Chapter 15
Enzo was outside. The Club Montari only had one exit, and with so many people inside, it was almost a miracle that he managed to spot my face in the crowd. He ran toward me, my coat and Gina’s tugged under his arm.
“Vera!” he exclaimed. The relief at seeing me softened his features. “Thank god you’re safe. I tried to find you but couldn’t. Where were you?”
“At the Sortija,” I replied, letting him drape the coat over my shoulders.
He frowned.
“What were you doing there?”
“I was living out my fantasies,” Gina, wrapped in her furry jacket, exhaled steam. “Until Vera interrupted me.”
“Hey!” I said, giving her a playful punch on the shoulder. “I didn’t know you were there. Gina.” Then I looked at Enzo. “I went to the Sortija because you asked me to.”
His eyebrows knitted together, creasing his forehead. “Me?”
“In the call.” I blinked, the confusion settling in like a fog. “Did I misunderstand? I barely had any signal in that casino.”
“A casino?” Gina interjected. “Fuck, I can’t believe I missed that.”
Enzo pulled out his phone, showing us the screen. It was an iMessage conversation with an unknown number.
“Vera, you were the one who told me to go to the Sortija, so I called you,” he said, his forehead wrinkling. “This is what I received.”
Oh, fucking casino. Fucking club. Enzo wasn’t telling me to go to the Sortija; he thought I was already there. I handed his phone back, my fingers grazing his for a fleeting moment. Without a glance, he tucked it into his back pocket.
“I assume that’s not your number,” he said to Gina, tilting his head.
“Sorry, sweetheart, you’re not my type.”
“They must have mistaken the person,” I tried to reason.
Neither of them seemed convinced, and to be honest, I didn’t believe my own words either. Still, they both murmured their agreement, and the matter was settled. None of us had the energy to dig deeper into who the number belonged to.
“Do you want me to take you home?” Enzo offered.
I shot my friend a skeptical look, but her eyes sparkled with a crescent-shaped smile.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice pitched louder than necessary. “I need to go to my parents’ house tonight. I’ll call a taxi for myself, you can take Vera home, right?”
Minutes later, I found myself in Enzo Woods’s car, the very same guy I’d spent a year telling myself I couldn’t have.
The boy I had dreamed about for weeks. But, instead of butterflies, my stomach felt like a knotted net.
Someone had tried to get Enzo to go to the Sortija.
Could it be that whoever it was thought I would be with him?
Would I have found out that the club belonged to the Hawtrey-Moore family if I hadn’t gone to the Sortija? Did someone want me to figure it out?
My thoughts flew to Bastian. Bastian, whom I had encountered at the club and seemed as surprised as I was to see me there. Bastian, who had helped me find the Sortija, who already knew that the Dubois and Hawtrey-Moore owned the place. He, who was dating Timotheo Larousse’s stepdaughter.
What if it had been him all along?
“Is everything okay?” Enzo asked me.
Uh-huh. I was in the car of the guy of my dreams, and my crazy head could only think about the fucking Bastian Saidi.
“I was thinking about the money,” I confessed, looking at my phone screen. “It’s already Saturday.”
“The clock is ticking.” He glanced at me. “Did it help that I brought you to the club?”
“Yes.” I relaxed. “I have less money now, it’s a relief.”
Enzo’s laugh rumbled softly, and a dimple appeared on his right cheek.
“I never thought I’d hear anyone say that.”
“It’s crazy,” I agreed.
I mentally ran the numbers. I had somehow managed to blow through nearly a hundred thousand pounds in a single day. A hundred thousand. Enzo was right—it was insane.
All thanks to Club Montari. All thanks to the guy driving me home.
I bit my lip.
“I’m sorry if the night didn’t turn out as you expected,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
Enzo made a surprised sound.
“Hm? Helping you out is enough for me.”
I nodded, the weight of the evening pressing on my shoulders.
“Thanks, anyway.”
“Then…” he paused. He turned left. We were approaching my house. “Tell me, was it what you expected?”
Yes. No. I wasn’t sure. I answered with a mix of all three.
“Money-wise?”
“No. I’ve found…” Pause. I was torn between telling Enzo everything that worried me and keeping quiet.
The Hawtrey-Moore family. My boss’s case.
Julian’s warning. Gina would help me make sense of it.
I didn’t need Enzo, and yet… He knew me differently from my friend.
I wanted his perspective, so I spoke. “Let’s just say I’ve discovered something linking the money to my boss’s case. ”
I left out everything related to Bastian. The last thing I wanted was to talk about him with Enzo. God, no.
“I’m speechless,” he said, exhaling slowly and letting out a long whistle. His eyes flickered between the road and me, worry etched on his face. “Is all this safe? You’re not walking into anything dangerous, are you?”
“Let’s hope not.”
“I’d warn you to be careful,” he continued, his gaze softening, “but I know if anyone can come out of this unscathed, it’s you.”
A laugh escaped me, though it felt hollow.
“You have too high an opinion of me.”
He pulled up in front of my building, the engine rumbling softly to a stop. I reached for my seatbelt, not wanting the night to end.
“It’s just that I’ve been after you for a long time,” he said, his voice tinged with something that made me pause.
I glanced at him as I unfastened the seatbelt. The quiet intensity of his gaze, the way his eyes seemed to hold a thousand unshared thoughts, made me feel a rush of unfamiliar feelings, nothing I could quite understand.
“I guess I thought I’d spend more time with you,” I said finally, returning to the question he had asked me seconds ago. “I feel like the night has been too short.”
“It has been for me too.”
Enzo stretched his arm over me to open the door. And I reached toward him. Suddenly, his face was just inches from mine.
It was like a movie scene, like one of those romantic comedies that play on TV on Sundays.
A moment where time seemed to freeze, where we both knew what the other was thinking.
We could extend the night. He could come upstairs with me, and we would make breakfast together the next day.
As his lips approached mine, all my thoughts stopped for the first time since I woke up that morning.
And, in the end, my lips met his. Or his met mine.
However it was, his touch was gentle yet insistent, as if he was savouring every second, every breath, and I found my body melting under the heat of his touch.
He tasted like mints and something I couldn’t quite place.
The kiss deepened, growing more fervent, as if we were both trying to catch up on the time lost. His hand cradled my face, the warmth of his palm grounding me as our lips moved together before sliding down my breasts, his thumb brushing over my perked nipple.
Alright, maybe we didn’t need to go upstairs. The car was comfortable enough.
“Vera,” Enzo moaned into my lips.
The rough rasp in his voice was enough to send shivers down my spine.
I leaned back, giving him more space to manoeuvre, and his gaze met mine for a heartbeat. Lust clouded his dark embers, a delectable sight, paired with the puffiness of his lips, before slowly sliding the straps of my dress over my shoulders, just enough to reveal my breasts.
“I could watch you forever,” he groaned, but I couldn’t reply, for his mouth was on my left nipple before I could process his words.
A moan left my lips as his tongue brushed the tip once, twice, before his other hand began playing with my right breast. I felt my folds dampen with desire, and the words came out of my lips before I could stop them.
“I want you,” I said.
“You don’t need to beg twice,” he replied before capturing my lips between his once more. His hand kept going down until it reached the edge of my dress, lingering there, tracing the fabric above my thighs. “Or maybe you do…” he said, a grin forming against my lips.
A tame laugh rippled off me. “Oh, come on.”
Enzo’s lips travelled to my neck, sucking and licking and making my legs quiver. At the same time, he slid his fingers underneath my dress, caressing the lace of my panties, his breath hot against my neck.
A moan escaped my lips, and his fingers dug deeper, pressing against my clit.
“I’m not kidding,” he whispered. “If you want me to remove the fabric that separates your dripping pussy from my fingers, you’ll have to use your words, Vera.”
An image of his fingers deep inside me flooded my mind, the need to feel Enzo filling me, rocking into me as his lips played with my nipples, consuming me.
“Please,” I said, the word coming out thin as a moan. “I need you, Enzo.”
“Good,” he said, pushing the fabric to the side.
His thumb found my swollen clit as his index pressed against my opening, teasing once again. I let out a frustrated groan, and a laugh parted his lips.
“So impatient,” he said, but right as his fingers caressed my entrance once more, a harsh light flooded in through the window.
Enzo pulled away, and I squinted, blinded, as I covered my breasts.
It was so bright it felt like we’d been thrown under a spotlight, and I resisted the urge to hide under Enzo’s embrace.
“Vera?” a voice shouted from outside the car. “Thank God you’re back safely!” Mrs. Meng stood in the street, bundled up in a thick coat, pointing a flashlight at us. “Who are you, boy?” The light from her flashlight illuminated the back of the car. “And where is Regina?”