Evangeline
My eyes fluttered open, and I blinked a few times, struggling to adjust to the inky darkness of the room. After checking into the hotel, I stripped off my shoes and my jeans and climbed into the bed in a long-sleeve shirt. Worrying had kept me from sleeping soundly for days, so it didn’t surprise me when I feel asleep almost immediately.
I glanced at the clock.
12:58 a.m. and I was fully awake.
Sighing, I moved to switch on the lamp on the nightstand. Mid-reach, the shadows shifted, and I realized what had woken me. A man stood at the side of my bed.
My heart banged against my ribcage with enough force that I was surprised I didn’t hear a bone crack. A scream burst from my lips, but like lightning, a hand covered my mouth. I dug my fingernails into the man’s hands, thrashing, my hair curtaining my face.
“Jesus, Evie. Relax. It’s me.”
I froze, and my vision focused on the man looming over me, his features hidden in the shadows.
“Gian?” I whispered when he lifted his hand. “What are you doing here?”
He flipped on the light next to the bed. “What do you think I’m doing here?” he asked, his quiet response laced with enough displeasure to make my stomach to flip over.
I scrambled to sit up, my back pressed against the wooden headboard, clutching the starched white sheet to my chest. “I…I…” I swallowed over the emotion stuck in my throat. “I don’t know.”
Pacing along the side of the bed, he pointed his finger at me, his eyes heavy-lidded. “You think I should ignore the fact that my fiancée climbed out of my bathroom window and checked into a hotel across town? You think I should go on with my life and pretend you didn’t make me into some fucking joke and put both of us in danger with your half-assed plan to escape? You think that’s reasonable? You think that sounds like something I would do?”
I curled my fingers a little tighter around the sheet. “Fake fiancée,” I said through gritted teeth.
He halted. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything.” I tossed the sheet off my legs and jumped out of the bed. I wouldn’t get anywhere, cowering under the covers like a frightened child. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I planted my palm against the center of his chest, ignoring the wall of muscles underneath the pads of my fingers. “Nothing I do is your business. Not where I go. Not who I talk to. Hell, if I wanted to go out and fuck strangers at the bar night after night, you couldn’t say a damn thing because we have a fake relationship. You get that? Fake. Let me spell it for you in case you didn’t catch what I said: F. A. K. E.”
His hand clamped around the back of my neck, pulling me closer to him. I could see every tiny fleck of green and gold in his volatile eyes. “You’re wrong. As long as you’re under my protection, you will do everything I tell you. If I say jump, you jump. If I ask you to demonstrate a pirouette or whatever the hell you dancers do, you’ll do ten. And if you so much as look at another—”
My heart rate skyrocketed, and my vision dwindled to a pinprick. I couldn’t hear over the rage swirling inside of my head.
“No,” I said without thinking about the consequences of my answer. I knew better than to taunt this man.
His eyes darkened. “No?” The single word floated from his lips in slow motion. He released my hand, and I stumbled backward, the backs of my thighs colliding with the edge of the mattress. “Let me be clear. If you so much as feign interest in another man, I will destroy him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, my eyes flaring.
His temple ticked hard. “Exactly what you think it means. In my world, a man who can’t keep his fiancée in line loses respect. He isn’t a real fucking man.”
Smoke-like tendrils of defeat coiled around my chest, and I plopped down on the bed, burying my face in my hands. “Why are you doing this? I just want out. I don’t get it. I’ll sign a blood oath, pledge my first-born, or get lobotomy. Whatever you want. Name it, and end this farce.”
The bed dipped next to me, and we sat side-by-side in silence. My skin prickled with awareness. The suffocating weight of my predicament flooded the air, making me feel more claustrophobic than I’d ever divulge out loud. Although I wanted to ask him to go, I knew the request would be in vain.
He pried my hands away from my face and pinned them to my sides. “I’m trying to protect you, Evangeline, I really am. You need to stop fighting me every step of the way. Play by my rules for a little longer, and you’ll get your life back.”
I twisted my torso to face him. “I will?”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and the pads of his fingers tarried along the side of my neck. I could only describe the look in his eyes as torn and adoring. My pulse raced under his fingertips. “You will.”
I swayed toward him, and his arm circled my shoulders, pulling me next to him. “You promise?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, his warm breath ruffling the top of my hair. “You need to stop fighting me, though. Tony is already suspicious, and while I trust him with my life, he could say something to someone who wants to take me down.”
“Like who?”
“All you need to know is that the threat is real. These people kill first and ask questions later. What you saw that night at my club is nothing. They don’t give second chances.”
“You did,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know why I did it. I shouldn’t have. It’s probably going bite me in the ass.” He pinched his eyes closed for a second, and I missed the attention. The heat. Something warm and welcoming swirled inside of me whenever he focused on me. “Now we’re stuck.”
I brushed my hand down the side of his face, and his stubble pricked at my fingertips. “I know. I’m sorry. I just…” I didn’t know what to say. In retrospect, my actions were selfish. I’d snapped under the pressure that had been building long before I met him. “I hate being alone all the time.”
“What about Carmela?” he murmured, staring down at me through hooded lids.
I paused long enough to take a few stuttering breaths. “What about her?”
He ran a callused thumb across my lips, and my heart squeezed. Damn him. I didn’t want to feel anything around him. All week, I had tried without much success to wipe the memory of our kiss from my brain. Late at night, when I couldn’t sleep, my thoughts would inevitably circle back to him.
The feel of his hands against my skin, his taste, his scent.
And then I couldn’t sleep because I’d spend hours analyzing why I couldn’t stop thinking about him when he hadn’t shown me a flicker of interest in days. Until now…
His hand tightened on my shoulder, bringing my thoughts back to this moment.
“Why don’t you give her a call? I’m sure she’d be happy to hang out with you.”
I swallowed back the pain inching up the walls of my throat. I needed Carmela, more now than ever. I couldn’t do this without her. Over the last year, she’d had my back through every up and down. Now it looked as though I had used up all of her patience. “She’s pissed at me. She hates me. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
His brows crinkled together. “That doesn’t make sense. Of course she doesn’t hate you.”
I swiped the back of my hand across my eyes, attempting to erase the tears leaking out of the corner of my eyes. Stupid tears. Stupid me. Could I be any more pathetic?
“She really does. I called her a couple of times this week, and I might as well have been talking to a wall. She’s pissed about us. She thinks I’ve been lying to her for months. She thinks I was cheating on Kevin with you.”
His lips thinned. “Did she say that?”
“No, but I know her. She thinks it.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
My hand curled into the lapel of his jacket. “What are you going to say?”
The corners of mouth lips twitched, and he braced his forehead against mine. “I’ll think of something.”
“Maybe we should—”
He cut me off by kissing me, except it wasn’t any old, forgettable kiss. His mouth consumed mine, stealing the words I needed to say. Stealing the thoughts I wanted to hide. He lingered, taking his time as if nothing mattered except his lips against mine.
I lit up one nerve ending at a time like a choreographed firework display.
Boom. Pop. Crash.
With every explosion, another chink in my armor dissolved. Armor I desperately needed to get out of this mess with my heart, soul, and career intact.
Unbidden, a moan slipped out of my mouth.
“You like that?” he said, his voice scratchy. His eyes were hypnotic, his lips curled up in invitation. He was intoxicating. Addictive.
He was going to be my downfall.
Motionless, I stared at him, acutely aware that we sat on a bed in a hotel room alone. Picturing him running those calloused hands all over me should have made me nauseous. For some reason, it didn’t. Images of twisted sheets, the hot slide of skin against skin, and his naked frame above me flashed through my mind.
My eyes popped wide with panic, and I scrambled to my feet, needing to sever the hold he had on me. He shot me a cocky grin that managed to simultaneously irritate me and make me want the wrong things. Things that would only muddle our situation. Things that would only send more mixed signals. Both of us knew the end game, and it wasn’t a happily-ever-after. I didn’t need to invest time in another tragic love story. Been there, done that. Got the visual of my ex screwing someone else tattooed on my brain.
I cleared my throat and waved my hand between us. “Why did you do that?”
He stood and buttoned the top button of his suit jacket, and I saw the gun tucked in a holster near his hip. A shiver ghosted down my spine.
“Because I wanted to,” he replied. “Are you ready to go?”
I frowned. “Where?”
“Home.” His gaze roamed down my bare legs and back up again, taking so much time to complete the action that goose bumps actually showered my skin. “I already settled your bill. We need to go. I can’t have my guys thinking I’m a pussy who doesn’t know how to handle his fiancée.”
I yanked on the hem of my shirt, feeling exposed. “I don’t want to waste your money. I’ll leave in the morning.”
“Sorry, sweetheart.” He snagged my purse from the top of the dresser and slung the heavy leather hobo bag over his shoulder. “That’s not happening. You can either come willingly, or I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you out.” He shrugged. “I pride myself on how reasonable I’ve been to date, but there’s only so much I can take. Consider this decision a red line you don’t want to cross.”
I jutted my hip to the side, our gazes locked in a silent battle. The only sounds were the faint ding of the elevator and the revving of cars on the busy Brooklyn street outside the window.
He flexed his hands, the lone tell in his otherwise calm demeanor. “Don’t test me, Evie. I’m not in the mood. I will ground your ass, and you can kiss your physical therapy and training goodbye. You won’t be able to leave my house for any reason until this is over.”
I plucked my jeans off the arm of an electric blue club chair and shoved my legs into them. “Fine. You don’t have to threaten me. I get it.” My voice was a vacant, unattractive rasp that mirrored how I felt inside.