Chapter 13 #5
You have no idea.
Danny launches into a story about his job in insurance, something about a client who tried to make a claim for a boat that sank under suspicious circumstances. He’s animated and clearly trying to impress me. He’s nice. He’s perfectly nice.
And I feel absolutely nothing.
No spark. No flutter. He’s pleasant and harmless and so utterly beige compared to—
I take another sip of water to drown the thought.
This is what I came here to find out, I remind myself. Can I want someone else? Can I imagine a future with a man who tells silly jokes and would never lock me in a wardrobe or tie me up or look at me like I’m the only thing standing between him and oblivion?
Danny is talking about insurance fraud, and I can’t even remember his last name.
I’m failing the test. I’m failing it spectacularly.
Danny says something that’s probably funny, and I laugh on autopilot, and I hate myself for allowing Cristiano Montoni to ruin normal men for me.
I’m reaching for my water again when I freeze.
The man who has been haunting my thoughts since the date began is standing at the entrance of the restaurant.
Cristiano wears a charcoal suit so dark it’s almost black, with a black shirt open at the collar. His golden hair is swept back from his face, and his amber eyes are fixed on me with an expression that makes my blood run cold.
He’s not moving. Not approaching. Just standing there, perfectly still, while waiters navigate around him and a nervous hostess hovers at his elbow. Behind him, two of his men wait like shadows, the same hard-faced capos from the park.
He dismisses the hostess with a barely perceptible gesture, and she retreats immediately.
Of course it’s his casino. Of course he knew I was here. He probably felt my presence the moment I walked through the door.
This is what you wanted, a dark voice whispers. You wanted to provoke him. You wanted to see his true face.
Be careful what you wish for.
How long has he been watching me? Long enough to see Danny pull out my chair? Long enough to see me smile at another man in a red dress that shows more skin than I’ve shown anyone in five years?
His jaw is tight. His hands are clenched at his sides, like he’s restraining himself from violence.
Panic floods through me, but beneath the panic, there’s something hot and reckless and entirely unwelcome.
I turn back to Danny with a bright smile that feels like it might crack my face. “That’s hilarious,” I say, even though I have no idea what he just said. I reach across the table and touch his arm. “You’re so funny.”
Danny blinks, surprised by the sudden warmth, but he recovers quickly. “Yeah? I’ve got tons more where that came from.”
I laugh. Too loud and too bright. I lean in like he’s the most fascinating man I’ve ever met, my hand still on his arm, the neckline of Rosa’s dress gaping forward in a way that would give Danny an eyeful if he looked.
I can feel Cristiano’s gaze burning into me.
Good, I think viciously. Let him see. Let him know he doesn’t own me. I can go on dates with whoever I want. I’m not his.
But my heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear Danny’s next story. My hand is trembling where it rests on his sleeve, and the heat between my thighs has nothing to do with the nice man sitting across from me.
“Are you okay?” Danny frowns slightly. “You seem a little…”
“I’m fine.” I withdraw my hand and pick up the menu again, pretending to study it. “Just hungry. What do you recommend?”
There’s movement in my peripheral vision. Cristiano is walking toward us.
Slow. Deliberate. Each stride eating up the distance between the entrance and our table. Diners glance up as he passes. Everyone can sense the danger radiating from him like heat from a furnace.
Danny notices too. His brow furrows as he watches the tall, golden stranger approaching.
“What is this guy’s problem?” he asks. “Do you know him?”
Before I can answer, Cristiano stops at our table. His eyes drop to my neckline for one searing moment before returning to my face.
“Mina.” His voice is soft and controlled, but I can hear the edge beneath it, sharp as a blade. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Cristiano.” I’m amazed my voice comes out steady. “Oh, is this your casino? This is Danny. Danny, this is…”
What? My stalker? My former lover? The father of my child?
“An old friend,” I finish weakly.
Cristiano’s eyes flick to Danny. Just once. The look is cold and dismissive.
“Danny.” Cristiano doesn’t offer his hand. “How nice for you.”
Danny clears his throat awkwardly. “Uh, yeah. Nice to meet you too, man.”
Cristiano turns his attention back on me, those amber eyes traveling down the plunging neckline of Rosa’s dress with proprietary heat.
That dress is for me, his gaze says. You had better have worn it for me.
“May I have a word?” he asks tightly. “In private.”
“I’m on a date, Cristiano.”
“Now, Mina.”
It’s not a request.
Danny starts to rise, puffing up with indignation. “Hey, buddy, she said she’s on a date—”
Cristiano doesn’t even look at him. “Sit down.”
The words are quiet. Almost conversational. But something in his tone makes Danny drop back into his chair like his strings have been cut. I watch him shrink, all that courage evaporating in an instant.
Cristiano doesn’t need to raise his voice or make threats. He just is, and people fold.
But not me.
“Mina.” Cristiano extends his hand, palm up. An invitation that’s more like a command. “Come with me.”
The whole restaurant is watching. I can feel the weight of dozens of eyes, the hush that’s fallen over nearby tables.
Maybe it’s the dress. Maybe it’s the smoky eyes and bold lips, this armor Rosa gave me that makes me feel like someone else. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve spent five years afraid of this man, and I’m so goddamn tired.
Or maybe I just want to know what happens when I push back.
“No.”
The word comes out steady. Defiant. Loud enough for the nearby tables to hear.
Something flickers in Cristiano’s amber eyes.
“No?” he repeats.
“I’m on a date.” I pick up my water glass with a hand that barely trembles and take a deliberate sip. “Whatever you want to say to me can wait until I’m finished.”
I set the glass down and turn back to Danny with a smile that feels like a weapon. “I’m so sorry about the interruption. You were telling me about your work?”
Danny’s mouth opens and closes. He looks between me and Cristiano like a man watching a car crash in slow motion.
“Mina.” Cristiano’s voice has dropped lower, darker. A warning. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” I meet his eyes, and I let him see my anger and the reckless heat that’s building inside me. “Don’t have dinner with a nice man who asked me politely instead of ordering me around? Don’t wear a pretty dress to a restaurant? Stop acting like you own the place.”
“I do own the place.”
“Of course you do.” I laugh, and it comes out sharp and brittle. “Everything in this city is yours, isn’t it? Every hotel, every casino, every—”
“You,” he says. “You’re mine.”
The words hang in the air between us. I can feel people straining their ears to listen, and I want everyone to know that I, Mina Santoro, am standing up to dangerous Don Cristiano Montoni without flinching.
“I’m not yours.” I hold his gaze, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. “I’ve never been yours, and I never will be.”
For a long moment, Cristiano doesn’t move. His jaw is tight, his hands are clenched at his sides, and there’s an expression in his eyes that I haven’t seen since he was nineteen. That wild, desperate look he got right before he tied me up with his belt.
He’s barely holding himself together. And some sick, broken part of me thrills at it.
This is what you wanted, that dark voice whispers again. You wanted to see his true face.
I see the moment he stops fighting it.
He moves so fast I don’t have time to react. One second he’s standing beside the table. The next he’s bending down, hooking an arm around my waist, and hauling me up over his shoulder like I weigh nothing.
The world inverts. Blood rushes to my head. Rosa’s tiny dress rides up my thighs, and I scramble frantically to push it down, suddenly aware that half the restaurant can probably see my underwear.
“Cristiano!” I pound on his back with my fists. “Put me down!”
He doesn’t answer. He just keeps walking.
I catch a glimpse of Danny, still frozen at our table, his mouth hanging open in shock. A waiter flattens himself against the wall as we pass. Every single person in this restaurant is watching Cristiano Montoni carry a screaming woman toward the exit, and not one of them moves to stop him.
“This is kidnapping!” I’m still struggling, still pounding uselessly against the solid muscle of his back. “I’ll call the police!”
His hand slides up to grip my bare thigh. Holding me in place like I’m something precious he’s stolen.
“You can call whoever you like,” he says calmly. “After.”
A shiver goes through me.
After what?
We pass through the restaurant doors into a private corridor. The noise of the casino fades, replaced by the muffled hum of machinery and the click of Cristiano’s expensive shoes on marble.
“Put me down.” I’m breathless now, half from the blood pooling in my head and half from something else entirely. “You can’t just— This isn’t— People don’t do this—”
He laughs coldly. “I should have done this weeks ago.”
He stops in front of an elevator and presses a button, and the doors slide open immediately.
Cristiano carries me inside and sets me on my feet.
I stumble, disoriented from being upside down, and he steadies me with hands on my waist. My back hits the elevator wall. He doesn’t let go.
The doors close. We’re alone.
I should scream at him, slap him across his perfect face, knee him in the groin, do something to make him pay for humiliating me in front of all those people.
Instead, I stand there panting, staring up at him, acutely aware of how close we are.
How his hands feel on my waist. How his chest rises and falls with breaths almost as ragged as mine.