Page 41 of Ice & Steel

I scrambled as far as the chain would allow, leaning against the headboard, and pulled the sheet up over my body. Tucking it under my arms to conceal my breasts. The knob turned and my heart flipped, pounding hard against my ribs.

I’d anticipated something brutal, a hit man covered in tattoos and scars, but that wasn’t who walked through the door.

He was tall and lean and eerily handsome like he’d come from old money. It was hard to guess his age, but I guessed him to be somewhere in his early sixties. But he was remarkably well preserved. His slicked hair was parted loosely on the side, still holding some dark brown among the gray. And his square jaw had a thin-lipped mouth with faint lines at each corner.

His eyes fell on me. Dark and startlingly beautiful.

“Olivia,” he said with an English accent. “Oh…forgive my manners. Mrs. Esposito.”

My fingers curled in the sheets. My knuckles went white and my heart accelerated.

He reached outside the door and dragged a chair into the room. I kept completely still, watching him like a scared rabbit, as he carried it across the floor and set it beside the bed.

He seemed so…mild. Like he’d just walked out of an old mansion on a peaceful English estate.

He offered a short, quick smile that did nothing to relieve my fear.

“I apologize for...the circumstances,” he said, waving a hand. “I asked that you not be harmed, so I am truly sorry for your bumps and bruises.”

My lips parted. I swallowed hard.

“Who are you?”

He extended his hand. I didn’t take it so he settled back, crossing one leg over the other.

“Riccardo Mezzasalma,” he said. “I’m a friend of Lucien’s.”

“No,” I said swiftly. “You are not.”

He laughed, compressing it until it was just a tremor in his shoulders. “You are very sure of yourself, my dear. What makes you trust a man like Lucien Esposito so thoroughly you believe you know everything about him.”

My mind went back to our night at the hotel. When he’d gone down on his knees, bound by leather, and willingly put himself into my hands. My husband was made of scars, pain, death, rage, murder, blood. He was a complicated man locked away in a wasteland of ice.

But for me, he extended his hand. He lowered his drawbridge and sent away the guards at his gate.

“Lucien would not consort with anyone who would cause me harm,” I said flatly. “He would never harm me.”

Riccardo’s brows rose. “But he did, didn’t he?”

Confused, I stared him down with narrowed eyes.

“He took his anger out on you,” Riccardo said. “Do you remember that?”

I felt my lips part. “How do…how do you know about that?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Perhaps I was there. At that New Year’s Eve party. Perhaps I saw him pursue you into the darkened corridors of his hallowed halls.”

I cringed at the mockery in his tone. “Who the fuck are you?”

His jaw worked and he crossed his arms over his chest.

“That’s complicated, Olivia,” he said, his voice brightening when he said my name. Like this was some sort of fucking joke. “And it requires a longer explanation. So how about I unbind you and you go shower up and put some clothes on. It’s almost dinner time and I’m sure you’re famished.”

He rose and before I could move, he’d unfastened the anklet and pulled the sheet back over my leg. I sat frozen as he went to the door and pulled it open.

“I’ll send a girl for you in thirty minutes. Everything you need is in the bathroom. If you do not obey me, I will have you dragged naked down to the dining room.”

He disappeared and the lock clicked. Hands shaking, I forced myself upright and walked across the empty room to the door on the far end. It opened to reveal a plain bathroom with a shower, a stack of clothes, and a bag of toiletries and makeup.