Page 29 of Corrupt Crown
When I hold them out in offer, Emiliano grins even as he shakes his head. “You’ve found the way to my stone-cold heart,Coniglietta.”
He tucks it underneath his arm, then ambles towards the staircase. He’s almost reached it when I catch up to him. “What does that mean?”
He stops at the top of the stairs, surprise clear on his face. “You trulydon’tunderstand Italian?”
Disbelief colors his voice, but before I can respond, Rafe’s voice carries up from downstairs. “We’ve established that already,Fratello.”
I look down to find Rafe hasn’t graced us with his presence. In fact, the man I’m looking at is nothing like the man I met in Lazise. Miles away from the man who brought me for dinner and laughed in the rain with me.
He’s not even like the man who told me he’d bend me over the piano last night.
Wearing a black fitted suit with a black shirt and tie, his ebony hair slicked back off his handsome face, he’s Don Rafael now.
And my panties just went up in flames.
“Though her reason remains elusive…”
He slowly ascends the stairs until he’s eye to eye with me, and then he extends his hand, palm facing up. His chocolatey eyes are almost midnight, looking into mine as though he can see right down inside of me. “It’s show time.”
I slip my hand into his, that familiar tingle sending a thrill through me as Rafe shoots Emiliano a look. “And why the fuck are you calling her Bunny? What’s that all about?”
Emiliano shoots me an apologetic glance as he shrugs. “Well,Fratello…being honest, all that blonde hair, those…” he trails off to a low murmur. “Those big tits, and tiny waist…she reminds me of those Playboy bunnies in the magazines Alessio hid?—”
Both Emiliano and I jolt when Rafe barks a genuine laugh before he leads me down the stairs. “Fucking priceless.”
When we reach the ground floor, Rafe’s laughter cuts off abruptly, all mirth draining from his face as he turns narrowed eyes up at his bewildered friend.
“But if you so much as glance at Miss Rivers’s breasts again, our history will mean shit. I’ll tie your dick in a knot and wear it as a motherfucking bowtie,capisti?”
CHAPTER 9
ELODIE
Rafe leadsme to an open-plan space with a huge projector screen on one wall. Two chairs are placed before it, with the silvery-haired man from the day of my arrival occupying one of them.
He stands when we arrive, walking closer. “It’s almost time. I’ll keep her out of view until prompted?—”
Rafe cuts him off when he holds up his hand. “Leave us,Zio.”
“But Sofia wants me to?—”
“Santo Cristo!” Rafe throws up his hands. “You know I could give less of a fuck what my cunt of a stepmotherwants, Antonio.Get.Out.”
The older man presses his lips together for a long beat before he nods and shifts his gaze to mine. That distaste from before is still present, though it’s more diluted in Rafe’s presence. I raise my chin, holding his stare, until his mouth lifts in a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes when he glances back at Rafe.
“I won’t be far away if you require me, Rafael.”
Then he strides briskly toward the door we just entered through, leaving us in silence.
I glance around the room, immediately noting an enormous painting dominating one wall. My feet gravitate toward it. The effect of the picture calling to me is visceral.
As I get closer, I can see it’s a photo of a man and woman standing on a clifftop, the sea stretching out at their backs. A tall, tanned man in a dark shirt and pants stands beside a heavily pregnant woman with pale blonde hair wearing a light blue dress. Her smile is bright, and though he isn’t returning it, there’s a protectiveness in his eyes that shines clear as day.
The love flowing between them pulsates off the canvas and, as I absorb it, I feel Rafe move closer until his chest is almost against my back.
“Who are they?” The question escapes on a whisper.
“My parents.”