Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
She blinks, her eyes glistening.
“Hey…” I move around the table, kneeling next to her. “It’s okay.”
“I’m not crying.” She rubs her cheeks. “I need to toughen up. Heck, before you, I was tough, so ditto. You’ve also brought something out in me, but you can’t make promises about the acting thing.”
“Yes, I can,” I counter. “I promise you if you …” If she what? Wants to marry me for real? What are we even discussing here? “You won’t have to sacrifice your passion.”
A smile makes the corner of her mouth twitch. I lean up, tempted by her lips, but she turns her face away again. This time, I don’t kiss her on the cheek. It’s too private here. Despite everything, she’s too goddamn appealing to me. It’s like there’s something deep inside telling me to claim her.
When I return to my seat, she says, “Thank you.” I don’t know if she means my promise or that I didn’t kiss her.
“I can put it in writing if you want,” I say jokingly, reading the look on her face.
“Why would you say that?”
“You seem to doubt me.”
“No. I was just thinking …”
“About what?”
She sighs. “We’re talking about me still being an actor if anything about this thing, us, can be real. It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t belong in your world. Your dad would never approve. My aunt would never approve.”
“Maybe you weren’t born in this world,” I growl, “but belong is a tricky word. Maybe you belong with me.”
“So it was love at first sight?” she says bitterly.
“Life is complicated,” I say huskily. “It’s not like movies. It’s not like books. Love at first sight is overrated. However, feeling, certainty, knowing that you were different and special the moment I saw you, that’s a fact, and I don’t care if you think I’m just saying this or it’s lame. It’s the truth.”
“I felt the same,” she whispers, holding my eyes with such intensity I want to kiss her again. “But …” She bites down.
“It’s okay. You can say it.”
“That was before I saw your dark side.”
“Can you ever accept it, Elena?” I say, my voice getting as low as my feelings when I think about this ending. It was always going to end, but it feels unfair now, somehow. “Sometimes a man has to do bad things to stop worse things from happening.”
“Is that fair, though?” she asks.
“Fair?”
Maybe it’s the darkness in my tone, or the mafioso in me is too close to the surface. She looks down at the table, making me feel like an ass. I touch her chin and guide her gaze back to mine. “You never have to be afraid to talk to me.”
“You went so far,” she whispers. “You were … feral, savage, primal. Maybe it’s like you said. This isn’t a movie. This is real life, and in real life, it was just … I don’t know—more than shocking. I don’t know if a word exists for it.”
“I lost it,” I admit, “but when I saw him about to drag you down into that cellar, I knew nothing good was going to come from it. I knew he was going to do vicious, unforgivable things to you. It happened fast, but in the space of less than a second, my mind filled with all those sick acts he would have committed. I rarely let myself go like that, but he deserved it.”
“He said he had family to take care of.”
“I’m sure he said lots of things.”
“He said he was disappointed he wouldn’t get to do … things to me.” She shudders. “I bet you think I’m a sucker for even caring. I bet you think it’s sad that I would even think about this longer than a day.”
“No,” I snap. “I think about every bad thing I’ve ever done all the damn time. I try not to let it weigh me down. It’s like I said. If the Morettis didn’t run this city, it’d be people like Vincenzo and his soldiers—men who would happily drag women into cellars and do unspeakable things to them. I can be sorry that you saw it, sorry that I went full berserker on him, but I’ll never be sorry for saving you.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be,” she whispers, touching my hand and clutching me tightly. “Dario, can I kiss you?”
I smirk. “As if you’d ever need to ask.”
Walking around the table again, I pull her into my arms. She grabs onto my shoulders and pulls herself to me, her body grinding against mine in a way that awakens all my instincts. I groan as I find her lips, but I’m careful not to push too far, careful not to press her beyond her comfort zone.
Even as my manhood rages and my mind burns with all the lust we could share, I keep it sweet. My woman deserves that.