Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
I tell myself I’m not thinking about her, that I only check the rearview mirror for flashing lights and not a glimpse of white chiffon, but without meaning to, I take a turn I shouldn’t.
In seconds, I pass a familiar road and race through a familiar manned gate.
Lombardo is the private airstrip that my family owns. It doesn’t matter the time or the day. If a Caruso family member needs to move fast, we head to Lombardo. We always keep a jet fueled up and idling, ready to move at a second’s notice.
It seemed like the right place to take Azra when a kiss bombarded me with reckless thoughts.
I slow as I approach the end of the tarmac. The floodlights highlighting the empty hangar cast long shadows across the equally empty tarmac. The jet I put Azra on is gone, leaving only the faint smell of jet fuel behind.
I could check the GPS or call the pilot to find out where she went, but I don’t.
The stupidity needs to stop. She was interesting. That’s it. I don’t want commitment. I never have.
Besides, she doesn’t want you.
She wants Antonio.
Irritated with myself, I rev the engine and skid out of the airport, heading home.
By the time I pull into the driveway, the adrenaline I want to disperse on Antonio’s face has burned off. But instead of leaving me exhausted, it leaves me hollow and irritated.
I need some molly, and maybe a line or two of coke.
They’ll take care of the niggle I can’t shake.
The house is quiet, the lights dimmed with an eerie calm that usually settles me.
Not tonight.
It just pisses me off more.
I increase my speed, eager to lose myself in the finest drugs in the country.
When Giovanni steps out of the shadows near the staircase, I startle like a bitch. With his arms crossed and his expression tight, he gestures with his head toward the study he’s been using as an office ever since he turned his office into a nursery for his unborn son.
“I need to speak with you.”
“In the morning,” I say, brushing past him. “I’m tired.”
“Now, Matteo!”
I stop midstride. Giovanni hasn’t barked at me like that in months—not since Valentina softened him, and not since he learned how to breathe through the anger my taunts forever inspire instead of retaliating with violence.
I love Valentina like a sister, but man, she needs to step the fuck back.
When you’ve had pussy on tap for years and have grown somewhat bored with the selection, you take snippets of excitement any way you can get them.
Riling my brothers will never replicate the high I got finishing down Azra’s throat, but since I shipped her off, it may be the only entertainment I’ll achieve without a mammoth amount of effort in the next six months.
A man can only fake it so much before he’s called out as a fraud.
“What’s got your panties in a twist?” I mutter, turning back toward Giovanni.
He doesn’t answer. He just jerks his head toward his office again.
When he walks in the direction he nudged, I follow like a good, obedient puppy.
It isn’t like I have anything better to do.
Breaking through the door, I expect paperwork, a crisis, or perhaps even a lecture about the Adami mess.
What I don’t expect is her.
Azra.
She’s sitting on Giovanni’s chair like she owns the space. Her bare feet rest on his desk, and her expression is as composed as a queen holding court in a room of paupers.
My heart stops, and my breath catches like a soft cock.
Maybe I should cut off my cock and store it in my trophy cabinet.
I clearly have no use for it anymore.
As we undertake an intense stare-down, every thought I’ve tried to bury all night comes roaring back to life.
She didn’t leave.
She’s here.
I have no idea what that means, so I’m torn between being relieved and pissed.
I go for the latter when the removal of her feet from Giovanni’s desk reveals the reason for her visit. A marriage contract with Antonio’s crossed-out name replaced with mine rests on the glossy wood.
The date of the proposed marriage brings back the frustration I felt when she reminded me her place in my life would be temporary.
One week from Sunday, she’s scheduled to marry my archnemesis.
“Welcome home, honey,” she says, my jaw spasming. “Wifey-to-be missed you.”
“What are you doing here, Azra?” What? I wasn’t lying when I said I’m wrecked. “And how did you get here? I took you to the airport myself.”
Her lips twist, highlighting that they’re still swollen. “You told the pilot to take me anywhere I wanted to go. You didn’t specify it had to be somewhere foreign.”
I growl, equally hating and loving her smarts.
She doesn’t look afraid or apologetic as she rounds Giovanni’s desk and props her ass on the edge, mere feet from me. She looks like someone who walked into the lion’s den and sat on the throne instead of on the bleachers with the rest of the civilians.