Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
OLIVIA
T he evening went by in a blur of pounding music, writhing bodies, and cold champagne.
All around us, from the dance floor to the other couches in the VIP area, people were partying and living it up. Through the night, I watched them dance and grind on each other.
There were shrieks of laughter and flashes of drama. It was a whole show—one that was entertaining and chaotic enough to keep me entertained for hours.
Which was a good thing because it soon became clear that Gabriel wasn’t at The Relic to have a good time.
He never mentioned dancing. I don’t even think he stood up from his seat. Instead, he sat there, perched like a king on his throne, overseeing everyone and waiting for people to come to him.
And, unsurprisingly, they did.
A constant trickle of people stopped by the entire time. Most were burly men dressed like Gabriel in expensive suits. They came to shake his hand and maybe whisper a few words in his ear.
I wasn’t as naive as he thought. I knew they were mob men, just like him.
Well, not just like him.
Because with every interaction, it became more and more obvious that there was no one like Gabriel.
Only he could create an office in the middle of an overcrowded Manhattan nightclub on a Friday night.
The volume may have been deafening and the energy frantic, but it didn’t take me long to figure out why he’d picked this place.
Even though we were surrounded by people on all sides, the club’s atmosphere created a surprising amount of privacy. With speakers blaring on every side and the roar of the crowd rising up from the floor below, it was nearly impossible for anyone to listen in on his conversations.
Hell, I was sitting next to him all night, and I didn’t catch a single word he said except for the times he turned to talk to me directly—usually to introduce me to one of his colleagues.
For the most part, the men were surprisingly cordial, if not a little dismissive. I didn’t blame them. They probably thought I was nothing more than his usual arm candy. But there were a handful of guys whose gazes seemed to sharpen slightly when Gabriel introduced me as Miss Collins.
Maybe I should have been offended, but honestly, I was too worried about what it meant that so many members of the New York underworld recognized my family name. Clearly, Theo had wriggled his way into deeper trouble than I’d realized.
Dear God, what had my brother been thinking? I swore that if we somehow made it out of this alive, I would kill him myself.
I was lost in a mental debate with myself over how exactly I was going to do it—strangle him with my bare hands or tie him to the bumper of my car as I drove from Chicago to Milwaukee—when Gabriel suddenly stood up and declared it was time to go.
I didn’t argue. I simply stood up and followed him down the stairs and out of the VIP section.
I still had to hold on to his arm as we made our way toward the door and out to the valet stand, but surprisingly, not as tightly as on our way in. Either I was getting better in these skyscraper heels, or the couple of glasses of champagne I’d had loosened me up to the point that I was no longer overthinking every step I took.
I figured it had to be the latter since by the time we got back to his house and up the stairs to his bedroom, I had given up on my plan to only speak when absolutely necessary.
“Well, that was a surprisingly decent evening,” I said right after he closed the door behind us.
He didn’t bother turning around and started peeling off his jacket. “Was that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Just an observation.” It had been a pleasant surprise, but I kept that part to myself.
“Most women are usually more appreciative after a night out with me,” he said, folding his coat in half and draping it over the back of the chair next to him.
I’m sure they were.
“If you wanted flattery, then you should have brought one of the girls that were staring at you all night.”
“And if I’d wanted one of them, I would have,” he answered without apology.
Apparently, the champagne had affected me more than I thought because I couldn’t resist the urge to challenge his inflated ego.
“Of course. How could I forget?” I said, letting the sarcasm I’d been pushing down all day finally rise up. “Because you always do what you want, right?”
That did it. He finally turned to face me.
And the instant he did, I realized the mistake I’d made in loosening the reins on my inhibitions. Everything about him radiated a sense of power, from the breadth of his broad shoulders to the dark storm clouds that always seemed to be swirling in his eyes.
“I’ll tell you this just once, Liv,” he said without a hint of humor in his voice. “I don’t like games. If you have something to say, then just say it.”
His tone was hard enough to make me want to shake. For a second, I was ready to apologize on the spot. Beg his forgiveness and promise not to be so passive-aggressive again, just to get him to stop staring at me like that. But then?—
“Wait,” I said, a moment of clarity washing over me. “That’s bullshit.”
Gabriel’s lips pressed together hard in irritation. “What?”
“Your statement— I don’t like games . It’s total bullshit,” I said. “You’ve admitted to playing games with me and my life all damn day.”
For a blessed couple of seconds, he didn’t say a word. All he could do was blink until his voice came back to him. But even when they did, his excuse was pretty dam weak. “That’s different.”
“No, it’s not.” I shook my head. “I’m just playing by the rules you laid out earlier— an eye for an eye . You do it me; I can do it right back to you.”
“That’s a dangerous road you’re going down, dolcezza .” The same predatory expression from this morning tightened his jawline as he started across the room toward me. The difference was, this time, I didn’t try to get away. I held my head high and met his gaze with my chin up.
“I know,” I said with only the faintest tremble as he stopped just inches in front of me. “That’s why I don’t usually let my life be guided by such a selfish and violent philosophy.”
“Oh, really?” His voice dropped down to a low rumble now that he was so close, making his tone even more difficult to read—somewhere between contempt and desire. “Then enlighten me. What code do you live by?”
That was simple. “Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.”
“The golden rule?” He gave a mocking laugh. “Why am I not surprised?”
“At least my way doesn’t leave behind a trail of dead uncles.”
Oh shit.
The second the words were out of my mouth, even before I saw the rage spark up behind Gabriel’s eyes, I knew I’d made a huge mistake. But before I could apologize, he came out swinging with his own verbal punches.
“Better that than waste my life being treated like a fucking doormat.”
“I am not a doormat!”
“No?” One brow arched up high. “Then tell me why you agreed to come out here to New York.”
“My family needed my help.”
“And what? You thought if you helped them out of a bad situation, maybe they’d start treating you better? That they’d stop taking you for granted? That they’d finally start respecting you?”
“Fuck you,” I snapped. Anger burning in my blood, I tried to turn away, but Gabriel grabbed both of my arms before I could take a single step. Once again, I found myself imprisoned in his grasp.
“But that’s not what happened, is it?” he kept going. “Instead, you realized they’d sold you down the river. They offered you up as a sacrifice, hoping I’d take my revenge out on you and leave their precious Theo alone.”
“Stop it!” I tried to shake my way free, but his hold on me was too tight. “That isn’t what happened.”
“No?” His right hand went from my arm to my chin, finger squeezing hard as he stilled my head and forced me to meet his gaze. “Then tell me why it’s been over twelve hours since I contacted them about our new arrangement, and I still haven’t heard a single word from them.”
Wait, what ?
I knew I shouldn’t be surprised. Radio silence during stressful times was kind of their thing. I hadn’t been able to get them on the phone either.
But pretending to miss my calls was a hell of a lot different than ignoring Gabriel fucking D’Angelo.
Still, there had to be a reason—one that wouldn’t prove Gabriel right and break my heart into a thousand pieces.
“They probably just don’t recognize your number,” I tried, knowing that even as I said it, I was grasping at straws.
“I called from your phone.”
He must have retrieved it from the office building. “Maybe they went straight to the authorities.”
A part of me hoped the idea would make him sweat, even just a little. But Gabriel just shook his head.
“Not even your brother is that stupid,” he said confidently. “And even if he was, the feds would have showed up to check by now. Trust me, those bastards are always looking for any excuse to knock on our doors these days.”
I had no trouble believing that. Which meant the only other scenario—besides the one where Gabriel was right, and my family simply saw me as disposable—was that they hadn’t gotten around to checking my many, many messages. But since theory didn’t make them sound much better than his, I kept it to myself.
“So what’s your point?” I asked, letting all of the venom I felt in my blood flow into my voice. “That it’s okay that you’re an asshole because I’m a sucker?”
He didn’t answer that.
Instead, he held my gaze for a long second of silence before finally letting me go and walking toward the bed. “Come here, dolcezza .”
After getting off relatively easy for the uncle comment, I decided not to push my luck and followed him. Though I stopped a few feet away when I saw him sit down on the edge of the mattress.
“What?” I asked when he looked over at me expectantly.
“Come closer.”
I shook my head. “You want me to follow your demands after calling me a doormat?”
His expression hardened. “ Closer .”
Apparently, that was a yes.
And God help me, I did what he said.
I didn’t know how much closer he wanted me, so I shuffled forward, inch by inch, until my thighs brushed against his knees. Only then did he appear satisfied.
Slowly, he raised his hands and cupped them around the swell of my hips. Then, looking up into my eyes, he said, “Did I tell you how beautiful you are in this dress?”
Despite all my anger and frustration, my heart started to pound with a new rhythm at his words. He sounded like he meant it.
“No,” I answered. “You didn’t.”
“Well, you are.” He continued, his hands moving in small, slow circles over the silky material. “Absolutely gorgeous. I’m sure every woman in that club was jealous of you tonight, just like every man was envious that I was the one by your side.”
I wasn’t sure what his angle was, but he was laying it on a little thick. “Are you trying to sweet talk me out of thinking that you’re a total jerk?”
“No.” His gaze was honest. “You’re right. I am an asshole. It’s not just how I was raised; it’s who I am. I can’t be any other way. Good men don’t last long in the world I was born into….and neither do naive suckers.”
My eyes widened as I sucked in a breath. “Is that a threat?”
“Not from me.” He shook his head. “I need you to realize that if I had any intention of hurting you, I wouldn’t have waited until now. I would have done it the second I walked into that office this morning.”
Okay, then. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because it’s time for you to face some hard truths of your own, Liv. Ones that are just as rough as the kind you’ve been casually tossing in my face since we met.” His hands started to move in bigger circles, stroking from my hips toward my lower back. “Why did you disappear on me last night?”
Oh, God. I really wasn’t ready for that question.
“I…I…”
Gabriel must have taken pity because he shook his head. “It’s okay. We’ll work up to it,” he said. “Let’s start with something easier. Why did you agree to go out with me in the first place?”
“Because I was upset with my family,” I said without hesitation, trying to prove this wasn’t half as hard as he was making it out to be. “It was the last thing on Earth they would have expected me to do.”
That alone should have proved that I didn’t spend all my time trying to make them happy.
“It wasn’t because you wanted to?” he asked.
“Well, yes,” I quickly amended. “Of course I wanted to, but?—“
“And why did you fuck me?”
Even though I knew it didn’t do anything to dispel his description of me as naive, I couldn’t help wincing at the force with which he said fuck .
“I don’t know,” I huffed. “A momentary lapse in judgment?”
His hands tightened around my hips, drawing me in closer, as his eyes and tone turned stonier than ever. “Tell me the truth, Liv.”
Heaven help me. Why couldn’t I resist his commands? His forceful nature seemed to affect me on animal levels I didn’t even know I had.
I let out a deep sigh before admitting, “Because I wanted to.”
“That’s right,” he agreed with an approving nod. “You really fucking wanted it. I could feel all that built-up desire tangled inside you unraveling with every thrust. And when you came?—“
My brows shot up as my whole face caught fire. “ Gabriel !”
“What?” He asked with a dark laugh. “Is it the words you object to or the flames they stoke inside you?”
Both. Neither. Shit, I didn’t know.
“What does any of this have to do with you calling me a doormat?” I demanded.
“Patience, dolcezza ,” he teased. “Now tell me why you disappeared afterward.”
“Because I finally came to my senses— Ow !”
I gasped as his open palm came down hard on the curviest part of my ass. It didn’t hurt. Not exactly, but it did shock the hell out of me.
“The truth this time,” he said. “Unless, of course, you want another one.”
I didn’t even want to think about what my honest answer to that might be.
“Because I was afraid of just how much I liked it,” I said without thinking, only realizing after the words were out of my mouth just how true they were. “I felt guilty for enjoying myself when I should have been working on a way to save my family’s business.”
“That was never going to happen no matter how hard you worked.”
“I didn’t know that then.”
“But now you do,” he said, raking his fingers up and down my hips, moving the dress fabric along with his movements. Each time, pulling the shimmering material higher…and higher. “Yet you still keep acting like you’re only here with me because of your family obligations.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I mean…you did threaten to kill my brother if I left,” I reminded him.
“Sure,” he admitted casually, as if that was nothing out of the ordinary. And who knew? Maybe to him, it wasn’t. “But our deal was that you stay with me for three months. Nothing more. I never said anything about submitting to my touch. But that’s exactly what you’ve done. You’ve let me pull you close and slap your ass and touch you in all the places you crave—and you keep doing it.”
As if to prove his point, he cupped his palms even more firmly around my hips and pulled me in another step, right between his parted knees.
“I...I didn’t realize—“ I tried, but he stopped me short.
“Yes, you did.” His voice was firm, though not angry. “Lying to me is one thing, but lying to yourself is unforgivable. You’ve been picking apart every sentence, calling me out on every vague word since I first sat down at your table. You knew , Liv. You just decided to pretend.”
Was that true?
Maybe. I wasn’t sure.
Once Gabriel started talking with deep rumbling voice that travelled right through me, it was hard to tell the difference between what I thought and what I felt.
Still, I needed to be clear on one thing.
“Are you saying I don’t have to sleep with you tonight?”
“ Have to ? Of course not,” he answered with that dark smile that made my knees feel weak and wobbly. “But you’re still going to. Not because I’m making you, but because this is the moment when you stop lying to yourself and admit that this attraction between us has nothing to do with your brother’s debt. This isn’t about family obligations or the deal we struck. This is about the desire burning deep inside you.”
I opened my mouth to refute his words, but nothing came out. Nothing but the sound of my breath, growing faster and heavier by the second.
“That’s what I thought.” His smile grew smug as he released his hold on my body and leaned back on the mattress, propping his weight on bent elbows. “Now give into that dark voice that’s been whispering in your head all night and do what it says—strip for me. Nice and slow.”