Chapter 11
Zeno
Even though remnants of cigar smoke tickled my lungs as I sucked in a deep breath, the air in Paulo’s office tasted like freedom. I was beginning to believe Clara would never let me out of her sight. It seemed the only hours I got away from her were those few when I closed my eyes for sleep.
And yet, I felt like I was sleeping with one eye open, waiting for her to pull another stunt. Like climbing into my bed and letting me wrap myself around her again.
There was no doubt in my mind, my subconscious wasn’t strong enough to make wise decisions when it came to this girl.
This morning, she’d shown up at my front door as I was about to leave, then acted like it was a personal affront that I wouldn’t allow her to come with me to Paulo’s estate. For the first time since our initial attempt at driving, she suddenly wanted to try again.
“Please, Zeno,” she’d begged, some sort of devastation in her eyes. “Please, let me come. I promise I’ll be good.”
She promised.
Just like she promised she wouldn’t get in my hair if I let her hang out at my house “for a little while” each day.
That promise meant absolutely nothing as far as I was concerned. Because I couldn’t function with her around. I couldn’t focus on my patients, on my music, on my fucking books, with her in my house.
I couldn’t focus without her there, either.
“You look like you could use a nap.”
Peering up through heavy eyelids, I found Paulo watching me from the door across his sitting room.
His presence woke me up more than the bright afternoon sunlight streaming through the open windows had.
Even the birds chirping in the trees around the patio and the sounds of the staff cleaning and cooking in the other rooms hadn’t been enough to keep me from my half-sleep.
“I think you’re right.” My muscles were stiff as I pushed myself upright.
He eyed me like he used to when I was just a kid. “Not sleeping well?”
There was no holding back the huff of breath that burst from my lungs.
Clara Vinci wouldn’t allow that.
I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since our movie night.
“No. Not really.”
Paulo crossed the room to the chair beside the sofa where I sat. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what troubles you.”
Another breath huffed out. Because the look on his face told me he knew more than he was letting on.
“Can I assume it’s Clara that’s causing you sleepless nights?”
“How’d you guess?” I asked in a droll voice.
A knowing smile tugged at his lips, and he tilted his head. “Maso tells me I almost lost a Maybach the other day.”
My exhaustion won. My head dropped against the back of the sofa and my body went slack.
I knew the property was watched. Knew there were cameras both inside and out.
I hadn’t counted on Maso giving me away.
My breath caught in my chest. What else had he seen?
“I startled her, that’s all.”
He let out a little hum but didn’t say another word. His silence was louder than the damn birds outside.
“She needs to learn to drive.” I shoved myself upright, then rubbed at the tightness in my throat as if I could wipe it away.
“What’s she supposed to do if she’s called to an emergency?
Call around to find someone to take her there?
She should have been taught how to drive years ago.
Her parents should have made sure she knew how.
She has no way to get around town short of hitching rides and taking public transportation.
It isn’t safe, not for a girl like Clara. ”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at Paulo. Instead, I closed my eyes, shoved a hand through my hair, then fisted it when it caught on a tangle. I dropped back into the sofa and looked up at the ceiling.
“I don’t know why you thought I could do this, Paulo. Clara is… She’s…”
Beautiful.
Perfect.
So goddamn sexy she makes me lose my mind.
“Are you telling me you aren’t up to the task?” He lifted a finger to his lips, tapping without making a sound. “Perhaps there’s someone else she can—”
“No!” A grimace nearly ripped my face in two. I sat up in my seat and turned my full attention to him. I cleared my throat. “What I meant is, Clara is a handful. She tests my last nerves sometimes, but she’s nothing I can’t handle.”
Paulo lifted his chin, and there I was, feeling like a child again. “Perhaps what she needs is something to challenge her.”
“What do you mean?”
He examined his nails, wiping his thumb along the tips of his fingers. “She’s exceptionally smart, yes? She excels in her studies when she wants to. Perhaps she needs more of a challenge than what she’s getting out of her classes.”
“So you want me to… what?”
“She wants to become a doctor. So, teach her what she needs to know. Specifically, the kinds of things a Syndicate doctor needs to know. The sooner she learns this, the sooner she can help you so you’re not running yourself ragged in your practice. You deserve a good night’s sleep.”
Teach her?
Spend more time with her?
That’s not going to bring me more sleep.
Already, I could feel the tension building in my shoulders.
Doing what Paulo suggested meant spending even more time with the girl.
There’d be no more shooing her up to her room while I took care of my patients.
There’d be no more telling her I needed space so I could concentrate on my patient’s files.
Not if she was to learn everything she needed to know about fixing up the kinds of wounds our soldiers came to me with.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked in a feeble attempt to make him change his mind.
But it did nothing of the sort. The man smiled like he’d won the damn lottery. Then he sobered, and I felt the rug being pulled out from underneath my seat.
“For many years, I’ve been concerned about you, Zeno. You are nothing if not loyal to me and the Syndicate. But you’re not living your life for you. You’re past forty now, and you’ve never once brought anyone around that you’re interested in. You’ve never once indicated you’d want to settle down.”
“I don’t—”
He held up his hand. “What I mean to say is, you’re allowed to have needs separate from the people you help.
I don’t want you to take the oath you gave me when you were seven so seriously that you fail to do anything for yourself.
I want you to live your life to the fullest. Now, whether that means a wife and kids—”
“I’m not—”
“Or a husband,” he said, his raised brows cutting off my words. “Or a dog. Or even traveling to another country, or around this one. I know your mother always wanted to take you to Europe, but it never…”
It never happened.
Because she got sick.
She got sick and died and left me alone in the world, with no one other than this family—Paulo and the Syndicate—to lean on.
“She would have wanted you to do something for yourself, too, Zeno. Both she and your father. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t challenge you to be the man your parents wanted you to become.”
My eyes burned and blurred as my throat tightened to the point of pain.
Some days, it felt like he knew my parents better than I had. That the seventeen years between us had allotted him the time with them I’d never been able to have. I’d always clung to every word he ever spoke about either of them, just as I did now.
My father had been a doctor in the Syndicate when Paulo’s father was at the helm.
My mother had been his faithful nurse, and I was his little gopher, helping him whenever I could.
When my father was murdered before my eyes, my mother stepped in to do what she could to piece together—and hold together—the men and women of the Syndicate.
I’d promised Paulo, at the age of seven, that I would live my life for him if he’d avenge my father’s death.
And now he was telling me to live my life for me.
As if my service to him was done.
As if he were removing the shackles I’d placed upon myself that tied me to this world I’d never wanted to leave.
All I could think about were the things I knew I shouldn’t. A certain brown-eyed, blonde-haired hurricane that tore my life apart every minute she was in it. Her pretty pink pussy. Her gorgeous, sexy body.
The way she felt as I held her against my throbbing dick in the front seat of my car.
I wiped a hand down my face, trying to clear away the visions of Clara laid out on my bed, naked and dripping, waiting for me to tear into her and make her body my home.
I couldn’t want her.
I shouldn’t.
But it was getting harder and harder to tell myself no.
As if thinking about her manifested even more problems I didn’t need, Adalberto’s loud voice came blasting down the long hall, preceding him into the sitting room.
“Paulo, my friend, you should have told me you—” He stopped short, one foot inside the door, as his gaze landed on me.
All his boisterousness halted, and it took a full minute for him to say another word.
Before doing so, he dragged his wide-eyed gaze across my slumped form before he finally directed his attention to Paulo.
With his head cocked to one side and his face pinched, he quickly glanced at his watch.
“I thought we weren’t starting until six.”
Paulo tipped his head in my direction. “Zeno and I were just having a little chat.”
Berto stepped into the room with the type of caution that should be given to an uncaged lion. “Is it Clara? What’d she do this time?”
That scoff that burst from my lungs? Yeah, there was no stopping it. “I am more than just your daughter’s babysitter, Berto.”
“I know that,” he shot back, but the storm cloud that lived inside of me couldn’t be restrained in my current state.
“Do you?” I sat up in my seat. “Because you sure don’t act like it.”
“Zeno—” Paulo tried, but I couldn’t stop.
“Maybe if you spent an ounce of time with your daughter you’d have some idea of what she’s going through.”
“I’m busy—”