Chapter Three #2
I didn’t intend to hurt Sandro, but he should count himself lucky that I value his work ethic.
Otherwise, I could easily have sent him to some godforsaken part of the country to run some nothing operation of mine.
But I didn’t do that because I do care about him.
I spent two years with him, and I’m not a heartless monster.
We had some good times and I wish the best for him.
So long as he falls in line, his position will be safe.
Hopefully he has good survival instincts.
I suspect he does because he hasn’t called again.
I haven’t spoken to Elio since the meeting at the diner. Kessler has handled everything. I didn’t want to speak to him until he was here, in my house, in the life he’s agreed to enter. I wanted the full weight of it to land at once.
Today is the day he arrives.
Carlo, my second and best friend, pulls the SUV up the drive at around 4:00 p.m. with Elio in the back seat.
I’m standing at the window of my office on the second floor, watching.
I told myself I wouldn’t watch from the window like some lovesick teenager, yet here I am watching from the window.
But let’s not kid ourselves. If anything I’m a lust-sick alpha.
Love doesn’t enter into this. I’m merely looking forward to breeding Elio.
The car stops. Carlo comes around and opens the door and Elio steps out.
Even from the second floor, the sight of him affects me.
He’s just as I remember. He’s slight compared to me, lean and fine-boned, but he carries himself with a quiet tension that reads as coiled rather than fragile.
His blond hair is a little disheveled, like he’s been running his hands through it during the drive.
I’m sure he’s overwhelmed. His entire life has changed in a matter of weeks.
He’s in a gray sweater and jeans, simple clothes that do nothing to hide the fact that he’s beautiful, almost distractingly so.
The kind of beautiful that must have made his life difficult, tending bar in a town full of horny alphas.
There’s no way he wasn’t hit on constantly.
Did he leave some alpha back in Philadelphia?
Someone who thought he’d be theirs? I pity that poor bastard if he did.
He’s carrying a duffel bag. One bag. I have closets filled with clothes and he condensed his life into one little bag.
Maybe that’s a good thing. He’s come here with nothing.
Everything he gets will be from me. He’ll owe me everything.
That’s how I want it. I’m going to be the one who satisfies his every need.
Whether that be for material things like clothes and jewelry, or sex.
He looks up at the big house and his eyes widen.
I allow myself a moment of satisfaction watching him take it in.
The estate is not subtle with its imported stone from a quarry outside Salerno and the ironwork from a foundry in Florence.
Three stories of pale limestone and dark shutters, a columned portico, arched windows on the second floor that catch the light and throw it back.
The formal gardens sweep around the east wing in manicured terraces, sculpted hedges and marble fountains and gravel paths lined with cypress trees.
A wrought-iron gate twelve feet high marks the entrance to the property, and between that gate and the front door there is a quarter mile of private drive lined with ancient oaks.
Elio rubs the back of his neck. He’s trying to keep his expression neutral and almost managing it, but his body has gone rigid, the duffel bag strap white-knuckled in his fist. He’s recalculating.
Every assumption he made about who I am and what he’s walking into is being rewritten in real time.
I laugh and leave the window and take the stairs down.
I’m surprisingly nervous about seeing him again.
I tell myself it’s just sexual tension, and it mostly is.
The foyer is cool and dim with Italian marble floors in a cream and charcoal chevron pattern. A double staircase curving up to the second floor with a wrought-iron balustrade that my grandmother chose. A crystal chandelier overhead that weighs as much as an SUV.
On the walls, framed photographs that are not decoration but heritage: my grandfather shaking hands with the mayor of Sorrento Bay in 1974, my father at the ribbon-cutting of the family’s first legitimate restaurant, my parents on their wedding day.
Above the staircase, a large commissioned portrait of my grandfather in his later years, oil on canvas, watching the foyer with the same dark eyes three generations of Foschini men have inherited.
I open the front door and stand in the entrance.
Elio is halfway up the front steps. He looks up at me and I feel that same pull toward him all over again.
The weeks haven’t dulled it. If anything it’s sharper now.
The late afternoon light is on him and his hair is catching gold and his green eyes are locked on mine.
He’s trying hard to appear unintimidated by his surroundings, but not entirely succeeding.
“Welcome to my home,” I say.
“Thanks.” His tone is curt, his expression wary.
He climbs the remaining steps, giving me a nod as he passes me in the doorway. His scent rolls over me, warm and sweet, and I clench my jaw. He smells even better than I remembered. My pulse races and I want to just breathe him in. Instead I close the door behind us and gesture for him to follow.
“Shall I give you a quick tour?” I ask.
“Sure.” His eyes travel up the staircase, across the chandelier, over the paintings, down to the marble under his feet. He’s quiet as he shifts uneasily in the foyer. “This place is impressive.”
“Thanks. My grandfather built the main house in 1962.”
He nods. “Yeah, it feels old and new at the same time. It’s beautiful.”
I smile, watching his face as he takes it all in. There’s a boyish innocence in the way he looks at the opulence I’ve always taken for granted. “This way,” I say.
I take him through the ground floor. I don’t rush it.
I feel like showing off and want him to see everything.
I know that he comes from nothing, and I’m inclined to dazzle him.
Beginning with the formal living room with its high ceilings with carved crown molding.
The room has two fireplaces faced in Carrara marble, deep-set windows hung with heavy silk drapes in a dark blue.
The furniture is a mix of antique and modern, pieces collected over three generations.
There’s the velvet settee my grandmother brought from Naples beside a leather chair my father preferred.
Bookshelves are built into the walls holding leather-bound volumes.
Persian rugs layer the floor, their colors faded by decades of foot traffic and sunlight into something richer than anything new could achieve.
As expected, he whispers, “Wow, this is gorgeous.”
Elio’s eyes catch on a framed photograph on the mantle.
Adriano and me, maybe twelve and eight years old, standing in the garden with wooden swords.
Adriano is laughing. I’m scowling. The photograph captured our sibling dynamic perfectly.
It’s actually one of my favorite photos of me and my late brother.
He doesn’t ask about it, but I can see he’s curious.
Too polite to ask, but he’s wondering who that other boy is.
At our first meeting, when he asked about my family, I only mentioned my two sisters and my mother.
It felt wrong to talk about my dead brother, when he was only meeting me in hopes of saving his.
The dining room is next. A mahogany table that seats twenty-four, another chandelier, a sideboard displaying my grandmother’s silver.
Then the library, which is the room I spend most of my time in when I’m not in my office.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves, a stone fireplace, heavy curtains, leather furniture worn soft from use.
It smells like old paper and wood smoke and bourbon.
He stops in the middle of the library and turns in a slow circle, looking at the shelves.
“I like this room.” He glances at me. “Have you read all of these books?”
“No, but I’ve read a lot of them.” The shelves are lined with books that look chosen by men who believed reading was another form of warfare: Roman history and military strategy. Leather-bound Italian classics, biographies of empire builders, and old novels about revenge, and ruin.
He peers closer at the books. “Every book here looks like it has either survived a war, caused one, or taught someone how to win one.” He looks over, a little smile on his lips. “I guess you don’t believe in light reading?”
I find myself smiling back at him. “I don’t know what you mean. I have Rebecca and several P.G. Wodehouse novels in the mix. It’s not all about war.”
“Those are surprising choices,” he murmurs.
I move closer to him. “You only say that because you don’t know me.”
He looks at me and something flickers across his face. Then it’s gone and he’s looking at the shelves again. “Perhaps. Or perhaps I think that because I know your type.”
“And what type is that?”
“Powerful. Aggressive. Insatiable.”
I shrug. “I see nothing wrong with any of those things.”
“I’m sure that’s true.” He turns to face me fully. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes glitter. “When we first met, you said you own several businesses.”
“Yes.”
He says softly, “Am I allowed to be blunt?”
“Of course. I want you to speak your mind.”
He gives a harsh breath, then blurts, “You’re in the mafia, right?”
I’m not hugely surprised he figured that out, but I am curious what tipped him off. “What makes you think that?”
He grimaces. “The men at the gate speaking Italian and waving around guns was a huge clue. Plus, you and Kessler were so secretive. It was either the mafia or the CIA, but you seem more the former than the latter.”
“Oh, really. Why?” I ask, amused.