“Will you be serious?” I stammer.
The waiter arrives with the bill and I go to grab my purse, Giuliano holds up his hand in a stop signal and passes his card over.
My eyes flick out the front doors to the street, are they out there waiting for us?
I get a vision of men with guns and bundling us into a car trunk and driving us to a deserted place.
Would they rape me before they kill me?
God….
Adrenaline really begins to hammer hard, I can feel my pulse in my ears as fear takes me over.
“There you go.” The waiter smiles as he calmly hands Giuliano’s card back to him. “Have a nice night.”
“Thank you.” Giuliano stands and pulls out my chair and takes my hand in his. “Let’s go.” We walk through the restaurant. “Keep your head down,” he whispers as we head out the front doors.
What?
I drop my head.
Oh no, he thinks they’re here.
He leads me out into the street, the pavement is crowded with people.
“Fuck,” he whispers.
“What?”
He gestures up ahead with his chin; two police are walking toward us, they’re deep in conversation with each other.
“They can’t see us,” he says as he pulls me into an alley between two shops.
“Why not?” I stammer in a panic as he pulls me along at speed.
“Because they’re on Lombardi’s fucking payroll.”
My eyes snap around the alley, it’s dark with no way out. “What do we do?”
He looks around quickly and then pushes me up against the wall. “Sorry.” His lips take mine.
“What are you doing?” I try to pull away from him.
“Kissing you so they can’t see our faces.”
Ahh.
He holds my face in his hands as he kisses me, his tongue taking no prisoners as he pins me to the wall.
My eyes close involuntarily and I know this isn’t real.
But…. Oh.
The way he kisses.
I feel it all the way to my toes.
He kisses me again and this time I have no resistance, I kiss him back.
My hands go to his hips as goose bumps scatter up my spine. Our kiss deepens and the air between us becomes electrified, our breathing labored as we struggle for control.
His eyes flutter closed and when they open again, I see him.
The man I used to love, the one that loved me back.
He’s still in there.
9
Francesca
His lips drop to my neck and his teeth trail up to my jaw as his hands go to my behind and pull me onto his hard cock.
Oh….
Then it snaps, all control.
We kiss like our lives depend on it, hungry and wanting. A million forbidden feelings coming to fruition.
The man I can’t have.
I pull out of the kiss and I drop my head.
We stand in the darkness, our foreheads touching as we pant, struggling for air.
Silence hanging between us.
Lost in regret at what we both know we can’t have…at what we shouldn’t have done.
I’m a bad person.
“I think they’re gone,” he finally says.
I nod, unable to push any words past my lips, because no matter what I say, it will be wrong.
He takes my hand and leads me back out to the street and we turn the corner to see the black Mercedes wagon waiting for us, he opens the door and I get into the back seat, he slides in behind me. The car pulls out into the traffic and I stare out the window in a state of shock.
What the hell just happened?
“We can’t go back to your hotel tonight,” he says, monotone.
I nod, my gaze still fixed out the window, my body still tingling from his forbidden touch.
“If you need anything I’ll have someone pick it up from a store for you. It’s too risky to check out of your hotel tonight, it will only bring attention,” he murmurs.
“Okay,” I whisper.
My phone rings in my bag and I dig it out and read the caller’s name.
Marcel
My heart drops and I glance over to see Giuliano read the name on my screen too. His eyes return out to the traffic as it whizzes by, he seems angry or pensive, or…I don’t even know.
Fucking hell, this is one big disaster, I switch my phone on silent and put it into my purse. I’ll call Marcel back later.
This is messed up.
We drive in awkward silence and I know that we were just pretending to kiss and I know that it didn’t mean anything. I run my fingers over my lips that are still tingling, my skin still burns from his dark stubble.
It felt real.
Arousal throbs where it shouldn’t, and shame fills me.
He’s, my brother.
Twenty minutes later we pull into an underground parking lot, the large metal gates slowly rise and I turn to look through the back window to see three cars pull in behind us, wait…we have people trailing us? I glance over at Giuliano, his steely gaze is focused out the window, I turn back to the front, of course we do.
His words from earlier come back to me. “Our blood is a trophy. Our death is a sport.”
“Good evening, Mr. Ferrara.” One of the guards nods, the men all stay quiet and on high alert, very different to how they are with me, and I get the feeling that Giuliano rules with an iron fist. Nobody would dare step a toe out of line in his presence.
We take the elevator and once at the top floor the elevator opens into a foyer area, Giuliano puts his hand over a scanner and the doors open.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“My place,” he says as he stands back and lets me walk in before him. My eyes scan the huge apartment, It’s super trendy with a ceiling-to-floor window view over Rome.
“Your place?” I frown as I take my scarf off and throw it over the back of the couch.
“I lived here before we moved operations out.”
I nod and look around, it’s very impressive.
Giuliano walks through and disappears up a large set of stairs. “The guest room is this way,” he calls, he’s dismissing me.
Oh….
I follow him up the stairs and down the grand hallway. “I’ve had your room filled with essentials but if you need anything just call.”
“Thanks.” I look around, the bedroom is beautiful, rich and luxurious with exotic art.
“Keep the door locked.”
My face falls. “You think that someone might come to my room?”
“I know they would want to.” His eyes hold mine and suddenly it becomes crystal clear who he wants to keep out of my bedroom.
Himself.
“Oh…oh…kay…” I stammer.
“Good night, Francesca.” He walks out of my bedroom and begins up the hall and I follow him out.
“Giuliano.”
He turns back toward me. “Yes.”
“Thank you.”
He nods but stays silent, we stare at each other and the pull toward him is indescribable. His eyes hold mine as he waits for me to speak, there is so much that I want to say, not one word that I can.
“Is there any way I can just finish this design job? It’s a big deal for my career, a large hotel chain and this is the first one. I just have to be here a couple of times over the next few weeks and the rest of the time I can work from the Paris office. After the Rome one is refurbished, I’ll never have to come back here, but if I don’t finish this I can’t move on to the next hotel in another country and I’m going to have to resign.”