"Sloane." His voice is low. Careful. He says my name the same way he saidtesorolast night, like it matters, like the word itself costs him something, and I can't do this. I cannot stand in my father's study with Lorenzo Ferraro behind me and Massimo Santoro in front of me and hold myself together. I don't have enough armor on for this.
"Excuse me." I push past him. My shoulder brushes his chest and the contact sends a jolt through my body so hard my step falters. His hand reaches toward my arm and I feel the air shift as his fingers brush over my skin. It’s brief and then he lets me go.
My heels ring hard against the marble. I keep my spine straight and my chin up through the foyer, out the front door, down thesteps. I don't look back. If I look back I will see his face and I will break apart in my father's driveway and that is not happening today.
I make it to my car. Close the door. Grip the steering wheel with both hands and squeeze until my forearms burn and the leather creaks under my fingers.
“Don’t you dare shed a single fucking tear, Whitmore!”
The burn sits right behind my eyes, but the water doesn’t flow. Thankfully.
I am so far past crying that tears feel like a luxury I can't afford. What I feel is a cold, quiet fury that starts in my chest and spreads outward through my body until my fingertips tingle with it. My father just handed me to a stranger like a business card. Six months of planning. Six months of looking me in the eye and saying nothing.
And Massimo was standing right there. Watching. How much did he hear? Did he even care?
I turn the key. Pull out of the drive. Make it three blocks before I reach for my phone at a red light.
I open my contacts. Scroll to his name.
Massimo.
No new messages. No missed calls. He was ten feet away from me and he let me walk out without a word. I don't know what I wanted him to do. Stop me? Tell me he knows? Tell me he doesn't care that I'm his best friend’s daughter and he loved every minute of our time together.
Dreams can come true, right? At least I would have that going for me.
Tears warm the edges of my eyes. I’m just not that lucky, but damn. Can’t a girl catch a break?
Eight
Massimo
Ipull into Harrison's circular drive and a silver Mercedes is parked between his sedan along with a town car.
Damn it. I was hoping to find him alone.
I haven't slept. I haven't eaten. Fuck. I'm running on fumes. I spent all morning pulling every single contract I've ever drafted for Harrison and refreshed my memory of all his dealings. Luca pulled strings along the dark corridors of our underworld to see what secrets Harrison is keeping from me.
The details we found still have acid gurgling in the pit of my stomach.
Lorenzo Ferraro's name came up a lot and none of it gives me the warm and fuzzies. He comes from old money and new ambition and a family that treats alliances like acquisitions. Luca flagged three properties, two shell companies, and a pattern of business relationships that end with the smaller party owing more than they started with. The Ferraros don't do partnerships. They do hostile takeovers with a handshake and a venom-filled smile.
From the rumors running through Luca's connections, I have a strong feeling my friend has walked blindly into a well-laid trap. I don't know how deep Harrison's involvement is yet, but that's what I'm here to find out.
The red heel sits in a box on the passenger seat. I take it out and rub a thumb over the leather one last time.
I came here to tell Harrison the truth. That I slept with his daughter. That she was in my bed and I didn't know who she was until this morning. I put the shoe back and step out of the car. But the silver Mercedes and the town car tell me this conversation is about to get a lot more complicated than a confession.
The front door is unlocked. I let myself in the way I've done a hundred times over twenty years. The familiar smell of the foyer hitting me as I cross the threshold. Old wood and the faint trace of cigar smoke that has settled into the walls of this house over decades greets me. The marble is cold and gleaming under my shoes and the sound of my steps carries down the empty hallway.
Voices from the study. Harrison's first. Tight, defensive. He's losing the argument and trying to hold ground with volume. Then a woman's voice, and my chest locks.
Sloane.
I stop midstep, my hand finding the hallway wall, my palm pressing flat against the cool plaster. My pulse is suddenly pounding so hard I feel it in my jaw, in my wrists, at the base of my throat. Fuck. What has this woman done to me?
Her voice carries through the gap in the study door, sharp and steady, and even from thirty feet away I can hear thefury underneath, the steel she wraps around herself when she's fighting to hold it together.
Red bleeds into my vision. My jaw locks hard enough to taste copper. My hands curl into fists. Every instinct I have screams at me to put myself between her and whoever has her cornered.