Chapter 13
Mina
Isplash cold water on my face and grip the edges of the sink, staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My hands are still shaking.
My fiancé is Cristiano Montoni.
The words echo in my skull, relentless and cruel. I can still see that ring glittering on Ariana Barone’s perfect hand. Can still feel the delicate bones of her shoulders beneath my fingers as I squeezed and squeezed without realizing what I was doing.
I’m going to be fired. I’m going to lose my job, and then I won’t be able to pay rent, and Leon and I will lose everything. I grab a towel and bury my face in it, stifling a sob.
No, Cristiano won’t fire me. That’s not how he operates. Firing me would create distance. He doesn’t want distance. He wants proximity. He wants me trapped in his hotel, working for him, dependent on his goodwill for my paycheck.
He’ll use this the way he uses everything. My humiliation, my fear, my vulnerability. He’ll swoop in and fix it. Make Ariana forgive me, make Gloria praise me, make me grateful to him for saving my job. A kindness I can’t refuse. Another bar in the cage.
A commotion from the front of the spa cuts through my spiraling thoughts. Raised voices. The elevator chime.
I open the bathroom door and peer down the hallway toward reception.
Cristiano steps out of the elevator, his face like thunder.
My throat tightens.
He’s here. Of course he’s here. His fiancée was just assaulted by a massage therapist in his hotel, and he’s come personally to deal with it.
“Where is she?” His voice carries down the hallway, clipped and commanding. He’s dressed in black pants and shiny leather shoes, and a black button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled back past his elbows as though he stood straight up from his desk just moments ago.
Ariana is at the front desk, her manicure apparently finished, reaching for her purse. She turns at the sound of his voice, her expression shifting to something placating. “I’m here, Cristiano. I’m fine, really. You didn’t have to—”
“Where’s Mina?” He walks past Ariana without looking at her. His eyes are scanning the salon, searching for me.
Ariana’s serene expression morphs to shock, and she stares after him, open-mouthed.
My blood turns to ice.
Where’s Mina? Not, Are you all right, Ariana? Not, What happened? He walked past his fiancée like she was furniture.
I should feel vindicated. Instead, I feel the noose tightening.
This is what he wants me to see. This is the performance, the proof that she means nothing, that I mean everything.
And it’s working. God help me, some small, vicious part of me is glad he ignored her.
Gloria steps forward, her professional composure barely intact. “Mr. Montoni. Mina is unavailable at the present moment, but if you want to follow me to my office—”
Cristiano’s gaze snaps to the hallway.
To me.
Our eyes meet, and his expression shifts from thunderous to raw and urgent.
He starts toward me.
I don’t wait to find out what Cristiano wants. I bolt. I need to collect my bag and get the hell out of here.
The break room is three doors down. I make it inside and close the door, my chest heaving, my mind racing. Maybe he didn’t see where I went. Maybe he’ll walk past.
The door swings open.
Cristiano fills the doorway, broad shoulders blocking the light from the hall. He steps inside and closes the door behind him.
I’m trapped. My mind flashes to a wardrobe, to darkness, to his voice through the wood saying I can’t let you leave.
“Don’t.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “Whatever you’re about to do, don’t.”
He stops. His hand is still on the doorknob, and there’s a dark, calculated flicker in his eyes. “I just want to talk.”
“You always just want to talk. And then you just want to hold me. And then you just want to touch me. And then—” My voice cracks. “I know what you’re like, Cristiano. I’ve watched you manipulate me for years. So whatever play this is, stop it.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Studying me with those amber eyes that see too much.
He takes a step forward, and I take a step back, but we both know I’m running out of room.
“I’m not here to manipulate you. I’m here to explain.”
But I’m the one who needs to explain, and after I do, he needs to leave.
“I’m sorry about hurting your fiancée,” I say as steadily as I can. “I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t mean to hurt her. It was an accident.” Then in a whisper, “Please don’t fire me.”
I hate how small I sound, but the rent is due in two weeks, and I can’t afford to lose this job, and he knows that. He knows exactly how trapped I am.
“Mina.” His voice is soft. Pained.
He crosses the room in three strides and pulls me into his arms.
I go rigid. Every instinct screams to fight, to push him away, to run. But his arms wrap around me before I can move, one hand cradling the back of my head, pressing my face into his chest. He’s warm and solid, and he smells like expensive cologne. I can feel his heart pounding beneath my cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my hair. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault.”
I should struggle. I should scream.
But God help me, it feels good to be held.
It’s been so long since anyone held me like I’m precious.
Leon hugs me, but Leon is four. He seeks comfort, he doesn’t give it.
And there’s no one else. No partner, no lover, no one who wraps their arms around me at the end of a hard day and tells me everything will be okay.
Cristiano is the worst person in the world to fill that void.
He’s also the only one who’s trying.
“Cristiano. Your fiancée is right outside.”
“She’s not my fiancée.”
I try to pull back, but his arms tighten around me. “What?”
“I never proposed to her. I never wanted to marry her. One of my capos vastly overstepped. One of my father’s men.” His voice is rough, almost pained. “I didn’t even know about the ring until today.”
This is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. A man doesn’t accidentally get engaged. There are conversations, negotiations, a ring selection, a proposal. You don’t just wake up one morning with a fiancée you didn’t know about.
“You expect me to believe that?” I ask.
“No. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. But it also happens to be the truth.”
I hear the leashed anger in his words, directed at his capo. One of his father’s men. A man who’s used to taking orders from Don Agnello, and Cristiano is just his son. He doesn’t sound defensive. He sounds furious, but not at me. At the situation, and the capo who made him look like a fool.
Being in his arms and held so tightly that I can’t move should horrify me, but there’s something warm and treacherous unfurling in my chest.
Cristiano isn’t engaged.
He’s not engaged, and he came running the moment he knew I was upset. I suppose Ariana must have sent him a text message complaining about me.
“How can you not know when you’re engaged?” I whisper, but my voice lacks conviction.
“It was a misunderstanding. I’ve been distracted.” He pulls back just enough to look at my face, his amber eyes burning into mine. “I belong to you, Mina. Only you. I’ve never belonged to anyone else, and I never will.”
The words pass easily over his lips, impossible to trust. I recall the last time he held me like this, cradling my hurt, only then it was a sprained ankle and not my humiliation in front of perfect Ariana Barone and all my coworkers.
“What about Valerie?” I accuse.
His brow furrows. “Who?”
“Valerie.” The name tastes bitter on my tongue. “You had a date with her the day I sprained my ankle and you gave me a ride home on your motorcycle.”
“A great deal more happened that day than a ride home, Mina,” he says, and I see the memory of our feverish sex in my bed in his eyes. “I didn’t have a date with Valerie. I don’t even remember Valerie’s last name.”
He cups my face in his hands, tilting it up toward him. His lips curve with a satisfied smile.
“But you’ve been thinking about her for five years. You’re jealous.”
“I am not,” I say hotly.
“You are.” His thumb strokes across my cheekbone, and his eyes are glowing in a way that makes my chest ache. “Mina, you must know by now that I wasn’t on a date with Valerie that day, or any other girl. I was following you home, staying several blocks back on my motorcycle, as I did every day.”
“You’re lying,” but I hear how uncertain I sound. That does sound like something he’d do.
“I’m not.” He leans closer, his forehead nearly touching mine. “She meant nothing to me. Ariana means nothing. Every woman I’ve ever met pales in comparison to you.”
I feel a traitorous feminine thrill that he’s comparing me favorably to immaculate beauties like Ariana and Valerie.
“What about the scratches? The tattoos on your back.” My voice is shaking now, but I can’t stop. “Whose are they?”
“I think you know,” he says, and his lips are dangerously close to mine.
“I begged you to mark my flesh while we had sex, and you left the most wonderful red scratches up my back. That night when I saw the marks were fading, I couldn’t bear it, so I took pictures.
When I was exiled to Italy, I had them inked into my flesh so I would have you with me always. ”
That’s so messed up.
That’s so romantic.
I cling desperately to my indignation, because it’s the only thing keeping me safe. “What did she think when she saw them?”
“Ariana Barone? She never saw them.”
“You didn’t sleep with Miss Barone?” I scoff. I don’t believe him. I can’t believe him. “What do other women say? Aren’t they offended? Disgusted that you inked another woman’s scratch marks into your flesh?”
“There are no other women. There’s never been anyone but you.”
“That’s impossible. A man like you…”
“A man like me what?”
My gaze travels helplessly down his broad, muscular chest. A man whose body is God’s gift to women and who’s as rich as Rockefeller. He would barely have to crook his finger and a dozen willing women would tumble into his bed. He probably fucked his way through half of Italy.
A sour taste fills the back of my throat at the thought.