Page 35 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

Wear it tonight.

—Capo

A noise somewhere between a laugh and groan emerged from my mouth as I read the short card three times in quick succession.

“Dante?” Beau asked, leaning over my shoulder to peer at the spiky script.

“Mmm,” I agreed, staring at the card as if it would reveal the secrets of the man who wrote it.

“He likes you,” Beau decided.

I let out a little scoff, but I couldn’t deny it confused me. “At the most, I would say I intrigue him. The way one predator intrigues another.”

Beau considered me for a second. “It sounds as though you might have met your match.”

I fought the urge to snort because it wasn’t ladylike, but as Beau ushered me into my bathroom to freshen up my makeup, I wondered with a tangled sense of dread and wonder if perhaps he was right.

The party was in full swing by the time Elena Lombardi deigned to show up. I was leading a toast for the Feast of San Gennaro when the air in the room seemed to shift, the particles rearranging themselves to make room for a bold new presence.

I continued my toast, but I could feel her eyes on my skin like an electric prod.

“Aiz’ aiz’ aiz’, acal’, acal’, acal’, accost’, accost’, accost’, a salut’ vost’,” I cried as I led the group around me to lift their glasses up, down, together, and then to their mouths for a robust sip.

It was over the rim of my wineglass that I finally swept my eyes across the packed room and narrowed in on Elena.

I sucked in a breath, nearly choking on my wine as my gaze widened at the sight of her.

Ah, to think I’d thought she had lacked the inherent sensuality of her sister Cosima.

I was more than happy to be proved so spectacularly wrong.

Ammazza, she was glorious.

Even in the seductive dress, she was still a vision of elegance, hair held off her neck in some kind of hairstyle that had the odd thick curl brushing the creamy skin of her neck and cheeks, only a simple gold chain at the column of that long throat. I’d only ever seen her in feminine but extremely conservative suits and blouses for work and once in a tuxedo dress whenOsteria Lombardihad been bombed by Noel in an attempt to kill Alexander, Cosima, and myself.

Never like this.

Apparently unaware of the gaze of dozens of lusty men and envious women pinned to her, she handed off the boxes of tiramisu to a server and began to wind through the bodies on her way to the kitchen. She looked like some heathen goddess of sex and war, conquering the room with her allure with every step she took toward me.

Towardme.

Something primal in my gut tightened and went white-hot. With any other woman, I would have given in to instinct and surged forward to claim that red hair with my fist and that red mouth with my own. I would have steered her toward the nearest room with a door and fucked her against it, rending that red dress in two so it stained the floor like spilled blood, leaving her naked for my ravishing.

Fuck.

My cock jumped and hardened in my suit pants.

It was irrational and ridiculously stupid to become attracted to one of my lawyers, my best friend’s sister, a woman I was certain wouldn’t know sexual passion if it slapped her in the arse.

So, instead of offering one of the dozen compliments that lingered on my tongue like the taste of my Chianti, I pinned her with a haughty look and drawled, “Bene. You wore the dress.”

Instantly, her carefully controlled expression dissolved in the vinegar of my words. “I wasn’t aware I had a choice.”

“There is always a choice,” I said with atsk, condescending to her just to see the way a flush would spill down her cheeks to pool at the top of her exposed chest. “You made the right one.”

“You flatter yourself if you think it had anything to do with pleasing you,” she countered easily, so quick and cold, her words landed like flurries on my skin. She idly smoothed a hand down her flat stomach to the slight flare of one hip. “The dress pleasedme. It was too exquisite not to wear.”

“Of course,” I agreed, secretly pleased because I’d chosen it myself from a selection Bambi had shown me earlier that afternoon.