Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Rocco’s eyes were glued to the TV like he didn’t even hear the conversation.
I could just tell her I was busy and that’d be the end of it, but I was incapable of lying, whether it was outright or by omission. “I’m seeing someone.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly surprised my dick was spoken for. “Well, maybe some other time.” The second she knew she wouldn’t get laid, she paid me no further attention. She focused on the other people at the bar because at least she might get a tip.
Rocco shook the ice in his glass before he took a drink. “So Aurelia is still in the game.”
“Yeah. She reached out a couple days ago.”
“That’s good news.”
“I helped her move her stuff out of that asshole’s apartment.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yeah.” I took a drink. “She’s totally out of his league.”
“Then he’s either gay or stupid.”
“The other woman moved in with her two kids, so it’s gotta be the latter. Guy’s a fucking idiot. Mark my words—in a couple weeks, he’ll reach out to her. When the last tendrils of the dream clouds start to fade away.”
“You think she’ll take him back?”
“Not a chance. She can’t go from a stallion to a pony.”
“Are you the stallion or the pony?”
I fought the smirk from hitting my mouth. “Fuck you.”
He laughed then took a drink. He also had dark hair, but he was a lot burlier than I was, choosing mass and muscle over cut. He watched the game on the TV for a while before he addressed me again. “Glad things worked out. I know you’re into her.”
“Well . . .” That wasn’t really the situation, and I could just stay quiet about it and keep it to myself, but I didn’t have a filter with Rocco. If I were to have a best friend, it would be him, but I wouldn’t say that pussy shit to him or anyone else. “It’s complicated.”
He turned back to me, his arm resting on the table as he waited for an explanation.
“She knew I was involved in organized crime before, but I painted a crisper picture for her.” She’d been a bit skittish when I’d mentioned it in Taormina, but she was able to quickly move on because we were in paradise. “I can tell it freaked her out.”
“This is the life we’ve known for so long that it’s easy to forget how normal people live.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
“She says she needs to heal and all that, so I’ll just take it slow. I know she needs time to adjust to the emperor thing, so taking it easy is really my only option at this point.”
“What’s the rush, Con?” He turned back to the TV, his head resting against the brick wall.
“Not a rush per se.” I shook the ice in my glass before I took another drink. “I just miss what we had. Ever since we got back, she’s been focused on her shit with Enzo and work and her friends.”
“You mean, like a normal person.”
“Why are you always a dick when there’s a game on?”
“Because I’m about to lose a mill on Manchester.”
I gave a slight shake of my head. “Could have bought a nice woman for that.”
“What’s Aurelia’s rate?”
I gave a cold chuckle. “Keep it up, and a chunk of my glass is going to be impaled in your skull, asshole.”
He turned his attention to the TV for a while, and when enough silence passed, I assumed we’d moved on from the subject of Aurelia, but then he broached it again. “Are you guys exclusive?”
“Haven’t had that conversation, but yes.”
“So, you’re just going to assume? Is she even sleeping with you?”
“Well, no.” It wasn’t a dealbreaker for me, but fuck, I missed it. Wherever I was, pussy wasn’t far away. I never liked to jerk off because I preferred to share the passion with someone. After touching Aurelia’s flames, they were the only heat I wanted to feel on my skin. When I’d asked her to dinner, getting her on her back hadn’t been my agenda, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t on my mind . . . a lot. She told me she needed time to move on from her last relationship, that it could be months, so I was free to do whatever I wanted in the interim.
But she was all I wanted.
Rocco gave a quiet chuckle but kept his eyes on the TV.
“What?”
“You aren’t gonna want to hear it.”
“No, but say it anyway.”
“I just think it’s fucking hilarious that the one woman you want is the one you can’t have.”
Chapter 17
Aurelia
I finally got the keys to my new place.
What a fucking relief, because I needed to get out of Cindy’s apartment. I’d gone from having a three-bedroom apartment with two and a half bathrooms to the two of us sharing a tiny bathroom. It was even more challenging when her boyfriend was around, and he stared at me way too much.