by Bethany-Kris
15.
Corrado
“Here.”
Corrado took the jacket Alessio held out, already turning to help Ginevra slip it on. September in Toronto was mild, but the sky had darkened, and he didn’t want her getting cold between The Clubhouse, and the car.
Ginevra smiled sweetly back at him when he placed the blazer over her shoulders—Alessio didn’t give a shit he had to give it up for her. God knew the man would much rather be in a leather jacket, anyway.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Always, mia cara.”
Corrado pressed a kiss to the middle of her forehead, enjoying her fingertips drifting over his unshaven jawline with a tender touch. A few feet away, a couple waited with the girl who manned The Clubhouse’s entrance, never allowing entrance to someone who didn’t have the credentials to enter. Corrado didn’t care who came in and out of these doors most of the time. Usually, he never noticed.
This time he did because the woman dressed in deep red continued to glance back at the three while they waited for their turn to take their leave. People stared at him and Alessio, anyway ... maybe it was the vibes they gave off, or someone liked the way they looked. Either way, he didn’t mind it.
Right now was not quite the same.
He didn’t like someone staring at Ginevra at all. Especially not when she didn’t notice they were doing it because she was far more concerned with him and Alessio.
Call it instinct ...
Whatever.
He didn’t like it.
Corrado arched a brow at the woman over Ginevra’s shoulder where she couldn’t see him do it. The woman saw it clear as day, however.
Which was the damn point?
At his stare, challenging her to continue watching them, she was quick to look away, but not before rolling her eyes.
Fuck it.
As long as she stopped staring.
“Do you want me to hold on to this, sweetheart?”
Alessio waved Ginevra’s small clutch, and she shrugged, taking it from him when he offered it to her.
“Is Camden around?” the man at the podium asked the woman manning the entrance.
“He is,” she said. “In his office.”
“Does he have a minute to chat?”
“Let me call through.”
Corrado passed Alessio a look who shook his head. The rules of this place was one of the few things Corrado disliked about it. Like needing to check in and out, which could take a while if there was someone ahead of them.
Like now.
The woman—Kasie, was it? He couldn’t remember, and he didn’t care to—spoke into the Bluetooth speaker in her ear, nodding once before smiling at the man on the other side of her podium, still waiting.
“He’s got a few minutes, but your ... guest will have to stay here,” she said.
The man and the woman in red shared a quick word before he passed by Corrado, Alessio, and Ginevra to head back into the main section of The Clubhouse. With the podium free so they could check out, retrieve their electronics that everyone was required to drop off upon entering, Corrado stepped up to finish their time here.
As soon as he left Ginevra’s side, Alessio was quick to take his place, sliding an arm around her waist to keep her close to him. Corrado didn’t miss the way the woman in red narrowed her eyes at that, or how her lips pursed when the two he left behind shared a quiet word, and Alessio kissed Ginevra’s temple.
Not that he could say anything about her staring again. The chick at the podium was now pulling the phones out of a small drawer behind her and had the tablet on their information to remove them from the current patrons list.
“Camden wanted you to be aware that, should you bring your guest again,” Kasie told him, “she will need to be made a member. You know the rules, Mr. Guzzi. Once is fine—twice, she’ll need a card.”
Corrado nodded.
He understood the specifics.
It was all about safety here.
“What is it, three members who need to vouch?”
“Correct.”
Corrado tapped a finger against the podium, saying, “Me, Les, and Marcus ... we’ll add him to it, have Camden call him to get it done. Does that work for you?”
“Sign here.”
He took the stylus the woman held out and scribbled his unintelligible signature to the bottom of a form she’d brought up on the tablet. There was one on him, and one on Alessio, too.
“And he must sign it, as well. I can email the one over for Marcus after Camden calls first to make sure he’s fine with it.”
Corrado waved two fingers at Alessio, and his silent demand for the man to come over worked. Alessio left Ginevra’s side, coming to stand next to Corrado so he, too, could sign the document. There were a few others things they had to fill out—standard information that The Clubhouse kept on file for all members.
It took five minutes.
It would allow them to bring Ginevra back, though, and she seemed to like it here. Or rather, the restaurant portion, anyway. There was a hell of a lot more to see.
“That’s all,” Kasie said.
“Merci,” Corrado said.
Alessio handed the stylus over as he had been the last to initial a part of the document. “Are we good?”
“Perfect.”
“Great.”
The two of them turned, ready to take Ginevra home.
“I’m just saying, it’s interesting,” he heard a woman say.
The woman in red.
Somehow, with their backs turned, she stood next to Ginevra. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal, or a problem at all, if not for the fact Ginevra looked like she was about to cry. She avoided the woman’s stare next to her, her jaw tight, and her arms folded over her chest. If it wasn’t clear, by the fact she wasn’t talking, that she wasn’t interested in a conversation, then her body language sure as hell should have done it.
Still, the woman in red continued, saying, “If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually.”
Ouch.
The venom in Ginevra’s tone wasn’t missed.
“Huh,” the other woman said.
What the fuck?
“Ginny,” Corrado said, stepping forward while shooting daggers at the woman next to her with his gaze, “are you good?”
He offered his hand.
She didn’t take it.
Alessio cleared his throat, but stayed quiet.
“Are you ready to leave?” Corrado asked.
They could figure out the problem later. He wanted to get her away from the bitch beside her. Whatever the issue was, it started and ended right there.
“I am ready to leave,” Ginevra said stiffly.
She still didn’t take his hand.
And she sidestepped Alessio, too.
They followed her out.
What else could they do?
• • •
“Ginevra, will you talk now?”
“I would rather not.”
“Ginny—”
“Leave me alone for a minute, okay?” She kicked those Louboutin shoes off in the hallway, the red-soled shoes smacking the wall hard. “I need five seconds to think.”
“About what?”
“Corrado,” Alessio murmured.
He ignored the man behind him.
Mostly, because he didn’t understand what happened back at The Clubhouse in five minutes that turned their fantastic evening into ... whatever the fuck this was. She had been having fun—enjoying her time with them out of this goddamn penthouse, because fuck, she didn’t get that enough.
And somehow, it was ruined.
Corrado wanted to understand why.
He needed to fix everything.
That was his thing.
“Give her a second,” Alessio said when Corrado moved to follow Ginevra down the hall.
He shook off Alessio’s hand that came to land on his arm. “Don’t.”
“Corra
do—”
“What the hell happened, Les? Don’t you care about what went wrong?”
Alessio shrugged, his face unreadable. “Sometimes, people need to work through shit.”
Right.
Well ...
“That doesn’t work for me,” Corrado said.
“That’s half your problem. You don’t let shit go, man.”
“And we wouldn’t be here if I did.”
Alessio nodded. “All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Noted.”
Not that it made a fucking difference to him.
Corrado didn’t bother to take the time to remove his jacket or shoes before following Ginevra. He stood in the doorway of her bedroom and watched as she struggled to pull the zipper down on the back of her dress.
She didn’t ask for help, so he stayed back.
Finally, she got the dress down. Yanking the expensive fabric down her body, the dress fell to the floor in a heap, forgotten. Standing in black lace that hugged her curves in the best way, he had a view that showed all the parts of her that had his dick standing at attention in a breath. And yet, all he focused on was that anger written across her pretty features.
She let out a harsh noise, pulling the drop earrings from her ears, and shaking her head at the same time.
“Do you want help with the necklace?” he asked, staying put in the doorway.
“No.”
He straightened, her sharp tone taking him by surprise. Rarely did Ginevra get heated with her tone, even in her anger. She didn’t need fury to get her point across, not when she wanted to.
“What is wrong with—”
“I said to give me a minute, didn’t I?”
Corrado stayed put and shrugged as he tossed his hands in his pockets. “And yet, here I still am. Something clearly upset you back at The Clubhouse, and I want you to tell me what.”
“You don’t get to know everything because you want to, Corrado. That’s not how life works, okay? People have feelings—private feelings.”
“Right, but since, chances are, this has to do with me, or Les, or that chick who talked to you, I think you could at least tell me what happened.”
“Or you should leave it the fuck alone.”
Oh, cusses, now?
Yeah, she was pissed.
Leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, Corrado settled himself on not moving unless she spoke up and told him what the hell was wrong now. “I’m not going anywhere unless you talk to—”
“God.”
Ginevra spun around fast, looking like an angry angel in her black lace, that ruby, white-gold necklace hanging low between her pert breasts covered just enough by the cups of the bra against her chest. At her sides, her hands balled into shaking fists.
But what hurt him the most?
The tears that formed in her eyes.
“You want to know what she asked me?” Ginevra asked.
Corrado swallowed hard. “I do. It upset you.”
“How much you two paid for me.”
What?
Corrado blinked. “I don’t ... what?”
“Yeah,” she snapped, scoffing, too. “That’s what she asked, Corrado. How much did you and Alessio pay for me—hard enough for a woman to find one man that looks like that, let alone two? So, how much are they paying to fuck you tonight?”
“Ginny—”
“Is that what will happen every time I step out in public now? The first thing someone thinks when they see me with you two is oh, she’s a whore. Because that’s hard for me to swallow, okay. Before Andino shoved me in your lap, I was able to count my partners on one hand. And now, I’m fucking two men. So, forgive me if I need five seconds to breathe. All right?”
He blinked again.
Like an idiot.
“You let her comment bother you that much?”
Okay, that might have been the wrong thing to say. Or even, a little cold of him. Still, this bothered Corrado that the first thing Ginevra felt when someone thought to place judgement on her choices or relationship with him and Alessio was something bad.
That she was a whore.
Or the suggestion she was a slut.
None of which was true.
It pissed him off.
“That’s what it was?” he asked.
Ginevra stared back at him, unmoved. “Yes.”
“Just that.”
“It’s not just that, Corrado. Think about what it means.”
“To you,” he intoned, “what this means to you, Ginevra.”
“I don’t get what you’re trying to say here, but—”
“No, because you’re stuck in your goddamn feelings about what one person said to you about your private relationship that has fuck all to do with them.”
She stilled, her back straightening fast at his harsh tone.
Corrado didn’t back down.
He wouldn’t.
This needed to be clear.
“You need to figure out what you want here,” he told her, pushing out of his lean to stand straight in the doorway. “Decide whether what makes you happy in private is worth the shit you might take in public, because shocker, this isn’t only you here, Ginny. We’re here, and we have to deal with it, too. Just because you have some complex about sex and relationships and monogamy, I suppose because society and religion and the rest of your life has spoon-fed what they consider to be appropriate and acceptable to you regarding our relationship or sex doesn’t make this wrong.”
Ginevra opened her mouth to speak, but he was quick to stop her with, “The way we love, or fuck, or live with each other behind closed doors, or out in the world, still will not be wrong just because someone else has a fucking problem with it. This is ours, and it doesn’t have to be the way someone else does theirs. Figure whatever out. We can’t do it for you.”
He turned to leave, but a scoff left his lips before he added, “And guess what, the man you wanted to fuck and liked before you ever knew about Les, and the rest of our life, is the same man you’re looking at right now. Just because none of that was staring you in the face before doesn’t change the fact we still existed. We are who we are—you either want to be a part, too, or you don’t. Simple.”
Corrado didn’t wait to hear what Ginevra had to say to that before he headed out into the hallway. He wasn’t at all surprised to find Alessio at the end, waiting for him and listening to the argument. Alessio arched a brow before following Corrado to kitchen.
Fuck.
He needed a drink, now.
Pulling a beer from the fridge, not his first choice, he slammed the door shut harder than was necessary. A black card stock he hung on the front of the fridge with a magnet fluttered to the floor, the gold flake detailing on the corners and white font staring up at him from the floor. Alessio was quick to come up beside him, and pick it up, reading over the invitation to a club opening coming up soon for his brother, Marcus.
“When did you get this?”
“Yesterday.”
“We should go. Get out of this penthouse again where we’re all stir-crazy.”
He wasn’t lying.
“I told Marcus I would go,” Corrado said, sighing.
Alessio gave him a look, leaning against the fridge. “Except, if this is an opening for Marcus, then there will be a handful of made men around, too, yeah?”
“Likely.”
“So, I’ll go, too.”
Corrado sucked air between his teeth. “You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, but you get twitchy around some older fucks, so ... I’m going.”
“Which means she’ll need to go, too, because she won’t want to stay here alone.”
Alessio didn’t miss the heat in his tone if his frown was any sign. “Give her those few minutes she asked for from the jump, Corrado. People need time alone to work through their shit, and you need to accept that.”
Right.
“And how long is that going to take?”
/> Alessio made a noise under his breath. Either he didn’t have an answer, or he didn’t want to give one. Corrado understood that all too well.
Until that night, apparently.
That’s how long it took Ginevra to get out of her feelings and decide she didn’t want to be without the two.
She darkened their bedroom door as Alessio drifted out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. His footsteps hesitated, he made a noise in Corrado’s direction, and that was how he realized Ginevra was standing there.
The girl looked smaller than ever with her gaze turned down, and her arms crossed over her chest, making the over-sized T-shirt draped over her body tight around her trim waist. Still, Corrado said nothing as Alessio headed into the walk-in closet to pull something on for bed, and she stayed in the doorway, not coming an inch closer.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For?”
Ginevra let out a steady stream of air and shrugged her delicate shoulders. “Letting someone else upset me about this.”
“All right.”
As long as she understood that was what happened. It wasn’t her that did this—she let someone else affect her feelings. Someone who wasn’t here doing this with them. Someone who understood nothing about this thing of theirs.
That was all.
Those people didn’t matter.
If they weren’t in their life, their bed, or their home, then they didn’t get an opinion on what Ginevra, Corrado, and Alessio did together. Simple.
“The door is still open,” Corrado said.
Ginevra smiled as she tipped her head up, her gaze landing on him across the room. “It always is anyway. Like I didn’t listen to the two of you in the shower for—”
“Should have joined,” Alessio returned as he came out of the closet, having pulled on a pair of boxer-briefs, and nothing else. “You get more that way, kitten.”
Corrado chuckled. “I mean, yeah.”
Ginevra shifted from foot to foot. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
He gestured at the bed, feeling the tips of Alessio’s fingers drift over his lower back as the man passed him by. “Sleep?”
“If you want me in here.”
Corrado smirked. “When do we not?”
16.
Alessio
Why, when things were going good in Alessio’s life, something had to come around to fuck it up?
