Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Though he wishes he were anywhere but here, lecturing me, and someone more enticing, like with his head buried between Valentina’s legs, he turns back to me. “What did you say to Elio the other week? Don’t act like our father wouldn’t hang you from the rafters by your nuts if you stepped out on your missus. When you get shacked up, it’s the same pussy for eternity.”
“Yeah, but this is different. We’re not really getting married.”
A sigh whistles in Giovanni’s chest. “Yet someone as sentimental as our father won’t care. He always said we’d fall in order. Dante is fucking gone… so guess whose name is next on the list?”
I scoff. “Papa is full of it.”
Hearing the fear in my tone, Giovanni laughs. “Only time will tell, lover boy.”
“We’re meant to fall in order,” I say before I can stop myself, “but Nico’s been gone for years.”
The room freezes, and I realize two seconds too late that I’ve cracked open a door Nico would give anything to keep bolted shut.
I either run when cornered or undertake a massacre. Since I’m fond as fuck of my brothers, I don’t contemplate the latter for even a second.
I stand, my chair scratching the floorboards. “I’m going to bed.”
“Matteo—” Giovanni starts.
“Tomorrow,” I say, already halfway to the door. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
Valentina’s voice follows me out, soft but stern. “Be kind to her, Matteo. It took a lot of gall for her to show up here today, and some women only become that courageous after being hurt.”
I don’t reply. I can’t. My fury is too high picturing Azra hurt.
The hallways between the main living rooms and the sleeping quarters are quiet with a silence that amplifies my thoughts. After noticing the maid I ordered to take Azra to her room, I’m tempted to ask which room she put Azra in, purely so we can hash out more of our agreement without an audience, but it’s late, and I’m also full of shit.
When I’m tired, I’m not known for thinking with my head between my shoulders.
Instead, I ask her to bring fresh towels to my room.
She nods and then scurries off.
I’m halfway to my room when I collide with someone rounding the corner.
A familiar someone.
She’s wearing heels too high for the hour and perfume too emasculating for my mood. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her mascara smudged beneath them. Anger and something else I can’t be fucked deciphering taint her expression.
“Tuesday,” I say, because that’s the only name I ever gave her—the day she shows up.
She snarls at me like I ruined her life. “Don’t ‘Tuesday’ me.”
My lips twist. If she’d given me half the attitude she’s handing over now, maybe I would have learned her name.
Though I don’t give a shit, I ask, “Are you all right?”
She’s leaving the Caruso compound, fighting back tears. That’s something Giovanni, Dante, and our father wouldn’t approve of, and since I’m the only one here, it’s my mess to clean up.
My head rockets to the side when she slaps me hard enough to rattle my brain against my skull.
For the first time in my life, the pain does absolutely nothing to my cock. No increase in pulse or rapid inflation. Nothing. It acts as if a feather tapped me.
What the—
Tuesday sniffles. “You’ll never see me again.”
“Okay,” I say, genuinely unconcerned.
She gasps while clutching an imaginary stab wound in her chest, then rushes toward the entryway, heels clicking frantically.
For a handful of seconds, I peer in the direction she left before shrugging and walking away.
My room—my actual room, not the ones my brothers refuse to use because they’re convinced our mother would haunt them if they did anything close to all the nasty things I’ve done in those rooms—is in the west wing.
I push open the door and freeze.
Azra is on my bed. She’s not lying on it. She’s building something on it.
A pillow fort.
A full, architecturally structured pillow fort.
“The fuck are you doing?”
She doesn’t look up to see who approaches. She doesn’t need to. The goose bumps breaking across her nape announce that she noticed my presence long before I spoke.
“No one will believe our ruse if we don’t share a room.”
Irritation hits me too fast to pull back on the reins. “You shared a room with Antonio?”
Her chest rises and falls three times before she pulls the trigger of an unloaded gun. Her headshake is brief but firm enough to return Antonio’s name to the need-to-find-a-way-to-kill-him list instead of the he’s-a-dead-man list.
Azra keeps arranging pillows until they replicate the Great Wall of China. “Since I’d rather bite off my tongue than share a bed with you, it’s either this”—she gestures to the pillow fort before locking eyes with me—“or you sleep on the floor. The choice is yours.”
“It’s my fucking bed,” I remind her, my whine childlike.
“I don’t care,” she says without missing a beat. “Those are your only options.”