Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Henri who?” Never heard that name.
“Henri Diamant.”
“As in…the owner of the entire company.”
He took another drink from his glass.
“How do you know him?”
“I told you I know everyone.”
“But you push drugs on the street and police the dealers in the city. He’s got nothing to do with that.”
He gave a quiet chuckle and returned his arms to the table. “Everything is connected in one way or another.”
“Did he owe you a favor?”
“No.”
“Then why did he agree?”
“Because I’m a good person to have in your pocket.” He grabbed a piece of bread and took a bite.
“Clearly…”
Dinner arrived a few minutes later, and as usual, he inhaled his food like he’d skipped all his meals for the day. His steak was rare, and my duck was hot and fresh. We enjoyed the silence and the food, comfortable not saying anything at all.
He finished before I did and washed it down with the rest of his scotch. Patient, he sat and watched me finish, and when the waiter came over to check in, he ordered another scotch.
“What else have you done this week?” I asked.
“My life mostly revolves around work.”
“You don’t have friends or family outside of it?”
He shook his head. “It’s hard to maintain a relationship with someone when you can’t share any aspect of your life. There’s a hard line in the sand, and you have to pick a side to stand on.”
“So, the women you’ve been with…they knew what you did for a living?”
“I don’t have the energy to put on a production. Don’t have the energy to lie. Too much work. I went to my uncle’s house last night for dinner. We usually get together once a week or so.”
“That’s nice. Is he in the same line of work?”
Luca nodded. “Meth.”
I took a few more bites of my food as I absorbed that answer. “Are your parents still around?” I thought I already knew the answer to that question, based on everything else he’d told me…and not told me.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gave no reaction, like my words fell on deaf ears.
“What happened to them?”
His eyes flicked away like the question intruded into his private space. He let the silence linger between us for a while. “Now isn’t the place.”
“Of course,” I said. “Fair enough.”
22
ALIÉNOR
He put my suitcase on a table in his walk-in closet so I could easily access whatever I needed. Then he stripped, pulling the long-sleeved shirt over his head and leaving it on the floor for his butler to take care of later. He stepped out of his boots and dropped his jeans until he was in nothing but his boxers beside me.
I stared at his back, so chiseled and defined, the scars almost unnoticeable in the collage of muscles.
He opened a drawer and revealed a stack of sweatpants, in different shades of gray and black. He grabbed the one on top and pulled them over his tight ass before he returned to the bedroom.
It was like a little strip show.
I didn’t look good in pajamas the way he did in sweatpants, so I kept my outfit on. I followed him to the sitting room and saw him already seated on the couch with a glass of scotch on the table in front of him. He must have started the fire a second ago because there were new flames consuming the logs in the hearth.
I joined him in the living room, seeing the glass of wine already sitting there.
He looked me over, but not in a good way, as if he liked what he saw, but with a hint of disapproval.
“What?”
“Why are you wearing that?”
“Clothes?”
“How am I supposed to grab your ass in jeans?” he asked point-blank.
“Well, I don’t have anything cute like you do.”
“Cute?” he asked.
“Yeah…your sweatpants are really sexy.”
He didn’t smirk at the compliment.
“Well, you make them look really sexy.”
“The top drawer of my dresser.” He nodded back toward the bedroom. “Wear one of my shirts.”
I felt a chill at the prospect. His big shirt would be like a blanket over my body, Imbued with the scent of his laundry detergent. The ownership of having his shirt, and the ownership he would possess watching me wear one of his shirts.
I returned to the closet and opened the drawer to find the stack of clean clothes there. Shirts, socks, boxers. I grabbed the one on top, black with the expensive label printed at the back of the neck. I undressed and put it on, leaving only my panties underneath.
It fit me like I expected, like a long pea coat without sleeves, a thin but warm blanket. It fell to just above my knee, and the neckline was so big, it exposed one of my shoulders. When I came back into the room, I saw him sitting in the glow of the fire, firing off a text on his phone, his skin a beautiful complexion in the light.