Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
GAbrIEL
O liva
Liv .
As I stared into her perfect marble-green eyes, it was hard to believe how satisfying this day had turned out. After being unceremoniously ditched last night, I’d woken up in a foul mood and fumed the whole ride down here.
No woman had ever walked out on me. No one dared. Either I left, or I sent them away. That was just how it was.
They sure as hell didn’t wait until I’d ducked out of the room for a second before disappearing like Houdini.
Only Liv would try a stunt like that with me. And only because she’d had no idea who I really was.
But now she did.
From the second I stepped inside this room, I’d been watching that cold cover of realization slowly creep over her…until this moment, right now, when it finally swallowed her whole.
She shook her head, her auburn curls bouncing violently as they knocked against her shoulders. “You can’t mean…”
I held back a laugh. Still playing the innocent, she couldn’t even bring herself to say it out loud.
“Oh, I do,” I assured her.
Her eyes grew even wider, so big that the whites encircling those vibrant irises showed. “Absolutely not,” she gasped. “That’s never going to happen.”
“ Never ?” That was a pretty strong word for a woman who’d been shaking from head to toe since I showed up. “You’re sure about that?”
“Positive,” she answered without hesitation.
“Okay, then.” I stood up from my seat, the metal folding chair scraping against the bare concrete floor as it moved with me.
She made a flustered sound. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“I made my offer; you refused it,” I said, breaking the situation down to its most basic terms. “As far as I’m concerned, that means we have nothing else to discuss.”
I made the mistake of looking down to see her lip tremble.
“So what now? You send in your men to kill me?”
I may have woken up in a murderous mood, but it wasn’t Liv’s blood that I was after. All I wanted from her was compliance, and I had a feeling I knew exactly how to get it.
“And snuff out the only valuable member of the Collins family? What good would that do?” I said, straightening my tie and dusting off my coat. “Instead, I’ll send Tony and his crew to Chicago to deal with your brother. It shouldn’t take them more than a day to track Theo down. They’re very efficient.”
“ No !” She shot up from her seat. Where was this passion a second ago when she thought she was defending her own life? “You can’t do that.”
“I can, and I will,” I informed her.
Reaching out, she grabbed my hand, holding on tight. I could have easily shaken her off, but even this simple touch reminded me of the way she’d felt in my arms last night. Her fingers entwined with mine. Her back arched. Her?—
“But…but…you said you were willing to cut a deal.” Her desperate pleading cut short my train of thought.
“And you turned down my offer so?—“
“ So , that’s how all negotiations start,” she tried. “You toss out your opening bid then I give you mine. Eventually, we settle on something that benefits both of us.”
Maybe that’s how business dealings went in her world. But she wasn’t in Chicago or Milwaukee or wherever she was from. This was my world. And here I made all the rules.
To prove it, I grasped her hand twice as tight and yanked her toward me. She let out a startled gasp as her feet lifted off the floor and her body crashed against my chest. Looking down at her pretty, little startled face, I grinned.
“Where did you get the idea this was a negotiation?”
“I…I guess I just assumed,” she sputtered.
“Bad idea.” I shook my head. “Never assume you know the rules of a game you’ve never played before.”
A tick of anger tightened her jaw for a fraction of a second. Real anger.
Her reaction should have incensed me. She had no right to anger, after all. It was her family who owed me money. I didn’t owe her shit.
But for some strange reason, seeing that flash of honest emotion in Liv only made me want her more.
And it wasn’t just the pleasure of her body I wanted, but her .
I’d never experienced that kind of attraction with anyone else.
Truth be told, it was the whole reason I’d been so upset to find she’d disappeared last night. If all I’d wanted was a Round Two, I could have had it from any woman in La Sera. But I didn’t want just anyone .
I wanted Liv.
As far as I was concerned, the woman was a damned unicorn.
“Are you saying that Theo’s life—that my life—is nothing but a game to you?” she demanded.
“Now you’re starting to catch on.”
She tried to pull away, but I held on as she yanked her arm once—twice—before letting go. The force of her struggle caused her to stumble back a couple of steps, and I watched as she rubbed her hand, even though I knew damn well I hadn’t squeezed hard enough to injure her.
Still, she shot me a hard glare. “So my only options are to sit back helplessly while you kill my brother or become your whore?”
“My woman, not my whore,” I clarified.
Her brows pulled together. “What’s the difference?”
“Whore is a part-time position—cash for services rendered,” I explained. “You, on the other hand, will live in my home, sleep in my bed. You’ll accompany me to events and stand by my side at public events. You’ll be open and available to me all hours of the day, with me every second of the night.”
Her lips parted, but for a long moment, no sound came out. When she finally did speak, her voice was even shakier than before.
“B-But what about my job?” she asked. “My apartment? My friends and family? What about my life?”
“I’m your life now, Liv,” I told her.
She shook her head, her eyes blinking furiously. There was no hiding how overwhelmed she’d become as she raked her fingers through her riotous curls.
When she’d finally calmed down enough to talk, her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “You’re the damn devil, Gabriel D’Angelo.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Clearly not enough.”
“Maybe,” I admitted with a smile. “But that doesn’t exactly help your case. After all, you’re the one who told me to surround myself with a better kind of company, the kind of people who would tell me the truth no matter what.”
“I didn’t mean me ,” she protested.
I shrugged. “Then you need to start choosing your words more carefully.”
“And you need to be more careful with who you invite into your bed,” she shot back. “You don’t know me or what I’m capable of. What makes you think I won’t snap the moment you fall asleep and stab you through the heart with a carving knife?”
I didn’t bother holding back the bark of laughter that rose up in my throat. “You won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because if you ever tried anything like that, not only would you fail, but I’d bring your mother to New York just so I could slit her throat in front of you.”
The color drained from her face in an instant. “Oh my God. You’re not kidding, are you?”
I looked her dead in the eye. “I didn’t rise to the top of the New York underworld because of my sense of humor.”
That seemed to get through to her. Her gaze broke away, her eyes frantically flicking back and forth as she worried her lower lip with her teeth. Her shoulders rose and fell dramatically with each breath. But it wasn’t until her head started to bob up and down in an agitated nod that I knew I truly had her where I wanted.
“Okay… okay , this is really happening, Liv. This is really fucking happening,” she muttered to herself before looking back up at me. “So what are your terms?”
I raised a brow. “I already told you.”
“No, you gave me an overview,” she said, shaking her head. “I need specifics. Like, how long do I have to stay with you?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I didn’t know how long it would take me to grow tired of her. Usually, I never stayed with the same woman for more than a few nights. Still, I wanted to make sure I got my money’s worth. After all, Theo owed me a hell of a lot of money.
“Three months,” I said. Through the summer—that ought to do it.
“Okay.” Liv swallowed down hard. I could tell that was longer than she’d been hoping for. But she was still clearly smart enough to know it could have been a hell of a lot worse. “I’ll need to tell my family what’s happening. Oh, and I’ll also need to call my boss and make up some kind of excuse. And then there’s the problem of my things. I only brought enough for an overnight trip, so I’ll need to fly home and get more clothes.”
That was a long list of things that weren’t going to happen.
“No,” I told her.
She looked up at me, eyes wide. “What do you mean no ?”
“I’ll inform your brother about our deal. Your job will hire someone new. And I’ll take care of your wardrobe.”
“But—“
No more buts .
“You asked my terms, Liv, and I’ve told you,” I said plainly. “The only thing left for you to do is answer yes or no.”
For a minute, the only sound in the room was the shaky tempo of her breath. I watched her try to mentally work a way out of the impossible situation I’d created for her. Then, I watched in triumph as her gaze fell to the floor, utterly defeated.
“Yes,” she said, her voice a broken whisper.
“Good choice,” I said, walking the few steps across the floor to take her hand. “Then come with me to see your new home.”