Page 21

I was in my office, trying to focus on my paperwork. But, it seemed to be a difficult thing to do, with Larissa running through my mind. For the past four nights, we’d made our way to each other’s beds and every moment I wasn’t with her was an aching pain in my bones.

Just then, the phone rang and my heart lurched as I reached for it, allowing myself for a brief second to believe it was Larissa.

But then, I saw the caller ID. All my daydreams vanished at the number I saw, and my heart turned cold.

No, I thought to myself. Not now. Panic clung to me, not at having been discovered, but at the fact that she might be taken away from me.

This call had been inevitable from the moment Larissa's bodyguard, Dom, saw me take her away from the mall.

It’s okay, I released a breath. Whatever it is, I’ll handle it. With a firm hand, I accepted the call.

“Lebedev.”

“You fucking bastard.” Gastone's voice trembled with rage. “My bodyguard saw you. He saw everything.”

I leaned back in my leather chair, eyes drifting to the closed door beyond which Larissa was reading in the sunroom. “Did he now? And what exactly does he think he saw?”

“Don't play games with me. Dom was with her when you took her. You fucking kidnapped my sister and I’m going to—”

A smile curled my lips. “Kidnapped? That's a strong word for someone who was wandering around the mall, don’t you think?”

“How dare you insinuate what you do?” he roared into the phone.

“I’m not insinuating a thing. I’m simply telling you Larissa is well looked after.”

“Return her. Now. Or I swear to God, I will burn everything you love to ash. Your brothers. Your sisters. Your entire fucking organization.”

The threat slithered down my spine, but I'd spent decades in this world and knew when I heard a dog bark. “Gastone, you seem upset. Perhaps we should discuss this when you're thinking more...rationally.”

“You have twenty-four hours.”

“I don't respond well to ultimatums.” My voice dropped an octave. “And you should know better than to threaten a Lebedev. Your sister is unharmed and comfortable. More than comfortable, actually.”

A pause stretched between us. “What does that mean?”

“It means you should tread carefully. Your men come near my family, and I'll mail Larissa back to you in pieces.” The words tasted bitter. They were a lie, and I obviously had no intention of harming her, but Gastone didn't need to know the truth of what we were. It would only make him angrier, more powerful. But if I scared him enough, he’d be more careful. “We clear?”

“Like hell,” he spat. “This isn't over.”

“It never is with our families, is it?” I hung up before he could respond.

I stared at the phone in shock as the silence clung over me. When I first took Larissa, I thought it would be a matter of days, or weeks, before Gastone discovered I had her. But when we flew under his radar and weeks turned to months, everything changed. I stopped thinking of Gastone. I only ever thought of her.

My hands trembled from the knowledge that I couldn’t treat her as merely collateral anymore. To not have her around was an impossible idea. This house, without her, my life, without her, all of it seemed too painful to comprehend.

I heard her laugh drift through the door—a light, musical sound that filled my halls with joy. The smart move would be to tell her about the call, to remind her of the reality of our situation. But for some reason, the idea pulled at my heart, nearly crushing it. She sometimes asked if her brothers knew where she was, and when she did, her question was always laced with hope. If I told her Gastone called, she might wish to leave.

My heart pounded as I realized a nerve-wracking truth: I didn’t want Larissa to leave. I wanted her to stay. I wanted her by my side.

The guilt washed over me. I was keeping a secret by not telling her Gastone called. This time around, I was the one who didn’t deserve her truth.

I needed to clear my head. I knew what the right thing to do was, but somehow, couldn’t muster the courage to do it. Instead, like a coward, I grabbed my keys.

“I'm stepping out for a bit,” I called to her as I passed the sunroom. She looked up from her book, those gorgeous aquamarine eyes catching the light. “Business. Won't be long.”

She nodded, a slight furrow between her brows. “Everything okay?”

“Everything's fine.” The lie came easily, though something in her expression suggested she didn't believe me. In just a few weeks, she'd learned to read me better than people who'd known me for years.

I needed air. Needed to think. And there was only one place where I could do that properly.

***

I parked my Aston Martin in Caspian’s circular drive, the home that also acted as a family home for our younger siblings on and off, when they were between places, and took a moment to collect my thoughts before heading inside.

The security detail nodded respectfully as I passed. Inside, I found Elena in the library, curled in a window seat with a glass of red wine, her dark hair piled messily atop her head.

“The prodigal son returns,” she said with surprise as she looked up from her book. “To what do we owe the pleasure? Caspian's not here.”

“I’m not here to see him,” I said.

“Of course you aren’t,” she sighed. “He’s mad at you, you know?”

I ignored her statement. Of course I knew . “I came to see you, actually.”

That got her attention. Elena marked her page and set the book aside, studying me carefully. “What's wrong?”

“Why would something be wrong?”

“Because you only seek me out when you need to talk, and you only need to talk when something's wrong. You're many things, big brother, but complicated isn't one of them.” She patted the seat beside her. “So. Talk.”

I sighed and joined her, accepting the glass of wine she poured from the decanter. “Gastone Ajello called me.”

Elena's eyebrows shot up. “About his sister?”

I stared at her. “You know?”

“Gio, please. Give me some credit. Of course I know. Everyone knows now. Caspian told us who she truly is.” She swirled her wine.

I took a long swallow of wine. “It wasn't supposed to be like this.”

“Like what?”

The words stuck in my throat. I wasn't accustomed to vulnerability, even with Elena. “She was supposed to be leverage. A business move.”

“And now?”

“Now I don't know what she is.” I rubbed my face in frustration. “I have... feelings for her.”

Elena's expression softened. “Oh, Gio.”

“Don't look at me like that. Like I'm some lovesick teenager.”

“Aren't you, though?” A smile danced on her lips. “The steadiest of the Lebedev brothers, smitten by a girl half his age.”

“Seventeen years isn't half,” I grumbled.

Elena set her glass down. “So what's the problem? Besides the obvious family feud, of course.”

“The problem is that she's still technically my prisoner and that she’s with me because I kidnapped her. The problem is her brother just threatened to destroy our entire family if I don't return her.”

“And will you?”

“No.” The word came out more forcefully than I'd intended. “I mean... not unless she wants to go.”

Elena's eyes widened slightly. “That's new.”

“What is?”

“You caring what someone else wants.” She studied me for a moment. “You know, she looks at you.”

I stopped pacing. “What do you mean?”

“When you're not watching. When you're focused on something else. She looks at you like...” Elena tilted her head, searching for the words. “Like you look at her. With fascination and admiration.”

Something in my chest tightened. “You've only met her once.”

Something in Elena’s face fell flat, but I didn’t think much of it when she shrugged.

“Once was enough. I know that look.”

“So what are you saying, Elena?”

“What I’m saying is don’t lose a happiness you can gain down the line to get what you want now. I don’t know if that makes sense. I’m saying trust yourself. Trust her.”

In that moment, I knew exactly what she meant. I realized how wrong I’d been. I didn’t want to keep Larissa in my house; I wanted to keep her in my life.

I caught her hand and squeezed it gently. “Thank you.”

***

When I returned, I found Larissa in the kitchen, attempting to cook something that filled the house with the scent of garlic and tomatoes. She turned when she heard me, a cute little smudge of sauce on her cheek. I walked over and quickly wiped it from her cheek, licking it off my finger.

She giggled as she swatted at her cheek. “You’re back!” she squealed and then pulled me into a hug once she had made sure she didn’t have anything else on her face.

“I’m back,” I said, moving away from her and inspecting the pot. “What are you making?”

“Pasta arrabbiata. It's probably terrible.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“Hey, I might be Italian, but no one said I was a good cook,” she protested.

I laughed as she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “I thought... well, you seemed tense before you left.”

The thought that she would cook for me, or at least try to, disarmed me completely. In the time she’d been here, she’d noticed my moods and carved out a space for herself in my life with such subtle persistence that I'd barely noticed until now. And here she was, cooking for me after I'd threatened to dismember her in a conversation with her brother.

“Come!” she said as she pulled me to the informal kitchen table where there was already a setting for two. “We should eat. I’m starving.”

I poured us some wine while she served pasta and salad. For a brief moment, I wondered if I should tell her now. But something in my heart tugged at me to let this moment remain untainted, to remember this night, in case we didn’t have more time together.

We ate, drank, and talked about nothing important; a book she had read, a call I needed to make tomorrow—normal things that felt extraordinary in their ordinariness.

But after we cleared the plates and I watched her ready herself for bed, I took her by the hand and motioned to the table with my eyes. She frowned, instantly tensing, but something in my expression must have made her pause, made her stay.

“Larissa,” I said once we settled around the table. “We need to talk.”

Her expression was immediately guarded. “About what?”

“About your situation here.” I chose my words carefully. “I don't want you to feel like a prisoner anymore.”

She set down her fork. “I haven't felt like a prisoner for a while now, Gio.”

“You haven't tried to run.”

“No. I haven't.” Her eyes held mine steadily.

“Why not?”

She considered the question, her eyes distant. “At first, because I was scared. Then because I was curious. Now... I don't know. It's complicated.”

“There will come a point,” I said, the words scraping my throat, “when you'll want to go home. When your family and your life will call to you. That's natural.”

Her lips curved slightly. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Giovanni Lebedev?”

“No.” The answer came too quickly, too honestly. “The opposite, actually. I'm trying to say that whatever's happening between us—and something is happening, isn't it?—I don't want it to end when that day comes.”

She was quiet for so long that I thought I had misread everything. Then her hand moved across the counter to cover mine, her skin warm and soft against my calloused palm.

“I want to stay,” she said, each word deliberate. “For now. Not because I'm forced to, but because I choose to.”

The relief that flooded through me was staggering, but the reality had to be faced. “Your brother won't understand. You’ll have to return to them.”

“Perhaps someday I will, and when that day comes, my brothers will cause trouble. Then again, they never understand anything I do. But I promise, they won’t be the reason things change between us.”

She smiled, and that smile, one full of mischief, loosened something that had been knotted inside me all day. “Besides, I'm a grown woman. I make my own choices.”

I turned my hand beneath hers, lacing our fingers together. “And what are you choosing, exactly?”

She leaned forward, close enough that I could reach out and lick her lips. “To find out where this goes.”

In that moment, I realized some risks couldn't be calculated, only taken.

“I can work with that,” I said softly, and finally leaned in for that kiss.