Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I opened the message and quickly typed a reply. Didn’t feel it. Wish her the best. Then I went to delete the message but stopped before I wiped it from my phone. If I had to delete something, that meant I had something to hide, and if I had something to hide, then I’d done something wrong.
I felt like shit.
I’d betrayed my woman for a debt I owed.
I didn’t delete the message. Instead, I went to Aurelia’s message thread and texted her. I’m really fucking sorry, and I really fucking love you. I sent it off without thinking twice about it. I didn’t expect a reply, not just because she was at work, but because she probably still didn’t want to talk to me.
But then the dots appeared right away, like she’d taken off her gloves to pull her phone out of her pocket to see if I had texted her. I fucking love you too, Constantine.
I read her words and felt a wave of reassurance I didn’t know I needed so badly. I put the phone to my chest and sighed. “Oh, sweetheart.” Please come home today so I can breathe again. It was just a fight, but it killed me as if it’d been a breakup. Killed me as if she’d packed her bags and headed back to Rome.
I waited for the three dots to appear.
But they didn’t.
I sat on the couch with Medusa and waited for the hours to pass. I was tempted to have lunch at the restaurant so I could watch her work until her shift was over and then beg her to come home. I had no self-control or restraint. I should just give her the space she asked for and be patient, but patient wasn’t in my vocabulary.
Elio texted me. President Barsetti is outside the gate. Should I let him in?
I had to read that message two different times because I didn’t understand it. My mind had been on my woman at work, and then I was snapped back into a world I’d left behind for good. It took me a second to compose my thoughts before I pulled up the camera feed on my phone.
I could see a short line of black vehicles outside the gate, two Range Rovers with a car between them.
It was definitely him. Yeah, let him in. I felt a flush of irritation and unease when I watched the gates open and the vehicle enter my property. He wouldn’t have come all the way here if it weren’t absolutely dire.
So whatever news he had . . . it was bad.
I got to my feet and slid my phone into my pocket. I was barefoot and in just my black sweatpants when I walked to the front door to let him inside. I unlocked one side of the double doors and opened it.
Crow stepped out of the back seat of the car and buttoned the front of his suit. Tom Ford sunglasses sat on the bridge of his nose, and he looked like a billionaire CEO from Manhattan. His private security moved with him as he walked toward my house, but he raised his hand when he approached my front door. “I’ll be done in fifteen minutes.”
Private security would normally search me and my residence for weapons and threats to the president’s life, but because it was my home, it was a guarantee they would find all the things that shouldn’t be there. So, it was pointless.
President Barsetti entered my home as he removed his sunglasses and dropped them into the front pocket of his midnight-black suit. Designer quality, perfectly tailored to his build.
I shut the door behind him, and we were alone.
Medusa approached, taking her time because her leg was still sensitive to her weight.
I made a fist to my chest, telling her to heel, that he was a friend and not an attacker.
Crow slid his hands into his pockets as he looked at Medusa. “Beautiful dog.”
“Beautiful? She’ll bite your fucking face off.” I took the lead and walked to the rear of the house with the spectacular view and the terrace. “Want anything to drink?” I treated him like a guest I’d invited rather than the nuisance he actually was.
“Wine, if you have it.”
I uncorked a bottle and poured two glasses before I nodded toward the terrace. We headed outside and sat under the large open umbrellas, submerged in the cool shade. I sat across from him in fucking sweats while he stared at me in a suit. I didn’t apologize for my attire because he was the rude one who’d shown up uninvited.
He stared at me for a while, like he didn’t know where to start.
I still couldn’t believe he was here. I’d become so absorbed in my new life that I’d forgotten my old one. Shed my previous identity like dead skin from a snake. Let my scales change colors.