pain and heartbreak. A man I don’t even know and I meet his drivers eyes in the rearview mirror which just makes this whole scenario feel that bit more intimidating.
“I can actually just get the train home, but thank you for the offer.” I say as I reach for the door handle. As I’m about to push the car door open, a large, warm hand rests on my knee, stopping me in my tracks.
It isn’t heavy. It isn’t to stop me from leaving. It’s just the right amount of pressure to bring me back to the moment and also let me know that I should in no way feel threatened by him.
“I know I can come across as harsh and I just wanted to apologise for my rudeness. We had a rough business night the night we picked you and your friend up. It doesn’t excuse my silence or that I made you feel that you were an inconvenience, but I’m sorry.”
I’m definitely in some kind of twilight zone, right?
This man can’t be apologising to me. Surely a business man like him has much more important things to be dealing with and have on his mind to even consider the fact he needed and wanted to say sorry to me.
And the way he said my name in that Russian accent? Goddammit, I need help.
I pull myself together, letting go of the door handle and turn to face him.
“Uh, thank you. I wasn’t entirely my usual self that night either and I was a bit harsh with you when I shoved you and swore at you.
I don’t know what came over me.” Except for the fact you're the most stunning man I have ever seen in my life and you’ve riled me up to no end… I finish that sentence in my head.
“You don’t need to apologise. It was all on me and I know I offered you a ride home to talk about this morning, but I was hoping you would like to have dinner instead?
” He asks as he looks at me with fire in his eyes.
I feel like I’m burning under his gaze and that’s when I realise he still has his hand on my knee and I feel like I’ve been scorched there too.
He notices me looking at his hand and his eyes widen just a fraction more before he removes it and settles it on his own thigh in a fist.
I don’t know how to take him. I don’t even fucking know him. Is he always this hot and cold? Surely this is a little toxic considering this is my second time meeting him.
I look out the window debating on whether to say yes when I’m brought back to thoughts of my ex. He would never have even considered the idea of buying me a new phone if he broke mine and definitely wouldn’t have showed up outside my workplace to bring me home safely.
I shake my head a little while I take a deep breath and sigh before turning back to Dragna hoping that my decision to say yes to him won’t come back to bite me in the ass.
“Okay, sure.” Oh god. The lover girl heart in me is racing a hundred miles a minute right now and just when I think it can’t possibly beat any faster, it ramps up to full blown cardiac arrest material when this gigantic man gives me a soft smile.
It is the complete opposite of how he looks on the outside, yet it looks so perfect on his face.
Distracting myself from just staring at him, I pull out my phone to text Alina what’s happening and to let her know I won’t be home for dinner. She replies instantly with just emoji’s that I don’t even want to sit and decipher and then another text comes through.?
I groan and put my phone back in my bag while also fighting back a smile.
I can do this, I can act like he isn’t the first guy since Fred who’s stirred something in me. I can sit in this car with him, I can sit across a table from him and I can act like the normal, semi-sane woman I am during dinner with him.
———————————————————
I was wrong. I was so wrong.
He was a gentleman helping me out of the car, he held the door to the diner open for me and as if that wasn’t sweet enough, he placed his hand lightly at the bottom of my spine to guide me to the booth we’re currently sitting in.
A booth where we are sat beside each other, not across from each other, making it feel way more intimate than it should be and I can physically feel the heat radiating off him.
Or maybe it’s just me sweating from his closeness.
He ordered us two waters and since then we have been sitting in silence waiting for our server to return with them.
He suddenly clears his throat and I jump a little not expecting the sound so close to me.
“You can relax Willow. I know we don’t know each other and I’m not the most approachable looking man, but I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t want you to be scared of me.” He says while looking down at me.
“I’m not scared of you.” I narrow my eyes back at him.
“I’m cautious of you, there’s a difference. I don’t know anything about you other than you’re obviously a well-off business man.” He tongues his cheek to hide a smirk at my words and I feel my stomach jump at the sight of it.
“Smart girl. Well, I’m thirty four, a multi-business owner, half Italian and a quarter Russian, quarter Serbian.
I part own the club you and your friend enjoy so much with Lev, who is my business partner and irritating little cousin but who’s more like a brother to me.
My father is deceased, my mother is very much alive and involved in my life and I have never taken a woman out for dinner before. Is that a good enough catch up?”
I blink at him, taking in the information overload.
It’s very clear he’s never taken someone out for dinner before if this is how he thinks you get to know someone.
I hold on to that specific piece of information and want to dig a little deeper because if he doesn’t do dates then that must mean he just gets around.
Which means he must think that’s where this is heading.
“You’ve never taken someone for dinner before? So like, no dates, no getting to know someone, no relationship? What do you do then? Because if you’re only after one thing, it isn’t going to be from me.” I blurt out and have to stop myself from cringing at the blatant irritation in my voice.
He must sense the disgust in my tone because he suddenly looks nervous. Where the hell is our water because I’m definitely hallucinating from dehydration if this beast of a man looks nervous because of me.
He clears his throat again while he looks around the diner as if he’s thinking of how to word his next sentence.
“I haven’t done any of that no. I also don’t sleep around.
I like to focus on business and looking after my family.
Lev, my mother, my grandfather. I don’t make time for distractions.
” He says with a crease in his brow and now my lover girl heart and mind are reeling, because if he doesn’t do dating, doesn’t sleep around and doesn’t do distractions then what the hell is this with me.
I may be naive when it comes to love, but I’m not stupid. What man picks a girl up from work and then takes her to dinner just to talk about a car she thought was following her? He’s clearly after something and I don’t know what to think or do about it all.
Finally, our server brings our waters to the booth and I grab mine and gulp half of it down, plucking up the courage to ask him what the hell he wants with me.
“So, why have you brought me here Dragna? What’s the reason for the phone, showing up at the bookstore and then bringing me here for dinner?” I ask, feeling brave and looking him in the eye.
“I told you, I wanted to apologise and talk about what happened this morning.” He says with a straight face, going cold again.
“You already apologised and we could have talked about what happened this morning anywhere. Why have you brought me here?” I question further.
He lifts his own water and takes a drink before setting the glass back on the table, spinning it round and watching the water swirl.
“I’m not very hungry anymore.” I say before he can speak.
“I appreciate you picking me up and the thoughtfulness of everything so far that you’ve done. But I would like to go home now.”
He doesn’t even look at me as I speak and start to stand from my seat, yet as if his hand automatically is drawn to mine, he lightly grabs hold of me, his fingers brushing mine to get my attention before he speaks.
“I don’t know what I’m doing Willow.” He says and I look down at him as he raises his head to look at where our hands are touching before scanning his eyes up to meet mine.
“I just know that I think you’re beautiful, and I would like to have dinner with you.” He speaks so confidently while I huff out a laugh because I am definitely hallucinating now.
“Can you please sit back down and have dinner with me.” He asks, before letting go of me, gesturing to the seat beside him and against all rationale, I sit.
“For the record, I lied, I’m actually starving and it’s my hunger that’s making me sit back down. Not you telling me to.” I level him with a look that lets him know he can’t tell me what to do, like how Fred used to try and control me, which was something he became very good at doing.
“I believe you. I saw the fire you have in you when you shoved me the other night.” He says with a smirk before taking another drink of his water.
I watch his throat bob, the muscles in his neck moving like they are calling for me to run my hands over them and I quickly swallow the saliva that’s gathered in my own mouth just by looking at this man.
“And also for the record. I wouldn’t dream of telling you what you can and can’t do. I believe it would be the other way around for us.”
I audibly gulp at his words. The images I now have in my head of me being the one in control and not just that, but being in control of this huge, powerful man in certain situations and telling him what to do creates a need in my core that I haven’t felt in a long time. God, I am so fucking screwed.