Page 10 of Scorned Beauty (Scorned Fate #5)

Chapter

Seven

Dom

I stared into narrowed green eyes. “What the fuck!” I yelled, coming fully awake as I flung the orange blob of fur across the bed. The shriek of an animal reached my ears while Sloane rushed into the room and gaped at us.

Crouching sideways, Ginger’s ears flattened. She was howling and hissing threateningly like a creature needing an exorcism. This was no scaredy-cat and she wasn’t one who backed down.

“That thing was on top of me.” I refused to move because I was completely naked under the blanket. What if she came after my balls?

Sloane, meanwhile, erupted in laughter and walked into the room and gently patted Ginger. “What’s got you caterwauling, Ginger? Was the big man mean to you?”

“Cater-what?” I asked. “And I wasn’t mean to her. I just woke up.”

“It’s a special language of cats when they’re in heat or fighting.”

“If that’s your way of discouraging us from having sex, it’s not going to work,” I warned, only half kidding.

As much as the cat almost gave me a heart attack, my cock gave a hearty nod to Sloane’s attire of nurse scrubs.

We spent two days fucking, eating, and drinking, but I was getting more drunk on her.

At Sloane’s husky laugh, my cock rose.

Her eyes fell on its outline and she shook her head. “I’m late.”

Her body was a work of art. I considered myself an ass man, but there was so much of Sloane to explore.

Sucking on her tits got me hard, but the thought of burying my mouth in her sweet cunt got me harder than a tire iron.

And thrusting into her? I wished I hadn’t felt her bare because I could weep every time I had to use a condom, but I couldn’t risk getting her pregnant.

Her heart-shaped face and her thick-lashed emerald-green eyes enthralled me.

I always thought her lips were unusually pale, but it was one of her disguises.

She deliberately covered her freckles and her defined cheekbones with makeup so she would appear flat.

Even at Bianca’s wedding, she was in the most shapeless dress with barely any makeup probably because many of the guests were in the mob.

In her nurse’s uniform, Sloane’s face was once again a pale canvas.

I knew what her face looked like when framed with her glorious red hair, but at the moment, it was twisted into a severe bun away from her features.

To say I was intrigued with Sloane Scott was putting it mildly.

She said we should keep our personal lives out of the arrangement, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to have a report on her by the end of the day.

“How about breakfast?” I waggled my brows.

“No. My pussy is still sore from the weekend.” She nudged the cat off the bed. “No snuggling today, kitty. You’ll get fur all over my scrubs.” She glanced at me again and bit her bottom lip.

Fuck. I was imagining them wrapped around my cock.

“I have to go. There’s coffee. I always leave the window open a crack so Ginger can come and go as she pleases. All you have to do is turn the flat lock on the knob when you leave.”

“That’s not very secure.”

“It’ll do for now.”

“Or you can give me a key.”

“We’re not at that stage yet.” She checked her phone and cursed. “Okay gotta go…I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

I jumped out of the bed to at least cop a feel of her ass, but Ginger ran in front of me and I nearly tripped over her.

Damn cat.

The door slammed.

I’ll see you when I see you.

That was my line. No-strings-attached arrangements were my forte but for some reason I didn’t like it when I wasn’t in control. Sloane’s aversion to relationships was equal to mine. I might even say it was even more. I should consider myself lucky and roll with it.

I glared at Ginger. The cat appeared extremely pleased that she thwarted my attempt to catch Sloane. “You and I need to come to an understanding,” I told her while returning to the bedroom and stabbing my legs into a pair of athletic shorts. “You don’t get between me and Sloane. Got it?”

The cat’s answer was to whip her tail up and down before giving me a view of her rump while walking away.

“I’m talking to you, dammit.”

Was I arguing with a cat? Me? Dominic De Lucci. The boss of the De Lucci crime family had been reduced to feline ridicule.

When I made sure there was a barrier between my testicles and her claws, I headed to the coffee machine in the kitchen to pour myself a mug of brew. Ginger had positioned herself along the back of the couch, lying down with her paws folded in front of her.

“Why don’t you go chase rats somewhere?” Never had I paid attention to anyone’s house animals.

They served their purpose of sitting pretty, being appropriately groomed, and looking like part of the decor.

Obviously, outside the pampered pets of Fifth Avenue and Manhattan’s elites, there existed a feral variety with obnoxious behavior.

“I paid for that premium tuna, just so you know.”

No response. No meows or hisses. Just silent, judgy eyes.

So far, she hadn’t cockblocked me from Sloane and was surprisingly absent during our energetic bouts of sex. My phone buzzed on top of the kitchen counter and I winced. I had set a do-not-disturb feature and it finally expired at nine a.m. Monday morning.

Back to reality.

I walked into the grand foyer of my Hudson Yards penthouse.

Soaring ceilings and arched windows, the vastness of its interior and blinding light, were a far cry from the cozy two days I spent holed up at Sloane’s.

The main dining area and eat-in kitchen alone were bigger than her apartment.

While my residence comprised of five bedrooms, a den, five full baths, two half baths, and an elegant sweeping staircase to the second floor and third-level roof landing, I also had an abundance of outdoor space across three floors.

Yet I lived alone. De Lucci Transnational was a big player in the real estate market both in the US and abroad, and when this penthouse came on the market, Matteo told me it was a steal at twenty-five million.

I never, not once in the four years that I’d owned this place, brought a woman here.

It was my sacred place. I hadn’t had a girlfriend since college.

For a few years after I became boss, I enjoyed hookups with mafia groupies and socialites who loved living dangerously, but it only took one failed paternity suit to reevaluate my approach to sex.

I became more cautious, and more selective, and always used my own condoms. My sex life became secretive and the tabloid that followed the mafia exploded into speculations.

One time they even wondered if I switched teams and was gay.

It took one date with a popular socialite to dispel that rumor.

I showered and changed into sweatpants and headed to my den to join a web meeting with De Lucci Transnational. Matteo and Nico usually tag-teamed on that. I was merely a figurehead because the things I did for the company were best discussed face to face.

As the meeting droned on, my mind drifted to how I managed to avoid the overzealous Manhattan Tattler from discovering who I was sleeping with.

Recently it was because I was test-driving a dating app for the rich.

Developed by a friend from college, the app ran on the dark web.

Several luxury apartment buildings were scattered around Manhattan and were used as a rendezvous for sex-only hookups between the rich and rich.

Individuals who prefer not to use an escort service and risk exposure.

A carefully curated membership included an intense background check with a minimum net worth of thirty million dollars.

There was even an anonymous rating system to keep egos in check and ensure continued membership.

No money was exchanged beyond the membership fees and use of the opulent suite for the tryst.

A message came over my phone from the concierge of the building. “Sir, your mother and cousin are on their way up.”

Fuck.

I texted Matteo who was leading the video call.

Me

Is your wife on her way to ambush me along with my mother?

Matteo

Serves you right. Where were you this weekend?

I left him on read and signed out of the meeting, leaving him to explain. I was crossing the foyer when Ma walked in with Sera. I should revoke their access to my penthouse.

Annoyance was written all over my mother’s face. Meanwhile, Sera struggled to keep the humor off hers. Gio, her son, was with her.

I gave the boy my attention. “What do you feed this boy?” I picked up the toddler and held him in my arms like a shield against the storm my mother was about to unleash.

It confused people when I tried to explain that Sera and Matteo were my cousins, but they were married to each other.

They were not blood related. Sera was my cousin through my Moretti side, while Matteo was my cousin on the De Lucci side.

It was too early to tell who their son would take after.

“He eats a lot,” Sera said.

“How old is he now?”

“Nine months.”

“Is he walking yet?”

“Well—”

“Dominic, seriously?” my mother snapped. “What’s with the small talk?”

I grinned at her and walked over to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Morning, Ma.”

“It’s afternoon,” she shot back.

“I was on my way to the kitchen for a shot of espresso. Anyone want one?”

“ Si , might as well,” my mother muttered. I handed Gio back to Sera.

“Can we wait for you in the living room?” Sera asked. “Gio is starting to pull himself up to stand and likes to grab things.”

Ma gave Gio a fond look and then looked pointedly at me. This was going to be an uncomfortable conversation. Giving her grandchildren was not in my five-year plan.

I put a plate of butter biscuits and their espressos on the tray and headed for the living room. I used to have fancier pastries in the fridge. My longtime housekeeper quit and moved back to the Midwest, saying she’d had enough of city life and wanted to be closer to her grandchildren.