Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“I still don’t know what happened.”
“She was his superior and complained about her marriage. They had chemistry, and he just got lost in the forbidden aspect of it all, I guess. Why it wasn’t just a onetime fuckup is beyond me—not that that should have happened either.”
“Yeah.”
“We all make mistakes, I get that. I wouldn’t have judged him if that was all it was. But lying to you for, what? Months? Keeping you on the hook while also exploring this other relationship . . . it was just sickening. I kinda hate him for making me complicit in the bullshit.”
All the animosity I had was completely gone. I felt like I got a piece of myself back. “Yes, we can be friends.”
“Yeah?” he asked with a smile. “We’re all going out on Friday night. You wanna come?”
“Depends. Can I bring Constantine?”
“Of course.”
“You seeing anybody?”
“I was for a while, but it kinda just fizzled out,” he said. “Does Constantine have a sister?”
“He does and she’s beautiful, but she lives in Taormina.”
“Damn.”
“Might be for the best, because you wouldn’t want to date any of his relatives.”
“Why?”
Because he’s kinda psycho . . . sometimes. “He’s just a bit protective, is all.”
Instead of me driving my motorbike around, Constantine’s driver chauffeured me wherever I needed to go. After I finished my lunch with Armand, he took me back to my apartment, and I continued to pack up my stuff for another couple of hours.
When I was done, the driver came upstairs and loaded it into the back of the Range Rover, and then he drove me across the city, where I could meet my client for a sunset shoot. They were family portraits, probably to be used in an annual Christmas card. Once I was done there, the driver took me back to Constantine’s place.
It was a little strange to be driven everywhere, but it was nice not to fight traffic or squeeze my motorbike between cars or worry about parking at every stop. I just hopped out of the back seat, and the driver continued on.
He drove me behind the large gates to Constantine’s estate, and when we pulled around the fountain, the security guys opened the back and began unloading everything. In the distance, at different spots on the property, I could see the armed guys carrying machine guns. Every corner was guarded by a dozen of them. There weren’t any in the house—as far as I knew—so that was a relief.
Because the men weren’t allowed in Constantine’s private corridor, they placed everything to the side outside the mahogany doors. It wasn’t much, just a dozen boxes of my whole life packed up.
It’d been a long day, so I didn’t care about putting everything away tonight. I headed into the corridor with my sight set on the double gold doors, but then I heard Constantine’s voice come from the study.
“The maximum extension for tariffs is seven days—with twenty percent interest. You already know this, so why are you asking me?” There was a pause as he listened, but then a moment later, he continued. “I don’t give an exception to anyone, not a single person for a single reason, so take the extension with interest or don’t.” He seemed to hang up, because it went silent.
Medusa must have heard my footsteps because she left the study and moved into the hallway, beelining right for me. She ran toward me, did a little jump in the middle of it, and then came right up to me.
I got down on one knee exactly as Constantine did and gave her a good rubdown. “Hey, honey. Missed you too.”
When Constantine heard me, he left his desk and stepped into the corridor, wearing nothing but gray sweatpants.
Oh mother of God.
Enormous and cut with the pants low on his hips, he was utterly delicious. With the dark ink on his beautiful skin, the shadows between the different segments of his thick muscles, he was like a mixture of a bull and a man.
And he was mine.
Then he smiled, and if I had been wearing a dress instead of jeans, my panties would have slid right off. “Hey, sweetheart.”
It was the little things he did that made me feel special. Like the fact that he left his desk and came to me all the way in the hallway. He always made an effort, showed his enthusiasm, made my importance known. “Hey.”
I got to my feet and moved over to him.
His hands were on my ass as his lips feasted on my mouth, feeling me up right off the bat. When he finally let me take a breath, he stepped back and headed back into his office. “Just finishing up some calls, then we’ll have dinner.”
“Okay.” Medusa and I followed him into his study, the most beautiful room in the house, in my opinion. But then again, I’d only seen a fraction of the place. “Are we having dinner in your room?”