Page 18 of Scream (Duchess & Devils #1)

Maksim.

Six Hours Prior

Fuck, I am an asshole.

"As you can see, I'm a weak woman and unfortunately my skin burns easily. You can go now, Mr. Giordano." She starts moving away from me and to the dark stairway.

It doesn't escape me that she heard what I said to Parker that evening in her room at her mother's home while she was in the oat-milk bath.

I wasn't going to come; I wasn't going to ask her for this, but after finding out all of the heads of the chapters and their wives will be there tonight to meet my future wife at the annual Valentine's Day Match, I tucked my tail between my legs and came to ask her for this favor. Because why wouldn’t I be spending Valentine’s Day with my future bride… and then I burned her.

"You'll be there tonight?"

" Unfortunately ," she calls back softly from the landing and continues on her way upstairs. Away from me.Always doing her best to get and stay away from me.

I’ve never had this issue before. Most of the issues I have from women involve them trying to make more conversation so they can stick around.

This is fucking confusing. And fucking frustrating.

Not to mention, every time I try, it fucking blows up in my face.

I couldn’t just pick a nice, meek, submissive girl, could I?

Noooo, I had to choose the most aggravating one in all of New York and London.

I turn to leave but instead I face Parker's glare. "I'm sure you can find your way out," he growls, bending to clean up the rest of the shards on the ground.

I don't answer, just leave with a door slam. I feel sick inside. Guilt. Shame. I've never hurt a woman in my life.

"How'd it go?" Niko asks when I climb into the passenger side of the SUV.

"Fantastic. I burned her." I choke out, telling him everything that happened, my anger rising. "Then she resorted to treating me like I'm nothing . She's fucking infuriating."

"You need to apologize, Boss."

"You don't think I tried? She wouldn't even look at me. At this point, I don't even know if she's scared of me or just hates my guts. And now I make her go somewhere that's out of her comfort zone to make me look good."

Niko sucks in his cheeks, bright eyes still on the road. "So try again."

I scoff. "You know what she asked me to do?"

"What?"

"Send her a list of all the things I'll need her to do for me so she can have her assistant pencil me in so I don't have to talk to her about it, she can just show up and then leave."

Niko laughs. "She's kind of a savage little thing. Did she do it all posh and professional?"

I sigh, gripping my knees. "Yes."

"That's... that's kinda hot."

I punch him in the arm, and it makes him swerve. "Ouch, boss, fuck, I'm driving."

"Don't talk about my fiancé like that."

"Heard. But seriously, I can’t wait to meet her."

He sounds a little too eager and that irks me. I go back to my phone, pulling up the ticket sales. Over one hundred thousand so far. Seventy-five percent goes to our charity, the other twenty-five goes to the staff attending tonight.

The rest of my day goes as planned, doing numbers with inventory for the bar, talking to the chefs about tonight’s menu, making sure the girls upstairs were okay.

Believe it or not, tonight is one of their busiest nights.

I have ten extra men as security to make sure they’re safe tonight since I'll be in the basement.

Once I get to the floor beneath the casino, I make sure the chairs meant for Sabrina and me are not too close to anyone else so she doesn’t get overwhelmed.

The last thing I need is for her to freak out and embarrass me in front of the capos.

I groan; I just had to get the twitchiest woman in all of New York.

I shoot off a text to her.

Me: I’ll be picking you up at 7. We’ll have dinner here with the other heads.

She leaves me on read and then responds with a thumbs up emoji an hour later.

At five-thirty I leave the club, get to my penthouse, shower and get dressed, then leave before six to beat traffic.

When we pull up to her house, I get out and stride to her front door.

I knock three times, remembering this morning when I came over to ask her to come with me and she didn’t answer the door, wouldn’t answer the phone.

I checked the cameras to verify she wasn’t in the office to find it empty as well as her house.

My first thought was that she ran.

I stayed in the fucking cold for almost an hour before she and Parker were making their way to me. Walking just a little too close together.

I need to find a way to insert a tracker in her or something.

I knock on the door again, hearing whispers behind it, and when Sabrina opens the door, there the fucker is again - standing too close to her.

He’s dressed casually: jeans, henley, boots.

He looks cozy and she looks… my heart catches in my chest. She looks…

fuck she looks good. Parker helps her into a pink faux fur coat, but before he covers her up, I get to see her ample chest in the dress she’s wearing, along with the long gloves that go over her elbow.

She doesn’t greet me, just inhales sharply and once we’re in the SUV, she turns toward the window, seemingly lost in thought.

I make eye contact with Niko in the rearview mirror, and he makes a face silently telling me to apologize again.

And so, I try to… until she basically asks me to shut up so she can meditate, to mentally prepare herself because I…

am nothing but an inconvenience to her. I feel like an inconvenience to her.

My eyes crash with Niko’s and he shrugs.

I sit back in my seat and look out at the black water, the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge glittering against it, silently sending a prayer that this all goes well.

Her thumbs are rolling over each other, eyes closed, lips moving rapidly as though she’s also chanting a prayer to whatever god she worships, if any.

We park. Niko opens my door, I slide out, and as soon as her hand lands in mine and her pink heels touch the ground, her eyes open, her lips part, and her brilliant smile stops my heart.

She looks like… magic . Like I was transported back in time, and I’m looking at a silver-screen star walking on the red carpet to a premiere.

The cameras flash, and her eyes blink slowly.

I have to touch her. I have to make sure she’s real.

I slip my hand to the small of her back and lead her to the entrance, to the hostess to take our coats.

I stand beside her to help her out of hers.

I take this moment to inhale her scent as I take off her coat.

The creaminess of her skin seems to glow under the lighting, and I’m so tempted to touch…

to see if it’s as soft as it looks. But I keep my hands to myself, only letting them drop to the small of her back, as I lead her through the casino toward the back where the restaurant is, where everyone is most likely waiting for us.

“I was hoping to give you a rundown on everyone here tonight earlier at your house and then in the car while we were on our way here, so you had time to ask questions but-”

“I graduated high school with my associates degree, survived Rayne-Moore University and passed my bar exam the first time I took it. Just give me the rundown and then leave me the fuck alone for the rest of the evening unless it’s absolutely necessary for you to speak to me.

I saw the list you sent Lily. I'll see you on our wedding day after this.” She says under her breath.

“ Fine . Samantha, the redhead, is married to Vincenzo Rossi. She is twenty years younger than him and only one year older than his eldest daughter.”

“That's atrocious.”

“Don't talk about that because she was his eldest daughter’s best friend.”

“Okay, I love that trope in books.” She mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing!” She says with a broad smile. “Who else?”

“Next is Viviana, brunette, uh, large chest, she's married to Bernardino Bianchi. She's in her early thirties.”

“BiBi and Vivi. Got it. Next.”

“Angelina, blonde, married to Lorenzo Albertini. Whatever you do, don't look at her face for too long. She had a face lift recently and it… doesn't look right. Very uncanny valley.”

She hums as we pass the threshold to the restaurant.

“Francesca, also blonde but only has weird lips, is married to Angelo Gallo.”

She huffs at my description of Franny. “Anyone else?”

“No.”

“Samantha Rossi, redhead. Vivi Bianchi with huge titties, Angie Albertini drinks martinis and Franny Gallo's gots new lips,” she sings softly then peeks over her shoulder at me. “Anything else?”

I let myself get lost in the different shades of green and dashes of gold in her eyes for a moment. “That's it,” I reply as we reach the table where they're waiting for us.

“Maksim!” Angelina is the first to see us, standing to greet me like we're family.

In a way, we are. She was my mother's best friend, and I grew up with her being something of an aunt to me.

The husk in her Long Island accent doesn't match the youth in her face.

I go to receive the kiss she plants on my cheek, doing my best not to wipe away the excess lipstick with the back of my hand.

“And who is this?” She asks in Italian, holding her hand out to the blonde bombshell beside me.

“My future wife, Sabrina Winters,” I introduce to the table.

“Hello, Miss Angie, Maksim has told me so much about you.”

Angie's dark eyebrows that don't match her hair rise to her forehead, “Well all good things, I hope!”

“Oh, yes ma'am, he told me you organize a quarterly drive for the children's hospital in Long Island.

I'd very much love to know more about that.

Oh, and Mrs. Rossi, congratulations on the nuptials, you'll have to tell me who helped plan your wedding, Maksim showed me pictures and I just adored the venue. Oh and Miss Francesca, congratulations on your new grandchild, a boy, was it?”